Although they’ve been declared dead time and time again, QR codes are in the midst of a small renaissance. They’re popping up on more and more posters, at bus stops, and in advertisements. For some people they’re eyesores; others think they’re printing errors. Yet more and more people are pulling out their smartphones and “scanning” them. Websites and short messages are encoded in these little squares – and apps like barcoo can display them in a browser within a split second. Since you don’t have to type in any URLs or web addresses, you save precious time and can even access them later.

Here at barcoo we’re also assisting publishers of QR-Codes. We’re creating print templates for the German Yellow-Page conglomerate and are offering an interface for evaluating scans and accessing websites.

Kabel1’s ad campaign with QR codes generated by barcoo (detail)

The following list contains some valuable tips on gaining and securing customers using QR codes.

Success factors:

• Get people excited. Offer more: It’s not enough to just print the company website as a QR code. Potential customers will only scan it once at the most. Link it up to background information or a special product page.
  It’s best to display QR codes at bus stops and train stations. Many people pass the time in those places with their iPhones or Android phones. Once they scan your QR code, you have their undivided attention.
• Offer clear instructions: Make the customer want to scan your QR code. Make your message clear and meet their expectations. Keep in mind that a poster’s essential information should be visible at first glance – because many customers don’t know what to make of the QR codes. If necessary, include short instructions and recommend an appropriate QR code-reader. Since barcoo has a market share of 85% of all barcode-scans in Germany, there’s already one less hurdle for customers. Depending on how the customer base has been established, it may be useful to print an additional abbreviated URL.
• Track scans and requests: Every campaign requires its metrics. A QR code’s success is particularly easy to track. That’s why you shouldn’t refer directly to the target URL, but to a redirecting URL that tracks how many people have accessed it. QR-generators like barcoo automatically offer this function. Each poster can be tracked individually, if desired.
• Don’t neglect design and usability:QR codes do not necessarily need to be black and white. As long as the colors provide a strong enough contrast, the codes can also be other colors. Small design elements like logos can also be placed inside. When printing a QR code, it’s important to make sure it’s within easy reach. Customers probably don’t want to stoop down or contort their wrists to scan a poster at the bus stop.When printing QR codes, it’s important to note the minimum printing size. The rule of thumb, regardless of a barcode’s complexity, is: the scanning distance divided by 10 is the minimum size.
• Print once – check twice: Even though you can always change the target URL later, it’s still better to use your smartphone and physically test all QR codes yourself when using a URL redirection service like barcoo.

Common mistakes:

• Making QR-Codes overly complex and large: Several companies save very long URLs with parameters as QR codes, which is a bad idea because QR codes then get more detailed, require more printing space, become more difficult to scan, and take longer to recognize. barcoo’s QR service prevents this by shortening the URL, but you can also use a service like bit.ly.
• Linking to non-optimized websites: Even with average connection speeds, target pages should load quickly on any standard smartphone, e.g. iPhone, Android, and Samsung bada. Videos should only be in standard formats and not exceed one minute. Flash is a no-go!
• Using incorrect encoding: Special characters in URLs are considered taboo because they aren’t always compatible. All QR codes should use the international, UTF-8 encoded characters.
• Directly encoding addresses or dates: This is only supported by a limited number of QR-reading apps. On top of that, QR codes are getting too complex. It’s better to offer a mobile landing page that recognizes the device and then potentially offers to import an address or a date.

Feel free to contact us whenever you have questions about QR codes. Our research shows that we have a market share of 85% of all barcode-scanning in Germany, which means that the chances are very high that barcoo will be used to scan your QR codes anyway.

Business partners often ask us how the different mobile phone platforms perform on our service. Our strategy was and will be to deliver our services on any platform that is relevant.  Currently that would encompass seven platforms (although some primarily are kept for historical reasons). Through having more than one million installations, the numbers should be relatively representative (at least for Germany).  One cannot keep them uncommented, but when we share the distribution, we gladly share it with you.

Here is the distribution of scans using barcoo in September 2010:

Samsumg bada is extremely prominent. The success we experienced with the launch of barcoo on bada at the beginning of August nearly knocked our socks off. Certainly this is due to Samsung Apps not bustling with as many other high quality apps like other app directories. We are excited to see how this plattform will continue to develop.

Android continues to become stronger with every month and is slowly, but surely,  taking away market shares from the other players. We have had the advantage to be present on the German Android market from Day One in Germany and therefore to have obtained a dream position in this (not very agile) market.  We have neglected the Nokia Symbian platform but we are hoping it’s market share will rise again as soon as our new release (1.5 years after the last one) goes live at the Ovi Store. The new release will not only support more current models but will also greatly improve the user experience.

So much for the lastest information from barcoo metrics.