With their unique blend of technology, convenience, and customizability, QR Codes are a mainstay in today’s world. You can find QR Codes everywhere now—from restaurants to concerts to doctors’ offices and anywhere in between.
Because of their simple design and advanced functionality, QR Codes are especially popular for marketing teams. This guide will cover how marketers can use QR technology for more successful campaigns.
Exploring the resurgence of QR Codes in marketing
During the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses started to use QR Codes to stay compliant with social distancing regulations and display their products and services. After all, customers can easily scan Static and Dynamic QR Codes with their smartphones for contactless interaction.
But it didn’t stop there. QR Code use has continued to climb, especially for marketing campaigns. In fact, by 2025, the number of U.S. smartphone users scanning QR Codes is expected to reach 99.5 million.
People can now scan QR Codes with both Android and Apple mobile devices, making them readily accessible across the world. So more and more businesses now leverage QR Codes in their marketing campaigns, promotional materials, and customer management.
How QR Codes enhance customer engagement
Traditional and digital marketing teams use QR Codes to connect with their target audiences and enhance customer engagement, and here’s how.
Connecting offline and online experiences
One of the most common challenges for marketers is connecting offline and online customer experiences. Generally speaking, how can marketing teams ensure they’re engaging offline prospects so they can transition online?
QR Codes.
This is because you can use them both physically and digitally. Whether you’re visiting a B2B conference, advertising on billboards, or promoting a product on social media, QR Codes are where your traditional and online marketing efforts can intersect.
Personalization and customer preferences
Personalization is a key aspect of effective marketing. People mostly engage with businesses that tailor content directly to them. Fortunately, QR Codes can incorporate personalization to deliver accurate content based on customer preferences.
For example, marketers can create free Dynamic QR Codes that they can alter right after delivery, unlike traditional barcodes (or Static Codes). This way, they can change their content and call-to-actions (CTAs) to fine-tune their efforts based on performance.
Interactive content and gamification
QR Codes in marketing are also useful for interactive content and gamification. For example, marketers can add Dynamic QR Codes to their landing pages that direct scanners to external social media pages. This gives your content a “wow” factor and offers a more engaging experience than scrolling and clicking.
Ease of use
It goes without saying that QR Codes are very easy to use. All you have to do is pull out your smartphone camera and keep the code visible within the camera’s frame. Your camera will pull up the QR link and direct you to an external page. There are also tons of specific QR Code scanner apps available, making them easily accessible even for people who don’t have a scanner built into their phone’s camera.
Instant access to information or experiences
QR Codes can hold all kinds of important data and information. You can link your QR Codes to vanity URLs, apps, PDFs, emails, and even cryptocurrencies. If you’re trying to find a convenient way to convey information, QR Codes are a great solution.
Integrating QR Codes with social media and online marketing
Not only can marketers use QR Codes in online and offline promotions, but they can also integrate them with their social media marketing campaigns.
Create platform-specific landing pages
With QR Codes, marketers can direct prospects to specific web pages based on their interests. This means that marketing teams can create QR Codes for different customer segments and personalize their campaigns. If you cater to a wide audience, QR Codes can help you deliver fully customized marketing experiences down to an individual level.
Promote exclusive social media content
If you want to create gated content in your marketing strategy, you no longer have to use advanced technology to get the job done. QR Codes can grant authorized viewers access to exclusive social media content. For example, if you’re hosting a live webinar on social media, you can give away QR Codes to your customers and email subscribers.
Enhance online campaigns with offline QR Codes
With QR Codes, you can grow your online presence and brand awareness through offline customer interactions. Let’s say that someone visits your booth at a trade show, displays interest in your product, and leaves with some marketing materials.
This offline conversion can transition online the moment the prospect scans the QR Code. When that happens, you can lead offline prospects to your website to engage them further and improve your conversion rates.
Use in social media ads
Like any other form of advertising, marketers don’t have much space to communicate every detail about their products or services. This is where QR Codes can come in handy.
With QR technology, marketers can focus on creating eye-catching and compelling social media ads. Then, they can add QR Codes to these ads so prospects get a direct link to check out the products or services they’re interested in.
Encourage user-generated content (UGC)
Finally, marketers can leverage QR Codes to encourage user-generated content, drawing feedback and product ratings from their target audiences. For example, if you want your audience to spread the word about your latest product, you can send them a QR Code with their package. This way, they can share their feedback about your product on social media.
The different industries leveraging QR Codes for marketing strategies: 6 Use cases
With nearly unlimited potential uses, businesses across virtually any industry can use QR Codes within their marketing strategies. Here are six industries using QR Codes creatively—and perhaps unexpectedly.
1. Retail industry: Enhancing the in-store experience
As e-commerce sales increase every year, retail stores find new ways to combine offline and online customer experiences. Here are a few ways retailers are using QR Codes to further this goal:
- Customers can scan QR Codes that lead to product pages, customer reviews, and even augmented reality (AR) experiences.
- Business owners can use QR Codes during checkout to limit paper waste, produce digital receipts, and better facilitate loyalty program transactions.
- Marketers can leverage QR Codes for omnichannel marketing, convincing physical leads to sign up for rewards and receive email marketing messages.
- Marketing teams can review QR analytics to see which physical products are getting the most attention.
As you can see, QR marketing tools help retail stores heighten their in-store and online shopping experience for customers.
2. Real estate: Streamlined property showcases
Real estate agents can use QR Codes to provide in-depth information about their showings to interested buyers.
For example, agents can display QR Codes on “For Sale” signs, brochures for property details and virtual tours, or business cards. With QR Codes, buyers can interact with properties at any time of day.
QR Codes are also beneficial for real estate marketing and lead generation. For example, QR Code generators allow marketers to track engagement and create easy ways to follow up with leads who have shown interest.
3. Hospitality and tourism: Personalized guest experiences
Hotels and resorts commonly use QR Codes in guest rooms or lobbies to give guests easy access to facilities, dining menus, and event schedules. Guests can even check out of their hotels online with QR Codes displayed throughout the building.
In addition, many tourist locations use QR Codes to provide amazing interactive content. Many hotels use QR Codes to offer visitors multimedia guides, maps, or audio tours. For example, hotels can display QR Codes instead of a visual map. By scanning one of these codes, guests get an interactive map directly on their smartphone.
Ultimately, this can help hospitality marketers enhance engagement, promote specific activities or services, improve guest satisfaction, and learn more about guest behaviors to tailor future strategies.
4. Food and beverage industry: Interactive dining
During the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants started using QR Codes to give customers a touch-free way to view menus, place orders, and make payments.
This contactless dining experience achieved more than just compliance with social distancing guidelines: Restaurants were able to showcase promotional menus, promote loyalty programs, and provide nutritional facts.
With readily available QR statistics, restaurant owners could even identify their most popular menu items and peak dining times.
5. Event management: Efficient event engagement
From weddings to concerts, many event planners are incorporating QR technology for paperless ticketing, quick check-ins, and delivering event schedules, maps, or exclusive content.
QR Codes can even improve visitor engagement for trade shows and conferences, helping attendees download presentations, connect with exhibitors, or participate in interactive polls and surveys.
Since QR Code management platforms provide analytics for total scans, event planners can study engagement insights to put together better events in the future.
6. Healthcare and pharmaceuticals: Educating and informing
Healthcare providers can use QR Codes to elevate patient satisfaction and boost the efficiency of treatment protocols. Specifically, QR Codes can be added to patient information leaflets to give patients access to instructional videos, medication guidelines, or appointment booking systems.
Also, pharmaceutical companies can include QR Codes on product packaging to provide detailed drug information, usage instructions, and potential side effects. This helps ensure patients have easy access to important information.
Best practices for QR Code marketing with Bitly
Are you convinced that using QR Codes can give your marketing team a boost? Here’s how Bitly can help.
Leverage Bitly’s customization features
Bitly allows businesses to customize most aspects of their QR Codes. This includes adding a logo, using brand colors, and choosing a unique design.
Using Bitly’s QR Code generator software to customize your QR Codes with your unique branding elements, you can increase the likelihood that it stands out in crowded spaces.
Use advanced tracking and analytics
Bitly doesn’t just offer QR Code creation solutions. You can also track your Dynamic Codes’ performance in Bitly Analytics to improve your marketing campaigns in real-time.
For example, marketers can monitor metrics such as the number of scans, the geographic location of scans, and the time when scans occur. Bitly can help you understand the effectiveness of your campaign and get detailed insight into consumer behaviors.
Integrate QR Codes with campaign tags
When you generate QR Codes using Bitly, you can organize them with unique campaign tags. This helps in tracking the performance of each campaign separately and provides clear insights into which QR Code campaigns are most effective.
On top of that, you can adjust your campaigns in real time to avoid overspending on ineffective marketing strategies.
Maximizing your marketing impact with Bitly’s QR Code solution
QR Codes give marketing teams a seamless and convenient way to increase audience engagement with their campaigns and content. With QR Codes, you can deliver modern marketing experiences that support your business goals and objectives.
However, not all QR Code generators have the powerful customization that Bitly offers. Bitly’s user-friendly platform lets you create completely customizable Dynamic QR Codes with ease. Plus, you get access to powerful tracking and analytics features to help you refine your campaigns in real time.
Get started with Bitly for free and see how you can start leveraging QR Codes for more successful marketing campaigns today!
