3 Ways to Inspire Brand Confidence with Your QR Strategy

As a marketer, your number one job should always be to deliver brand trust to your consumers – matching your promises to their needs, staying relevant with the times and always acting in their interests.

Pro Tip for QR codes and mobile apps: Dynamic QR codes (one or in bulk) to open mobile apps have special requirements. Using a platform like URLgenius lets you create a single QR code that will open the right app store (iOS or Android) depending on the device scanning. Plus, you can set the code to open the app when it's already installed. A great way to increase installs and app re-engagement!

A recent Deloitte survey found 66 percent of respondents “were able to recall when brands acted in self-interest – such as raising prices on essential items.” Thinking back to the start of the pandemic, you can probably remember which brands capitalized on supply and demand, right? This obviously bruises brand loyalty and trust. Another way you might be doing this and not even realizing it? Creating poor engagement experiences for your consumers.

Discuss these questions to your marketing team:

• Are your QR campaigns causing more frustration than conversions unintentionally hurting your brand as well as revenue?
• Are your promotional pieces constantly changing and directing people to unfamiliar domains or to broken URLs or outdated content?
• Do the marketing assets you're directing people to reflect your brand and deliver on its promise while inspiring trust and loyalty?

Sure, these may seem like obvious questions, but there are likely some QR marketing tactics you haven’t deployed yet that can address these marketing problems and greatly improve your customer's experience. It’s easy to create a bad marketing experience and actually even easier to get it right when have the right knowledge and tools. Here are three essential, no-brainer QR strategies you can to add to your campaigns now to ensure confidence from your consumers.

1. Create a seamless experience from QR to app

One of the biggest mistakes marketers make, which leads to a loss in conversion, is not including a brand's app in their QR strategies. QR codes that deep link into your brand's app create a more cohesive journey when the app is already on your visitor’s phone – where they are already logged in. Think about it – if your scan a QR code that promises to take you to an Amazon product page where you can easily click ‘buy now’ but you’re instead led to the mobile site where you have to try to remember your username and password, you’re probably not going to make a purchase. Why? Because you’ll lose interest after a few failed login attempts if you can bother. You’re also probably a little perturbed at the company for wasting your precious time.

Sending app users back to mobile website logins is a major problem in the mobile customer journey and kills your conversion. App deep links solve this problem, ensuring consumers are brought directly to the apps where they can engage. They’re also really easy to create with app linking tools like URLgenius that are designed specifically for marketers. There is no technical SDK setup required. You can compose links for social apps like Instagram and YouTube, brand apps like Amazon and UberEats, and even your own app. You just update your campaign URLs to link into apps versus websites. It really is simple and makes a world of difference for your campaign.

Pro Tip: Beware of free bulk or dynamic QR code generators. Typically they cannot generate codes that open apps. These soltuions also often rely on technolgy that often breaks so you're stuck with a broken QR code.

2. Don't set it once and forget it

This might be one of the few times where the phrase ‘set it and forget it’ is actually a bad thing, because a common break point for QR codes is when your content changes but your QR code doesn’t. You’re left with lost and annoyed visitors landing on 404 pages making your marketing team and your brand look bad.

So, if you’ve printed your code on thousands of direct mailers or swag directing people to a site you’re no longer using or to an asset that is simply outdated, that doesn’t mean you have to throw everything in the trash. Your QR solution should enable you to change the destination at any time manually whether we're talking about one QR code or programmatically with an API for thousands of codes. OK, that may sound pretty technical and fancy. It’s not. An API lets you generate codes programmatically on an enterprise level and update the destinations anytime. This allows you to scale your QR codes towards your marketing objectives and control them instantly, making a much larger impact with your campaign and the user experience.

Pro Tip: Solutions like URLgenius offer an API for when you need to create thousands of QR codes programatically. When selecting a bulk or dynamic QR code generator make sure there is an API available that is easy for your development team to use and access.

3. Take Trust and Privacy Seriously

Your consumers want a strong brand experience with every click, but if the link behind your beautiful QR code on that poster, retail display, direct mail, etc. takes your user to an unfamiliar domain, what are the chances they will engage? If it's unclear where you are taking them, or it looks like it could be an unsecure site or one that's tracking them, they won’t trust it – and now they don’t trust you either. How you communicate brand trust with those scans is critical.

Choose a QR solution that lets you use your brand's domain. When your customer scans the code and their browser asks them to confirm if they want to open the destination, they will see your domain and not the QR platform domain. Using your domain will inspire confidence in your QR codes. URLgenius makes this very easy to setup and your QR codes can route to apps or websites with your domain and it looks like your linking directly from the brand’s website.

Also be aware of what your QR code solution is tracking. Make sure it's not dropping tracking pixels to collect behavioral data or other information for retargeting. Select a QR solution like URLgenius which is fully compliant with Apple's new privacy policy in iOS 14.

These are just a few of the ways that you can maximize scans and engagement while inspiring brand confidence. There's a lot more information you need to avoid QR code fails. Learn more in our new QR Experience Playbook: 5 Next-Level Strategies for QR Marketing Success.