Bricks in the Wall - QR Codes on the rise!

I was telling a customer just the other day about way back when we first started seeing a web address in a television commercial. The advertisers didn't know what "the internet" would become at that time, but they knew they had a new marketing tool and the address/web url told where it was located.

Boy how things have changed. The internet has matured into a workhorse of world commerce. The proliferation of smartphones, tablets and low cost laptops has put internet access in the palms of millions of hands.

So with access easier than ever and multitudes of websites to peruse, web traffic should be easy and off the charts! Not so fast. Consumers now watch two screens at a time during prime time in home viewing hours. Consumers are inundated worse than ever by marketing and advertising messages everywhere they go. The hectic pace of daily live has put "recreational internet browsing time" into the premium category for a lot of folks. This all means that there needs to be a compelling reason to move a consumer to actively seek out and visit a given website.

Human being are curious by nature, so just putting a web address on an ad 15 years ago might have been compelling enough to get them to visit. These days, not so much.

A QR Code is merely a shortcut, it is incumbent on the business owner to have a website that:

1) Compels consumers to visit the site with a reason or value

2) Website Is optimized for mobile viewing.

3) If the reason to visit is a function, make sure the site does it well. If the reason is a value (coupon or free gift), make sure you have multiple ways to engage the potential customer (use something crazy, like a working phone number) because a website isn't a live person that can build rapport and close a deal.

4) Give consumers a new reason or value to KEEP them coming back.

There is no silver bullet, no magic wand and no one sure fire key to success...there are, however, A LOT of bricks all stacked together to form a wall of success.