You may have noticed a number of what look like little square
maze maps cropping up on your direct mail, in your newspapers and
magazines, on posters and bill boards and a host of other imaginative locations.
These are QR codes and they are the latest marketing craze sweeping the nation. Well they're becoming quite popular anyway. According to Royal Mails "Mail Media Centre" website "QR code technology is something that should be embraced by direct mail marketers, opening up a whole new world of possibilities".

Essentially a QR code is a 2D barcode presented as an image and is readable by a Smartphone. When your phone recognises the image, if it contains a URL, then the code will let you connect directly to a website, specific to that code. QR codes can also hold simple messages, offer codes, email addresses, calls to action - virtually anything really.

The main reason for the increasing popularity however, is that QR codes are usually printed, on a mailer or poster for example, and can therefore enable a direct link to a website, opening up the possibility to instantly direct customers, without the need to enter an URL.

At the moment, the software to read QR codes is not included automatically on everything, but QR reader software is available for most phones and can usually be downloaded free of charge.

In the long term QR codes will probably follow the pattern of many other "marketing revolutions" and will be supplanted by the next big thing, but in the short term....

To begin integrating QR codes into your printed
communications, call Huw or Linda