QR Code for Phygital Marketing: A New Way to Promote Products and Services

Today, every business regularly invests in promotions. It could be via newspapers, magazines, outdoor advertising, or digital displays.

And you know that customers in almost every industry exist in both offline as well as the online world. So, it makes sense for every business for you to bring the two worlds together. This is where phygital marketing comes into the picture.

Phygital is basically an amalgamation of the word—physical and digital. It is a term that is focused on blending digital experiences with physical ones.

Phygital technology allows you to create a unique integrated user experience that maximizes campaign engagement. Hence, it strengthens the impact of your marketing effort manyfold.

And mobile phones have been the driving force behind this. That’s because they are the most readily available device that bridges the gap between physical and digital dimensions.

To help you understand it better, here are some facts about the potential of mobiles phones:

• Global smartphones increased from 59.01% in 2017 to 78.05% in 2020
• Access to high-speed mobile internet has increased from 48.8% in 2014 to 62.5% in Jan 2022

These figures are an indication of people’s love for smartphones and their potential in marketing.

And QR Codes are one of the easiest ways businesses are making phygital marketing a reality. QR Codes are 2D barcodes that store alphanumeric information in a contactless manner.

You probably have seen them being used for payments and inventory tracking. Similarly, phygital marketing is yet another use case of a QR Code.

In this article, we’ll see how QR Codes can offer an interactive phygital experience to your customers.

A. How QR Codes can be used for phygital marketing

Here are various ways how QR Codes can help you offer phygital experience:

1. Get people to follow you digitally

As a business person, you have a website and business accounts on social media. And you’d obviously want to get quality traffic there.

So you may want to run promotions having links to your website or social media accounts. But the problem is—not many people will really open their phones to type the entire link and visit your website or profile. Why? Well, simply because that’s a long process with certainly not the best user experience.

Here, a QR Code has got you covered and can help you offer a smooth phygital experience to the audience.

A Website URL QR Code can drive people to your website with a simple scan. Similarly, a Social Media QR Code can help increase your social media following.

No need for your audience to type anything. They simply need to scan the QR Code which is as easy as clicking a picture.

2. Boost your app promotions

Nowadays, various businesses today have mobile apps. And if you too have one, you’d want people to download it.

Just like the previous example, QR Codes are here for you. An App Store QR Code can offer your audience the best interactive experience in a smooth way. Just create one and place it on promotional materials.

When scanned, it will take the end-users to your app on the relevant app store depending on their phone’s operating system.

Also, if you’d like them to visit a particular page in the app, you can create an App Deep Link QR Code.

Hence, with one scan of the physical world, you will be taken to the online app.

3. Connect your audience to a digital landing page

Now let’s say you don’t have a website for your business. But you don’t want it to stop you from offering the best online experience to your customers.

Well, a Rich Text QR Code can help you out here. It allows you to create a customized landing page with descriptions, images, and buttons. In other words, you have your own mobile-optimizied landing page (just like a website) without the need for any software developer. Convenient, right?

4. Relay detailed information

Customers today want to know every little detail about the business and products they’re spending money on. And conveying the same to them not only makes your business transparent but also responsible.

And traditionally, it has only been possible to do so by adding product details on the packaging. But that’s not enough, right?

The limited printing space acts as a constraint to stop you from adding as many details as needed.

And QR Codes can serve two purposes here. First, you don’t need to worry about the printing space anymore. A QR Code can pack as many details as you want. In addition, you can even customize its design. Second, adding a QR Code creates an interactive experience for your costumes.

Here are the different ways QR Codes can help you out:

• Share document files for user manuals, warranty cards, terms and conditions, etc
• Give detailed product information by adding many images, videos, website links, texts, social media sharing buttons, etc.
• Create a mobile landing page with as many details as you want

You can add these QR Codes to your promotional materials or product packaging. And customers can scan them for the encoded information. This will connect your customers in the offline world to digital content.

5. Giving coupons and discounts

You know that digital coupons tend to have higher redemption rates. That’s because they are easy to redeem. And it removes the need to remember the coupon’s random codes and alphabets.

And a Coupon QR Code helps you do just that in a much simpler way. It makes the user experience better for your audience. Just print it at promotional materials.

When scanned, it shows the coupon details to the end-users with the option to redeem it. This way, they do not need to carry the coupon everywhere or remember the code and can avail of it with a simple scan.

6. Gather feedback from your audience

Gone are the days when customer feedback was collected via pen and paper means. Nowadays, businesses prefer to collect feedback digitally.

But getting customer feedback is not an easy job. That’s because your customers first have to manually type the URL to your feedback form and then fill in the details. This consumes a lot of time and, hence, customers often don’t bother putting in the effort.

However, a QR Code can make this better. You just have to create one for your feedback forms and print it in promotional materials.

Customers can then simply scan it to fill out the form. No need for them to manually type anything.

B. Benefits of QR Codes

A QR Code offers various benefits while offering your audience a phygital experience. Here are some of them:

1. Editable content

Say you created a QR Code to provide product details. And after a few months, you’ve made some changes to your product and need to put this information out.

Here, dynamic QR Codes can help you do it. They are editable. That means you can edit the encoded content anytime you want without the need to recreate them.

2. Scan tracking

The second benefit of QR Codes is that they allow you to monitor their scanning activity. This means you can track details such as:

• How many people have scanned the QR Code
• Where did they scan it
• When did they scan it
• Which device they used to scan it

All this data can help you better optimize your magazine campaigns.

3. Event Tracking

Similar to scan tracking, event tracking tells you a lot about your customers. It provides information on how your customers are interacting with the content after scanning the QR Code. This can be anything such as hitting the sign-up or registration button.

4. Custom design

QR Codes are customizable. But why should you even consider customizing them? Well, because custom QR Codes attract 50%-200% more scans than basic black-and-white ones.

Hence, if your use case is promotional or customer-facing, consider adding a design to your QR Codes. It can be done by adding a logo and colors or a background image to the QR Code.

5. Error Correction

Error correction is a unique feature of QR Codes. It ensures that QR Codes remain scannable irrespective of damage, dirt, or distortion.

C. How to create a QR Code for Phygital Marketing

Now you know how phygital marketing can be brought to life using QR Codes.. Next question is—how do you create a QR Code?

1. Decide on a QR Code category

Depending on what content you want your end-users to see, you’ll need to select a relevant QR Code category.

For example, if you want to provide product details, you’d need a Product QR Code. On the other hand, if you want to increase your website traffic, you’d create a Website URL QR Code.

Once you’ve decided on the QR Code category, head on to find a suitable QR Code generator. For your convenience, here is a detailed comparison chart of the best QR Code generators available online. You can go through this to find the best one for your use case.

2. Create a QR Code

Using Scanova for demo purposes, here’s how you can create a QR Code for phygital marketing:

a. Go to Scanova

b. Select the relevant QR Code category

c. Enter the content you want to encode and click Continue

d. On the page that loads, name the QR Code and click Create QR Code

e. Now, you’ll see the preview of the QR Code along with the Edit Design option

f. If you click on the Edit Design option, you’ll then see two design options to choose from—Custom Logo Design and Custom Background Design

Custom Logo Design: It allows you to add a logo in the center and colors to the QR Code. The logo can be an image or text.

Custom Background Design: It helps you place your QR Code on an image.

g. Once you’ve decided on the design, Update it and click Download. A window will open prompting you to sign-up for a 14-day free trial. Once you’ve signed up, proceed to download the QR Code

Note that no credit card information is required to sign-up.

h. Now you’ll be asked to specify the QR Code image’s size and dimensions. Once you submit the details, click Export

That’s it. Your QR Code will be downloaded and ready for use. It is always advisable to test scan the QR Code before putting it out for your customers.

That is all you need to know about phygital marketing via QR Codes. You can now go ahead to create a QR Code to boost the output of your marketing plan.