What alternative to QR code for mobile experiences (without technical skills)?

What needs do mobile marketing campaigns and Qr Code meet ?

A mobile experience benefits both the consumers and the brand (see our articles What benefits for brands and for consumers).  

Three fundamental issues are to be considered when designing a relevant mobile marketing campaign.

• Consumer experience
• Building brand image
• Seeking business development

1- A tailor made mobile experience

Mobile marketing competition is fierce, boundaries breakdown and brands create more immersive mobile strategies. In fact, users cherish playful and intuitive content to bond with their favorite brands. So brands adapt!

A striking example is the launch of Yuka app, the French product scanning app for healthier and greener consumer habits. Obviously, its fast growing popularity can be explained first of all because it addresses highly relevant users’ needs, but other product scanning apps already existed and didn’t meet the same success. The importante difference was to offer a friendly interface to provide detailed information grading on the products composition, and to propose alternatives when poorly rated products are scanned. By focusing on consumer transparency, Yuka turned out to be a must-have app in your phone. Brands are direct beneficiaries, or not, of this search for truth and must deal with it.

Another breakthrough came from ASOS, the British fashion company. Pushing mobile marketing another step, the company used visual recognition technology, to permit customers to search through the brands collection based on a photo taken of someone’s look met on the street. A unique experience for fashion enthusiasts, made possible once again thanks to mobile marketing.

2- Build brand reputation through brand content

Pushing boundaries to think like a consumer and seeking innovative ways to communicate is key. 

A smart use of mobile marketing strengthens the brand image and thus paves the way for recommendation, word of mouth and customer loyalty!  

And it’s spreading out! Museums and cultural institutions also turned to mobile experiences giving access to multitude contents, a bit like an open book about the work of art and its artist with images, short videos, interviews of the artist, 3D animations… The possibilities are infinite to enhance art in a funny and playful way.

3- Boost product sales through tailor made mobile experience

To engage with their audience, brands work on tailored marketing experience to make the consumer feel understood, to ultimately encourage her or him to consume.

Hence this example of a headphone company: the brand offered users to take one’s picture with the product to visualize, using augmented reality, the different headphone color options available. Users are comforted in their choice and immediately buy products.

Similarly, French makeup brand Sephora also made a breakthrough using their Beauty Hubs: a technological means to advise women on their makeup choices depending on their skin types.

Let’s be straightforward, mobile marketing helps boost sales with:

• Optimized consumer targeting / customized targeting.
• Appropriate communication for product launch
• Build customer loyalty
• Boost of Website traffic
• A continuous marketing feed
• Geolocation (if consumers are is near the store, the brand can send a discount code).

QR Codes: the top-of-mind mobile experience tool

QR codes have become a cornerstone in today’s brands marketing mobile experience. Its purpose is to create a gateway between the physical and digital world. In other words, QR Codes bring customers digital value-added content using their physical environment.

Quickly offering digital experience (online payment service, new product campaign launch) QR codes take customers to visit your company’s web site, gives them a look at the menu in a restaurant or even helps you board on a plane at the airport. QR codes have subtly made their way into our daily lives.

They benefit all industries and sectors: retail, logistics, culture, entertainment, restoration, even health issues.  

With Covid-19 and the vaccination pass, QR codes have gone through a boost of popularity. Millennials seek to use them, and brands include them in their marketing strategies daily. 

Snapchat’s’ Snapcode is a perfect example. Users now easily share their personal information with other users though a digital ID system. A secure and fast way to find relatives or friends on the social network. Millennials clearly have become a strong target for brands seeking to rethink marketing habits.

The remaining question is: What makes QR codes so popular?

Basically, it’s a game changer: it’s fast, it’s easy to use and it connects the physical and digital worlds.

 Is that all? No!

It also facilitates access to data, helps us save time, adapts to all mobile devices, and most importantly it’s very affordable and cost-effective. A major opportunity to enter any market on a low marketing budget.  

And when we know that the mobile is now the first screen used to access the Internet, how can we not be attracted by creating a marketing experience through this object that has become like an extension of our hand? 

But is the QR code the only way to implement mobile marketing? We will see later in this article that new alternatives to the QR code exist. And brands are happy about it because the challenge for them is to create a high-end mobile experience for the consumers, in contrast with QR limits that we rapidly face once to offer both entertaining and high value added experiences. 

QR codes still have some limits!

Invented in 1994, QR codes have helped brands deepen digital experience. Yet 2022 has started showing drawbacks. 

• Wifi is required
• Some phones don’t read QR codes
• Not suited to all campaigns (depending on media used)
• Fragile – easily dysfunctional
• Web content Restrictions
• Reliability breaches – long term
• Security breaches: fake QR codes can sometimes lead to the dark web or online hacking

For the user: fake QR codes can sometimes lead to a malicious site containing tracers intended to collect our personal data.

For the brand: it is recommended that brands regularly change their QR code to protect their information. This has a logistic and time cost on industrial production and printing. 

Finally, some brands do not want to “pollute” their product designs with a marker that is not consistent with their visual identity. 

So, how to easily connect my products ?

Mobile visual recognition

LinkMe is THE mobile visual recognition technology that brings brands’ objects to life ! It enables to very easily connect physical supports to digital multimedia content. Brands can deliver extraordinary marketing experience as it can combine traditional web content with augmented reality.  

The tool also differentiates from QR code thanks to its platform that makes multiple campaigns administration ultra efficient ! LinkMe gives mobile users easy access to your content and enjoy your creativity.

Discover

LinkMe, a step forward!

• Interactive and engaging content

 Content is key!  It’s a long run to interact and build brand loyalty, it’s a fact. Creativity and varying the media spectrum is essential!

• Easy set up

You’ll have no trouble setting up your mobile campaigns with LinkMe; the platform has been designed to be intuitive, to allow you to connect as many products as you want and to integrate an unlimited amount of content.

• ROI

Through the data users’ interaction dashboard, you efficiently get a better knowledge of your consumers. Consequently you optimize the sales and engagement marketing means, as you identify which product and which content generates the most users’ interest. 

• All in one

LinkMe allows you to blend a wide range of content (URL, images, videos, sounds, RA, icards, pdf, etc) and adapts to all your creative idea.

Mobile marketing experience has no limit with LinkMe.