How to not screw up your QR code part 3: call-to-action
A close-up of a ShareSquare-enhanced poster for Disney artist Mitchel Musso:
A call-to-action is a clear explanation of WHAT you’re asking people to do and WHY they should be doing it. As it pertains to putting a QR code on your poster, flyer, sticker, album cover, etc., this boils down to you saying to your fan: “Hey you! Scan this and we’ll show you something cool.”
The Mitchel Musso campaign above does a good job; they’re clearly stating that if you scan the QR code (or manually type in the corresponding URL) you’ve be rewarded with a free track. The details are up to you, but the more valuable or exclusive you can make the content behind the code, the more compelling your call-to-action will be. ShareSquare has been specifically designed to facilitate fantasgreat calls-to-action like:
“Scan to:
- watch the exclusive never-before-seen video!”
- see a sexy slideshow of our lead drummer!”
- find the location of the secret show!”
- win a date with aforementioned lead drummer!
You’ll also notice that your ShareSquare QR codes always show a short URL below the QR code as a best practice, so that folks can access your ShareSquare page by manually entering it into their mobile browser as well.
The best way to screw up a call-to-action btw, is not to have one. Don’t just put the QR code up there and expect people to know why they should care. We dig the effort, but this much ballyhoo’d recent cover of New York Times Magazine fails in this regard, in addition to being too artsy-fartsy to scan easily:
Check out our FAQ for more insight on QR code best practices.