Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to enhance customer management, nurture leads, and deliver personalized experiences that drive loyalty. However, like any CRM, its success hinges on one critical element: data.
While capturing data from digital interactions is relatively straightforward, offline engagements—such as trade shows, retail visits, or print campaigns—can leave significant gaps in your customer insights. These blind spots disrupt your ability to create a cohesive customer journey and make informed decisions.
Quick Response (QR) Codes for Salesforce provide a simple and effective solution. By linking offline activities to your CRM, they help you collect, track, and leverage data from every interaction, giving you a complete view of your audience.
In this guide, we’ll explore why these 2D barcodes are invaluable for maximizing your Salesforce ROI and show you how to make a QR Code using Bitly to integrate with your CRM strategy.
Note: The brands and examples discussed below were found during our online research for this article.
Why should you use QR Codes in Salesforce?
QR Codes are a simple yet powerful way to connect offline and online interactions. With a quick scan using a mobile device, they effortlessly link your audience to digital destinations like websites, feedback forms, or videos—all from physical materials like flyers, posters, or even product packaging.
When paired with Salesforce, QR Codes become a data-driven goldmine. These codes assist you in capturing invaluable customer data that feeds directly into your CRM in real time, eliminating the need for tedious manual data entry.
Picture this: You’re at a bustling trade show. Instead of juggling paper forms or slow laptop check-ins to collect prospect details, you can use a QR Code that gathers their information in seconds and automatically syncs it to Salesforce. It’s quick and seamless and keeps your team focused on making meaningful connections, not managing spreadsheets.
Key benefits of using QR Codes in Salesforce
QR Codes and Salesforce are a match made in heaven for busy marketing and sales teams. Together, they simplify workflows, amplify data collection, and create more impactful customer interactions.
Here’s how QR Codes can help you unlock Salesforce’s full potential.
- Enhanced tracking: Tools like Bitly Codes provide real-time insights into how and when customers engage with your campaigns. Every scan captures essential details—such as the date and location (city/country)—and seamlessly integrates this data into Salesforce. With these actionable insights, you can optimize your campaigns for better performance.
- Improved branding: Customizable QR Codes let you incorporate your brand’s logo, colors, and unique designs, ensuring a polished, professional look that aligns with your brand.
- Increased engagement: QR Codes make engaging your audience with your company effortless—all it takes is a quick scan. Since all the collected data flows directly into Salesforce, you can respond faster and smarter. For instance, at your next event, attendees can scan QR Codes to check in, share their info, and access event materials instantly, delivering a refreshing, streamlined experience and setting you up for quicker, more personalized follow-ups.
Practical ways to use QR Codes in Salesforce
We’ve covered how Salesforce QR Codes can help your team at trade shows, but their potential extends far beyond event booths. Here are more impactful use cases for these codes:
Lead generation
Capturing leads at events and pop-ups can be a logistical headache, with manual processes often leading to missed opportunities and messy follow-ups. Salesforce QR Codes help solve these challenges.
Simply add them to event signage or booth displays, and attendees can scan them to request a product demo, sign up for pre-sale alerts, or schedule a follow-up call. Their details are sent directly to Salesforce, keeping your lead capture process accurate and organized.
However, events aren’t just about gaining new customers—they’re an opportunity to deepen relationships and build loyalty. Dynamic QR Codes make this even simpler.
Because these codes are editable and trackable, you can customize where they lead based on your audience. A prospect might scan and land on an exclusive free trial or tutorial webpage, while a returning client could be directed to a loyalty offer or a complementary service.
Customer feedback
Gathering feedback is critical for improving your offerings and staying ahead of evolving customer expectations. Yet, it’s no secret that fewer consumers are willing to share their thoughts directly with businesses. This makes it more challenging than ever to capture the insights you need to refine your strategies.
QR Codes make it easier and more engaging for customers to share their thoughts. Upon scanning, customers are instantly directed to a feedback form that updates Salesforce records in real time. This integration allows you to quickly analyze insights, refine your offerings, address pain points, and identify trends that improve your satisfaction scores.
For maximum visibility, embed these codes in service emails, product packaging, or receipts. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) like “Tell us how we did!” or “Help us improve!” Pair it with an enticing incentive, such as a discount or entry into a prize draw, to encourage participation.
Post-purchase engagement
Salesforce QR Codes are an excellent way to enhance the customer experience while gathering valuable information. By placing these codes on product inserts, thank-you notes, or marketing emails, you can create purposeful opportunities to connect with your customers.
For example, a campaign might use QR Codes to connect customers to exclusive content like early access to new products, step-by-step tutorials, or a VIP discount. Each interaction adds value for your customers and helps streamline the process of updating your CRM with actionable data.
Beyond individual interactions, QR Code engagement metrics—such as scan rates and timestamps—provide a wealth of information to measure campaign success. This data is invaluable for fine-tuning A/B tests and optimizing your post-purchase strategy for even better outcomes.
How to set up QR Codes in Salesforce with Bitly
Ready to put Salesforce QR Codes to work for your organization? Here’s how to make a QR Code for a link in seconds using the Bitly Connections Platform.
Step 1: Sign up for Bitly
Start by creating a Bitly account to access the QR Code generation features. You can get started for free or explore Bitly plans to find the one that best suits your needs.
Step 2: Generate the QR Code
Once you’re signed in, navigate to the Bitly Dashboard and locate the QR Code generator. Enter your URL or campaign link, and Bitly will create a unique QR Code for you.
Step 3: Customize your new QR Code
Make your QR Code reflect your brand by customizing it with colors, frames, or your logo (available with paid plans). This attention to detail ensures your campaigns stay visually aligned with your company’s identity.
Step 4: Integrate your QR Code with a Salesforce campaign
Here’s where things get slightly technical. Collaborating with your IT or Salesforce admin to configure your QR Code in Salesforce and ensure the correct permissions are set might be helpful.
First up, check whether you’re using Salesforce Lightning Experience or Classic. Next, review your plan’s capabilities—some Salesforce products include a built-in connection to Bitly, allowing you to get started quickly via the Bitly marketplace.
If your Salesforce suite doesn’t offer a direct connection, you can integrate using Bitly’s API, a Salesforce API, or a tool like Zapier.
Once you’re set up, you can infuse QR Code interactions into your Salesforce flow, like using automations to add new leads to nurture campaigns or update records dynamically based on scan activity. This approach ensures you’re maximizing every engagement and leveraging your data to its full potential.
Remember, too, the importance of proper categorization. You want the right QR Codes to link to the right campaigns—and to be able to find each of these campaigns quickly and easily.
With Bitly, it’s simple to assign unique campaign IDs to your QR Codes by adding UTM parameters. It’s also a wise idea to use consistent naming conventions so that it’s seamless to identify your codes in both Bitly and Salesforce. For example, you might save all codes as QR_[campaign-name].
Step 5: Test and track your QR Codes
Before launching, check the functionality of your QR Code on different devices and browsers. That way, you can catch and fix any scanning issues ahead of time. If a code leads to the wrong link, not to worry! Dynamic QR Codes are editable, so you can update the backend links in just seconds, without needing to alter your Salesforce flow.
This editability also comes in handy for enabling marketing responsiveness and agility. As you gather insights on QR Code engagement, you can iterate your approach, tweaking campaign links based on what’s resonating with your audience.
Start enhancing Salesforce with QR Codes today
Salesforce QR Codes connect offline interactions with your CRM, giving you a clear, holistic view of your prospects and customers. Armed with this information, you can create campaigns that feel more personal, work more effectively, and build stronger, long-term customer relationships.
Bitly works hand-in-hand with Salesforce, helping you design branded QR Codes that provide useful engagement data like total scans, scan dates, locations, and operating system. If you’ve been wondering how to make a QR Code that integrates with Salesforce, Bitly’s user-friendly tools and real-time tracking have you covered.
Whether you’re generating leads, collecting feedback, or boosting post-purchase engagement, Salesforce QR Codes from Bitly are a great way to take your CRM strategy to the next level.
Ready to see the difference Salesforce QR Codes can make? Explore Bitly’s plans today and start transforming your campaigns.
