Build Your Email List Using QR Codes

As of 2010, a staggering 42 percent of the United States uses a smartphone. Couple that with the fact that people are warming up to mobile marketing, and you can see why QR codes may be the key to growing your email list.Using QR codes in your mobile marketing provides a unique service: they instantly connect offline promotion to online destinations at the click of a button. But that is only the beginning.

Think for a second what that experience of taking someone from offline promotion (like print ads, posters, or business cards) to a digital destination with a QR code really means. That digital endpoint means that you can collect data for your email list. With the right offer, you can also encourage users to submit contact information, demographic information, and other useful tidbits. Used correctly, QR codes and mobile marketing can help you build your marketing database and your email list. Let’s take a look at two specific QR code campaign suggestions that can help grow your email list:

1. Offer an immediate incentive: This would work for brick-and-mortar locations. Distribute flyers with a QR code, or post a QR code in your retail store, and make sure it has a clearly described offer for a free or discounted product incentive. If you have a café, it could be a small coffee, or if you have a salon, it could be a free product sample baggie. Have this QR code link to a simple registration form asking for a name and email address. After completing that form, the page can refresh to provide a QR code, which they can then show at your register or front desk to claim their reward. The customer receives a small incentive, and you can collect their contact address for marketing purposes — just make sure the right legal language is included.

2. Run a contest: This could work for any type of business, retail store or not. Determine where you could buy advertising that will be seen by your target market. It could be in magazines, newspapers, poster advertising, etc. Run a campaign in these advertising venues for a contest, and include a QR code call-to-action. Have that QR code lead to Web page where users have to fill out a form to enter the contest, and allow them to opt in to your email marketing stream. After the registration page, you can lead them to interesting content like your blog, videos, or product and services information.