Using QR Codes For Small Business Marketing

I’ve had a number of business owners approach me this week about QR Codes and how they could use them in their business, so I thought I’d write this post to explain what they are and how you can use them.


Lets start by looking at what they are and what they do, QR stands for “Quick Response”, and they are the next generation of bar codes. They have been in Japan for awhile with the Japanese going absolutely crazy over them and they are just starting now to appear in this country.

So what do they do?

•They contain lots of information such as your web site address
•They can be read upside down and faster than a standard bar code
•You can get a QR reader for your phone or iPhone – as long as it can browse the web.
•They can be scanned from a computer screen,a newspaper or flyer, magazine, billboard or advertising signboard.

So how does it apply to small business, by generating a code, which is a simple process, you can apply the bar code to any advertising or promotional material that you are currently using, use it on your sign boards,your advertising including print, magazine or flyers.

People can then simply scan the code and their phone will take them directly to the web site that the code has embedded.The code is scanned by simply taking a photo of the code from your mobile phone and the phone then opens up a browser which takes you directly to the URL in the code.

This is a great tool if you want to specify a web site or promotional offer in your advertising etc, as the code will take your readers directly to the URL you have specified. You can create your QR code to send people to a web site URL, a telephone number,an SMS message or text message.

You can add these to your business cards or letterhead as well, which is a great promotional tool for your business and best of all, they are free.

You can download a QR reader from iTunes if you have an iPhone and some of the new Nokia phones have the reader as standard.

To generate the bar code, it is a really simple process as all you do is search on the web and you’ll find a code generator site, in fact to make it easy for you here’s the link to one I used.

Good luck and have fun with this, it’s a great promotional tool and you can add it anywhere.

If you’d like to have more information on this or are not technical enough to add it to your marketing, send me a comment or email at info@mikeandrewconsulting.com and I’ll help you out as always.