QR Code – Business Card
April 11, 2012 Leave a Comment
By now you’ve probably become familiar with QR codes and Microsoft tags. You see these icons of organized squares and triangles on advertisements, in the mail and plastered on the side of buildings.
This “quick response” technology offers some logical benefits. Because the code is assigned to a specific link, you can control exactly where the code goes and ensure the visitor doesn’t end up on the wrong site. They are also completely trackable; you can see when someone scans a code and determine which of your communications has the greatest reach.
Maybe you already use this technology and are embracing the benefits. Or maybe these little icons have become so commonplace that they’re just the latest thing you’ve learned to ignore. Let me pose a few scenarios that show practical QR code usage.
You’re at a conference where you network with lots of people, over multiple days and have a variety of discussions. You get back from the conference and start sorting through your collection of business cards. It’s easy to forget who is who and names, faces and conversations all start running together. But one of those business cards has a QR code on it. You scan the code, a video pops up and suddenly the person you spoke with is on your screen delivering their value prop. You think, “I remember this guy, he was knowledgable and relatable. I should give him a call,” or, “All this guy did was talk about himself,” and you throw the card away. That video attached to a QR code allowed you to reconnect a name with a face with an opinion.
Or maybe you make the wise decision to attach a QR code with a video to your business card:
You’re at the airport waiting to catch a plane and strike up a conversation with the woman sitting next to you in the terminal. Being the caring person that you are, you listen first and ask her various questions about her career and life. You genuinely believe your firm has solutions to some of the challenges she is facing and are excited to tell her about them. But before you’re able to share how you can help, she has to catch a plane. You exchange cards and part ways. She returns home, finds your card in her carry-on and scans the QR code. You’re able to deliver your pitch, in a personal way, at any time.
These are just a few common scenarios to show that a QR code on your business card with a video attached gives your card reach far beyond your title and contact information. At Advisor Studios, we are constantly finding ways to use technology in a relational way and video is certainly relational. We can even add a call to action feature to your videos, prompting a phone call or email when your intro is finished playing. Take a look at how CLS Investments, LLC’s VP of Business Development, Brian Ragle, uses video and a scan tag to make his business card personal and actionable.
