How QR Codes Increase Sales

Feb 16, 2021
laptop coins coffee reports glasses calculator and a qr code at the working desk
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QR codes are a brilliant customized marketing and sales tool, that create amazing opportunities to increase short-term and long-term sales. 

A significant increase in shopping through QR code marketing and growing adoption rates of QRs in the UK and US in the past year by 37%, encouraged many well-known brands such as Dominos, Starbucks and Rockport to come up with creative, innovative ways to use QR codes to boost revenue and beat sales targets. 

For consumers, QR codes are simple and fun to use. QRs allow people to easily connect to businesses by learning more about products and brand values, getting discounts and seasonal promotions, making purchases with one click and providing companies with feedback, asking questions and following brands on social media.

If you want to learn to QR codes increase sales and how to achieve it, keep reading!

1. Promote products and services 

Implementing QR codes in marketing campaigns is quick, easy and proves to be an effective method to raise awareness and reach your target audience when promoting goods and services. 

To promote beauty products during the fashion week in New York, L'Oreal partnered up with Glamour to provide people with free rides in their Mobile Taxi Shops. L'Oreal set up QR codes in taxis where 1 in 3 passengers ended up clicking the QR code. According to Forbes, this led to 80% of the people who snapped it to download L'Oreal's app, in turn promoting products to their ideal customers, allowing for direct purchases on the spot and getting customers’ details for building relationships and upsells in the future.

QR codes for marketing are also helpful when it comes to promoting complementary goods and services. In fashion, QR codes can be used to suggest looks or additional fashion items that go well with the purchased pieces or suggest matching accessories. In hospitality, QR codes on hotel brochures and flyers can inspire you to visit their properties. These are only a couple of the suggestions in the wide range of industries that have adopted QR codes to increase sales and provide other valuable content to their audiences.

QR code marketing also supports the research process consumers go through before making a purchase, thus helping people make the right choice, find complementary goods easier and save time at the store. That ensures a more pleasant shopping experience for consumers and contributes to sales for businesses. For example, IKEA has made a mobile app with QR codes that allows customers to learn details of the products, find desired items, automatically get their inventory lot numbers in the app, find closest stores where the items are available and create your shopping list before they arrive. 

a woman scanning a QR code with a phone camera in the IKEA shop
Image source: INGKA

2. Encourage repeat purchases 

For repeat customers of the same brands, clicking a QR code to reorder the product quickly is a great way to make the customer's life easier. This is especially great for essential goods and products that one consistently uses. QR codes that can be linked to e-commerce sites are absolutely necessary in this burgeoning trend.

The Gap successfully promoted their new clothing collection by sending out mailers with QR codes to their existing customers. The QR code took customers to the video from the designer introducing his new collection and a link that suggested jeans to the consumer based on their body type. This personalised approach was a great way to encourage repeat purchases while making customers feel more connected and loyal to the brand. 

Another great example of encouraging customers to purchase your services again is Vodafone using QR codes for phone top-up. The QRs placed in magazines and other marketing materials made it quicker for customers to top-up their phones, and increased the number of repeat purchases. 

An advertisement in the magazine with a Vodafone top-up QR code
Image source: Engadget

Adding QR codes to post-purchase materials also allows the consumer to easily reorder the product thus increasing customer retention. With more QR code uses in marketing these days, there are now more retailers placing QR codes on their packaging, such as bags and clothing tags, making it easier to repurchase the products with just a few clicks. QR code product marketing has taken off and increased significantly the past year.

3. Оffer discounts and coupons 

QR codes prove to be an effective way to offer discounts, coupons or free gifts. These campaigns also work great for cross-promotion across businesses trying to promote the products of each other via offering exclusive deals to the same target market. 

Using QR code vouchers on new leads is another way to increase sales. A business can automatically send vouchers to users who come to their landing page or subscribe to their newsletters. 

McDonald’s increased the number of their app downloads by placing QR codes on products and in stores and using it to offer a free McCafe Shake for every customer who downloads the app. McDonald’s also uses QR codes for their reward systems to encourage customers to stay loyal to the brand in exchange for free drinks. 

McDonald’s mobile app online loyalty card
Image source: McDonalds

With Supercode’s dynamic and customisable QR codes, businesses can change content for time-sensitive offers, vouchers and free rewards systems without having to reprint any of the marketing materials

4. Use QR codes for advertising

QR codes in advertising are a great interactive marketing medium used by marketers to promote their products or services. QR code advertising, in particular, is highly influential in consumers’ buying decision making processes, as consumers proactively retrieve additional information. According to Shopify, 82% of consumers consult about their next purchase from their cell phones before they go to buy. Embedded QR codes in advertisements are thus very helpful for marketers to influence customer satisfaction and purchase intention.

The cost-effective quality of these codes as a marketing and advertising tool is another advantage for businesses. The embedded QR codes into promotion ads allow consumers to visit the websites that afford for getting additional information, enter sweepstakes, to download contents, access appropriate information, and link to marketer’s different social media sites during shopping.

QR code advertising campaigns are now popular amongst well-known brands across various industries and printed on all sorts of materials, including billboards, packaging, transport and company’s merchandise.

This Rethink promotion pictured below enabled Metro readers to scan QR codes to download the newspaper onto phones. The QR code marketing campaign helped Metro achieve the goals it was aiming for: attract people and gain more readers to its paper. 

A tiny Metro newspaper stand with a QR code to scan to get an online newspaper
Image source: Trendhunter

QR code marketing campaigns are brilliant for evoking curiosity, attracting attention and increasing the number of clicks. A branded QR code will also do the trick. 

5. Make data-driven decisions analytics

The QR code marketing impact is even more powerful when it is measured and analysed to ensure the campaigns are effective and deliver a positive marketing return on investment (MROI). 

Supercode analytics dashboard empowers marketers to track QR codes scanned by city and time. QR code statistics are important for marketers to evaluate which campaigns are more effective at increasing sales and revenue. It's the best way to scale if your marketing strategies are getting any response.

Final thoughts

Businesses can create and customise QR codes in seconds and easily include them in any digital or printed materials. That opens up fantastic opportunities to reach out to consumers, increase customer retention, establish a two-way communication channel and build consumer trust and brand loyalty amongst clients. QR code marketing enables a superior connectivity level with customers and are seen to be widely used across different industries. 

QR codes open up a wide range of opportunities to increase sales and revenue for businesses. Sign up for Supercode to create your first QR code and make the most of your QR code marketing campaigns.

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