They say it is the next big thing! Well, I of course LOVE technology and can’t seem to get enough of it. Do I understand most of it?…. of course not but it is lots of fun to try!
QR codes have been around for a while but are just starting to catch on. With the flood of smart phones and apps, we are seeing more and more people use them for fun, work, shopping and much more. I have had several apps on my phone that can read or scan the codes (more on those scan apps later) for quite a while now and have not really used them much. I originally downloaded them for fun. Also, they used them quite a bit at our national convention this past November but I’m not sure just how many people really did it while we were there. In fact, I have to confess, I scanned one and it took me to their sales page and that didn’t seem to be really all that useful and they just wasted my time. So, as a result, I didn’t scan many more while we were there. Shame on me! I’m the one that missed out.
It wasn’t until just lately, (nearly 4 months later) that I got interested in them again. I have researched and experimented with them a bit and found that they are something that I can put on my flyer’s (I’m in real estate – just in case you didn’t know that!) and all our techy clients can scan them and see the visual tour of the listing right then on their phone. I have discovered that if you are going to use a QR code, then it needs to be useful and take you somewhere you really want to go! In my business, I think the tour is the best landing place right now and until I can come up with a better use – that is where I will be using mine.
Now of course, you might just be interested to know that some of them will take you to coupons and/or discounts; video of a product demonstration; to customer review; a map of a company or restaurant or tourist site; —- my personal favorite… a trailer for a video or movie!; a news segment; to another mobile app???; or a place to compare prices on products that you are interested in.
As a realtor, I think I could use QR codes on sign riders, in the newspaper ads, videos that our team might do on helpful hints for our clients???; the homepage of my blog (which I intend to do right away!) and on my virtual tours (Yea for my visual tour provider – they already allow us to do that in an easy to use format and I have been taking advantage of that just lately) I think I will add it to my email signature too?
What are your thoughts on using QR codes? How to you think you would use them. I would really like to know. That’s right… leave a comment.
Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to give you the names of apps that work. Here are the top three I have found that work on various types of scans. They are easy to use and I can recommend them to most everyone. The first on I ever used was:
Shop Savvy – currently 1.99 at the app store. Here is what they say about it: Find the right product at the best price! New release. Now the fastest, most accurate and most comprehensive scanner around. It won’t find everything in the world, but it is close.
Red Laser – FREE at the app store and here is how it is described: RedLaser ―― Impossibly accurate barcode scanning.
And now, my personal favorite:
Yep – here’s my favorite and it is called ScanLife and it is also FREE. Here is what they say about it: ScanLife turns your camera phone into a all-in-one bar code reader – one of the only apps that can scan QR Codes and UPC Codes found on products.
OK now you know how to read QR Codes but would you like to make your own to use on your website, flyers or most anywhere you like???
Here is the site I use. For your very own QR Code Generator – go to: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Type in your website address and pick your size and click GENERATE – that’s all there is to it. Now you can make your own and put them all over the place – you can even tatoo it on your forehead if you like. Have fun!
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Be sure to tell us how you might be using QR codes – till next time…..