How To Make A Google Places Page QR Code

Posted: November 28th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

The mobile version of a Google Places™ business listing page can be difficult to find and link to, but by using a combination of the link tool in your Google Places™ page, a slight modification to the URL provided by the linking tool, and a QR code, you can give your mobile-enabled customers simple and immediate access to your business information with just a simple 5 step process.

1. Go to your Google Places™ page and click the link icon in the top right corner of the page.
2. Copy the URL provided by the Link Tool.

3. Paste the URL provided by the Link Tool into a text editor and remove the bits highlighted in yellow so that it looks like the second URL shown. Why? The URL provided by the Link Tool displays your Places page in a desktop browser but goes to a Google Map™ on a mobile device. By modifying the URL in the manner shown it becomes the URL of the mobile version of your Google Places™ page instead.

• Remove the “maps.” including the full stop
• Remove “aps” from the second instance of “maps”
• Remove all of the “q=xxxx” bit including the trailing “&”

4. Got to www.qrstuff.com, select the “Website URL” data type and paste the modified URL from Step #3 into the “Website URL” input box
5. Click the “Download Image” button to download your QR code image. That’s it – all done!

 And here’s an example of the resulting QR code:

Google Places™ is a trademark of Google Inc.

SMS Marketing With QR Codes

Posted: November 25th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

A QR code can be easily created containing your phone number and your pre-written text message so that when scanned it opens up the SMS client on the phone of the person scanning it, and then pre-populates the “To” number field and the “Message” field with the information you placed into the QR code.

With your message and your phone number already on-screen, all the person scanning the QR code has to do is press “Send” for it to come back to you as a regular SMS message, together with the senders phone number. Nothing for them to type in, just a “Send” button to press!

For the savvy SMS marketer the engagement possibilities for this type of QR code are huge:

• Sales – On advertising material promoting the new model and containing the message “I’d like to test drive the new 2011 Camaro” that comes back to salesman’s phone.
• User Support – On the printed instructions for a product with the caption “Need help? Scan this and we’ll ring you back”. The QR code would contain a message like “I need help with product XYZ” and would be pre-coded with the cell number for your customer support team.
• On-Request Product Upgrades – Where a paid option is available for a free service this sort of QR code could be included when the free service is delivered with a call to action “Upgrade Now” which would follow through to a call-back to the customer by the sales team.
• Opt-In SMS Registration – A QR code containing the message “Yes, send me SMS product updates”. Since the phone number of the sender is included in the return message, they can then be easily included in the SMS customer database for the approved delivery of future messages/promotions by SMS.

Here’s the process for creating a QR code containing a pre-formatted SMS message.

1. Go to the  QR Stuff  website and select “SMS Message” as the Data Type in column 1
2. In column 2 (Content) enter your phone number and the message you would like to receive (eg; “I’d like to test drive the new 2011 Camaro”)
3. Click on the “Download Image” link under the preview image to download your finished QR code.

You now have a QR code with a pre-formatted SMS message in it that’s ready to be sent back to you from the phone of the person who scans it, and by them sending you the SMS message, you also now have their phone number for a call back. Easy!

QR Code Minimum Size

Posted: November 23rd, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

In my previous post,  What Size Should A Printed QR Code Be, I mentioned that it wasn’t the size of the QR code image that determined the minimum size at which a QR code could be scanned, it was actually the size of the modules (the little black squares) that make up the QR code image. If the size of the modules fall below the resolution limit of the camera then the QR code won’t be able to be read by the device.

A fundamental part of the way QR codes work is that the more data you put into them, the more rows and columns of modules will be introduced into the QR code to compensate for the increased data load. Hence, for a QR code image of a certain size (width), the more data it contains, the more rows and columns of modules it has and, logically, the smaller each of the modules then become as a result.

So it’s all about whether the camera can actually “see” the smallest element in the QR image – the individual modules.

Another factor that influences minimum QR code size is the scanning distance – the distance the phone is held away from the QR code image. The further away the QR code is, the smaller it appears in the camera viewport, and so the smaller the modules will appear too. Once again, if the camera is held too far away, the modules become too small for the camera to read and the QR code won’t work.

The following table shows the theoretical minimum width of a printed QR code image for a given scanning distance, based on the minimum size an individual module needs to be when viewed by the camera. The assumptions here are that an 3-4 megapixel camera is being used (lower resolution cameras would need the QR code image to be even larger to “see” it), and a black QR code on a white background is being used.

The data shown is:

• Modules: Number of rows and columns of little black squares in the QR code image.
• Characters: Approximate number of characters that would normally fit into a QR code with that many modules using binary data encoding (most do) and Level L error correction.
• Scan Distance: The distance the camera is being held away from the printed QR code.

So for instance, a QR code image with 72 characters of data would end up with 35 rows and columns of modules, and would need to be 42mm (1.7″) wide to be successfully scanned from 300mm (12″) away, but only 21mm (0.8″) wide if the scanning device was only 150mm (6″) away.

Here’s a few examples to give you an idea of what QR codes look like as their data load gets higher, resulting in the modules getting smaller and the QR code image becoming more dense.

Password Protected QR Codes

Posted: October 31st, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

There’s always been a need to password protect web content for security or privacy, but with QR codes being, by their very nature, very public, password protecting the QR code itself to limit access to the content it links to can add a “softer” security layer to that content.

“Locking down” the content with a password barrier actually on the website limits access for anyone who arrives at that page, regardless of how they arrived there, but being able to limit public access to it only for visitors that come in through one channel – the QR code – can sometimes be handy if there’s no password functionality on the website itself.

So, why would you have a password on the QR code, but not on the section of the website it links to? Sometimes a QR code can make publicly available content just too public.

In its simplest form a password protected QR code can be used for “privacy”, like closing a door but leaving it unlocked to stop people aimlessly wandering in, through to “security” to put a limit on open public access to content that isn’t password protected in its own right, or isn’t accessible via any other means apart from the QR code itself.

Examples would be:

• Prying Eyes: Content intended only for members, customers, family, classmates, etc that you’d like to keep semi-private.
• Pre-Release: Linked content that isn’t finished or ready for public release yet, but the QR code linking to it has to be published publicly on promotional material beforehand.
• Competitions: Content related to a promotion where participants are issued with a pin number or password, and only the “winners” with the correct password get through to a prize page.
• Private Viewing: Linking to content on someone else’s website that isn’t password protected, but you would still prefer to limit access to that remote content via your QR code.
• Field Testing: QR code campaign or deployment testing that needs to be done publicly while still maintaining the privacy of the linked content.
• Customers Only: Limiting access to people in-house, in-store or in-venue who have passed some sort of threshold in the physical space eg; they’ve paid, ordered, signed in, registered, etc while on the premises and who are then issued with a printed receipt or docket showing the password to access the content behind the QR code, whether it be at a gym, a parking station, a restaurant, a clinic, etc.
• Private events in public places: Whether it’s the driving directions to a party posted on a power pole down at the highway turn-off, or the QR codes scattered across town as part of a treasure hunt, a simple password on the QR code will limit access to the information just to those who are supposed to have it.
• Private equipment in public places: Service tags, useage statistics or specifications data for plant and equipment linked with QR codes can be access-limited to only employees or service staff even if the equipment, and the QR codes on them, are in public view.

Make A Password Protected QR Code At QRStuff.com

Being able to password-protect a QR code is part of the feature set for QR Stuff subscribers.

1. Log into your subscriber account and go to your account history page.
2. Click the “Manage” tab for the QR code you want to password-protect to open up the Management panel.
3. QR codes that are able to be password protected (ie; you have used our URL shortner with them) will have a “Password Protect” link.
4. A pop-up will allow you to turn password protection on (or off) and specify the password for that QR code. Click “Save” and it’s done.

…and here’s what it looks like from the scanning end (the password is 123456):

Yes, I know a QR code should link to mobile content but there isn’t a mobile version of the QRStuff website (yet)

Who’s Doing What?: September QR Code Update

Posted: October 12th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

During September 421,564 QR codes were created by 189,201 individual users at QRStuff.com. This is an increase of 306% on 6 months ago, and 1217% on 12 months ago.

Who Was Doing What?

The breakdown of the countries those users came from during September, and the countries that scan events took place in, are shown below together with the changes in each compared to August.

For the first time ever we recorded scan events from Turkmenistan, Vanuatu, Togo, Rwanda and Libya, bringing the total number of countries where scan events have been logged to 188.

What Did They Do?

Of the 421,564 QR codes created by our users during the month, the top 10 QR code data types created were:

1. Website Address – 52.8%
2. Plain Text - 26.2%
3. vCard Contact Details - 11.5%
4. Facebook Links - 1.7%
5. Google Maps Location - 1.3%
6. Email Address - 1.2%
7. YouTube Video - 1.2%
8. Phone Number - 0.9%
9. Email Message - 0.8%
10. SMS Message - 0.7%

What Were They Doing It On?

The dominance that iOS devices have shown over Android devices so far this year as the preferred scanning device appears to have waned a bit during September with the following device types being used to scan our QR codes during the month (change over August in brackets):

1. iOS – 53.6% (down 0.2%)
2. Android – 35.0% (up 1.5%)
3. Blackberry – 7.3% (down 1.1%)
4. Windows – 2.0% (up 0.1%)
5. Symbian (Nokia) – 1.1% (no change)

The remaining 1.0% of scan events were shared between Palm, Linux, Java and WAP devices. 

The QR code world continues to grow at an astonishing rate, and from what we’re seeing that rate of growth appears to be increasing. It took us 2.5 years to get to our first 1,000,000 QR codes in late July – the second million looks like it will take less than 3 months.

How A QR Code Can Help You Find Your Keys

Posted: October 10th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

Pumping Station One recently feature a post on attaching a QR code to your keychain that will allow someone to scan the QR code on the keychain fob and automatically send you a text message that they found your keys, with their phone number included so you can call them and arrange to get your keys back. 

QR Code Keychain. Photo has been altered to protect the encoded phone number. Image: Pumping Station One.

While they mentioned QR Stuff as a place to be able to create this sort of QR code (thanks guys!), I thought I’d go through the process of exactly how to create a QR code containing a pre-formatted text message. 

1. Go to QR Stuff  and in column 1 (Data Type) choose “SMS Message”
2. In column 2 (Content) enter your phone number and the message you would like to receive (eg; “I found your keys!”)
3. Click on the “Download This Image” link under the preview image.

You now have a QR code with a pre-formatted text message in it that’s ready to be sent back to you from the phone of the person who found your keys and then scanned the QR code you attached to them. Of course, by them sending you the text message, you also now have their phone number in your phone so you can ring them back and arrange to go get your keys from them. Easy! 

The Pumping Station One blog post also went into technical detail about how you could make your own acrylic keyring fob with the QR code engraved on it, but if you don’t have a laser cutter lying around you could just get one of those square clear plastic ones that allow you put a photo in them, and put a paper print of your QR code in it instead. 

The possibilities of this sort of QR code go way beyond attaching them to your keychain. Obviously you could attach one to anything else that has a habit of getting lost (like pets or small children), but having a QR code containing a text message pre-configured so that the person scanning it just has to press “Send” for it to come back to you (together with the senders phone number) would be handy for: 

• Sales – On advertising material promoting the new model and containing the  message “I’d like to test drive the new 2011 Camaro” that comes back to salesman’s phone.
• User Support – On the printed instructions for a product with the caption “Need help? Scan this and we’ll ring you back”. The QR code would contain a message like “I need help with product XYZ” and would be pre-coded with the cell number for your customer support team.
• On-Request Product Upgrades – Where a paid option is available for a free service this sort of QR code could be included when the free service is delivered with a call to action “Upgrade Now” which would follow through to a call-back to the customer by the sales team.
• Opt-In SMS Registration – A QR code containing the message “Yes, send me SMS product updates”. Since the phone number of the sender is included in the return message, they can then be easily included in the SMS customer database for the approved delivery of future messages/promotions by SMS.

So, while a QR code containing a pre-formatted text message can actually help you find your lost keys, this sort of QR code opens up a whole new range of possibilities for the savvy marketer.

QR Codes: What Smartphones Are Being Used For Scanning?

Posted: August 29th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

The dominance of iPhones over Androids as the most popular QR code scanning device has continued to increase over the past 6 months based on figures from our own database of just under 1.2 million scan events.

While the Android was the preferred choice prior to February this year, their share has been decreasing steadily since August last year to the point where last month there were 1.9 scans on an iPhone for every one on an Android. Both Blackberry and Windows devices are struggling along with just over 10% and well under 5% respectively.

Considering the number of Android devices out there compared to iPhones, I’ll leave it up to the marketing guys to explain why the numbers stack up the way they do. It could be the demographics of iPhone vs Android users, the relative ease of use (and quality) of the scanning apps available for each platform, or a device-specific bias caused by many placements only showing an iTunes logo in the instructions on how to use the QR code. Who knows?

Just a quick note – unlike may other QR code generation platforms, I don’t force my users to use our URL shortener (a short URL redirection is the standard method for collecting analytics). When given the option of encoding their own website URL directly into the QR code, rather than one of our short URL’s which then redirects to their website address, 80% of users choose the former.  As a result our data set only includes analytics data for 20% of the 441,000 QR codes containing website URL’s that QR Stuff users have created over the past 6 months.

Having said that, 1.2 million scan events is still a statistically significant data set – the encoding preferences of the person creating the QR code are a variable that’s completely independent of the phone preference of the person scanning the QR code.

By the way, if you’re curious about why people would choose not to use a URL shortener, see my previous article on Using Google Analytics With QR Codes for a few very good reasons.

UPDATE: Received an interesting email from Eddy Hagen at the Flemish Innovation Center for Graphic Communications with a possible explanation for the large number of iPhone scans showing up in the figures:

We at VIGC have done some testing over the last few months and probably the answer is the following: most (over 75%!) of the QR-codes in magazines, newspapers, brochures can’t be scanned with an average smart phone (e.g. my Nokia E52). Many QR-codes are printed too small, which make them only scannable with smart phones that have a very good camera and macro / zooming capabilities, so the newest iPhones (and alikes). That might be the reason why your figures are not corresponding the number of devices/distribution of devices that are out there.

QR Codes 6 Months On: Who’s Making What?

Posted: August 13th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

There’s been a lot of talk lately (and a lot of really cool infographics) about what sort of QR codes are being scanned, where they’re being scanned, and by whom, but these numbers are only part of the story.

Marketers can gain good insights into consumer behavior and demographics from the scan event numbers that are being released, but they’re the effect not the cause. Another important set of numbers is what sort of QR codes are being deployed, and where they are being deployed, and these are necessary to put the scan event numbers into perspective.

Scan event reporting to date has pretty much been about absolute numbers in a vacuum with no relative context brought into play for effectiveness, reach and consumer uptake, apart from anecdotal or survey-style feedback from the consumers themselves. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just what it is, and makes sense when you consider who the majority of the organizations are that go to the trouble of collating and presenting the data – scanning apps and consumer-facing market research companies – and what data sets they have available.

For example, 20,000 scan events in a particular market is a good number if only 100 QR codes have been deployed into that market, but it represents poor uptake if there’s 100,000 QR codes in the wild in the same market. The relative number of scans achieved for different QR code data types is also not particularly useful if you don’t know the relative number of QR codes deployed for each data type. Social media QR codes accounting for 20% of the reported scan events would clearly be seen as a relatively more engaging type of QR code type if social media QR codes only represented 5% of the total QR codes deployed, but not so much if they were 30% of the deployed total.

Here’s some numbers from the point of view of QR code creation rather than QR code scanning, and relate to the 900,000 QR codes created by the 700,000 user of QRStuff.com over the 6 month period from February to July 2011. Approximately 87% of those QR codes were created anonymously by free users so location data for anonymous QR code creation events has been taken from Google Analytics. In the interests of user privacy, none of the underlying raw or granular data will be (or has been) made available to third parties.

In the tables below I’ve compared the figures from February 2011 and July 2011 and showed relative rankings in each of those 2 months, what the percentages proportions were for the QR codes created in each of those 2 months, and the relative increase in the numbers of QR codes created over the 6 month period from 01 February to 31 July 2011.

Who’s Making QR Codes?

What Are They Putting In Them?

Methodology

I’m comfortable that these figures are representative enough to be a reasonable insight into the way things actually are:

• The numbers themselves are large enough to have a good statistical reliability – a supporting data set of 900,000 QR codes created by the 700,000 user of QRStuff.com over the 6 month period from February to July 2011.
• The QRStuff.com website has been operating since January 2008 and has had balanced historical exposure to all geographic markets (except Japan) at all stages of their take-up and maturity cycles to date. This means that the engagement timing profile for all markets is the same – been there from the start, still there now.
• QRStuff.com is not based in Europe, UK or the US, and doesn’t advertise or promote itself in any specific geographic market, so “local” bias factors would not be at play.
• My ratio of free vs paid users (87:13) would probably reflect the natural split of “DIY” and “get some informed/professional help” participants in most marketing disciplines or initiatives.
• Once I’d crunched the numbers there were no surprises or inconsistencies that were at odds with what I’d learnt, seen, heard, or suspected over the past 3 ½ years of working with QR codes commercially.

QR Code Rubber Stamps & Stencils

Posted: June 18th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

Bryan at Holmes Stamps in Florida contacted me on Twitter the other day to let me know that they were making QR code rubber stamps. Holmes is a family business that’s been going since 1954 and this is just another way they’re making old school products relevant to the 21st century.

They can make you a self-inking model with a crisp, clean image of your QR Code for easy and reliable scanning. You can also get them to add text to the stamp.

Anyway, I saw the QR code rubber stamps as the ideal way to retro-fit a QR code onto something that should have had one on it from the start, or to quickly apply one later to a document in a way that adds further context to it.

OK, a sticker would do the job too, but a rubber stamp is a quick, simple and cheap way to achieve the same result. You might need a couple of them, but if the QR codes contain data that can be applied repeatedly then it would make sense to use a rubber stamp.

A few examples I immediately thought of where a QR code rubber stamp would be handy to add QR codes after-the-fact:

• The last box of brochures, business cards or flyers before you start using the latest print run that actually have a QR code printed on them.
• Printed products out of legacy systems that don’t directly support adding images (like the customer invoices generated by your 1997 accounting system)
• A short term scan-to-win promo to add to sales dockets at point-of-sale.
• Product packaging, die-cut boxes and cartons that you buy unprinted because printed ones are too expensive.
• Marking student assignments (the QR code links to the school extranet where they can log in to see the teachers comments).
• Adding a device-scannable digital decision to anything the stamp will print on – yes/no, approved/rejected, passed/failed, etc.
• Adding the contact details of the originator to a completed pro-forma document.
• An alternative to a temporary tattoo – it doesn’t just have to be a paper product.

My head pretty much exploded when I starting thinking about the possibilities, but there’s a start.

I’m sure there’s other companies out there doing these as well, but Bryan was the one that contacted me so he’s the one I’ll recommend you go and talk to.

Using Google Analytics With QR Codes

Posted: May 1st, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: General | No Comments »

As QR code use and implementation becomes more sophisticated, the reasons for having your own URL in the QR code, rather than a URL provided by an external shortening service, become more compelling:

• You want your customer to have the confidence of seeing your branded website address when their scanning app asks them if they want to click through, rather than a URL from a shortening service they may not be familiar with.
• You want to collect direct scan event data within your own analytics program, rather than just “seeing” the referral details of the shortening service associated with the URL redirection.
• Having your QR code analytics data quarantined on someone elses website (whether it’s the QR code service or the URL shortening service) makes integrated analytics reporting awkward.

But having your own URL in the QR code, and hence not being able to rely on someone else to collect your analytics data for you, brings with it the challenge of exactly how to collect the analytics data relating to visitors arriving at your website from the QR codes you have out there.

Obviously using a URL shortener to keep the density of the QR code under the control when long URL’s are involved is a big plus for going in the other direction, and there will also be users who prefer to outsource the task of collecting analytics data to a third party, but knowing what your options are helps with choosing the one that’s right for you and your circumstances.

With Google Analytics installed on your website, there are 3 reasonably simple ways to keep track of who is coming in via your QR codes, and how effectively your various QR code programs are working.

Use Unique Landing Pages

Having every QR code simply linked to the front page of your website won’t give you any opportunity to split out the traffic from each one. All you will see is an increase in traffic from smartphone devices with very little other specific information to go on.

If you give each one its own unique landing page so that the only way a visitor can get to a particular page is by scanning the QR code, then you can assume that all traffic metrics associated with that page are as the result of that particular QR code being scanned.

For example:

This also gives you the unique opportunity of being able to tailor the content of that page to the context of the QR code that links to it. The QR code published in a magazine can point to a page of special offers, while the QR code on the packaging can point to a different page that contains an instructional video for the product itself.

Append URL Parameters

If the landing page for each of the various QR codes doesn’t need to be content specific, but there’s still the need to for individually reporting the analytics data associated with multiple QR codes, adding a parameter string onto the end of the URL will send everyone to the same place on your website but will report as different pages in Google Analytics.

For example, when linked from 4 different QR codes, all of the following will send the user to the front page of the website (http://www.qrstuff.com/index.html) without any modifications to the website at all, but will report as traffic to different pages in Google Analytics because of the ?id=xxxx bit at the end:

Google Analytics Campaign Tracking

A more sophisticated method is to use Google Analytics Campaign Tracking which involves combining URL parameters into a query string, adding the query string to the end of the URL, and then putting the whole extended URL into the QR code.

Google Analytics is set up to recognize this query string, extract the data the query strings contains, and report it uniquely. In this way you can transfer specific information from the QR code into the reporting framework of Google Analytics every time the QR code sends a visitor to your website.

The campaign tracking parameters that you can use are:

When these parameters, and your chosen descriptive variables, are all put together into a query string, and that query string is then added to the website address, the whole thing looks something like this:

…and that’s what goes into your QR code.

If this looks a bit tricky, Google Analytics has a handy tool to help you build URL’s containing campaign tracking query strings.