Tutorial on how to issue coupons with QR Codes

Issuing coupons to customers is a popular feature of many marketing campaigns.

Qryptal offers an easy to setup and yet sophisticated coupon issue system which enables you to control the timing, quantity, redemption period and also track redemptions.

It is cloud based - so a coupon could be redeemed at any outlet and the information would be centrally tracked and maintained.

This tutorial will guide you in setting up your own coupon issuing system on Qryptal. 

On completing this tutorial, you will have:

- a QR Code for your coupon issuing campaign

- customers can scan the QR Code, fill in the details and get the e-coupon

- they will also get a customized email with the coupon 

- when they present the coupon at any of your outlets, your staff can redeem the coupon - after which it cannot be used again

Qryptal Coupons Intro Tutorial from Qryptal

QR Codes with Mobile Form for public feedback and fault reporting

This sample mobile form shows you how you can enable anyone to provide location-aware feedback for fault reporting without developing special Apps.

Street light not working? just scan QR code, take photos and done. Same with pavement obstructions, pipes, bridges, underpasses, falling trees, guard rails etc.

Today most people in cities have smartphones with good connectivity, GPS and camera - all very useful in providing instant, precise feedback. This sample shows you how to do this in minutes.

 

Scan the above QR Code and see for yourself how this works without requiring the user to install any special App. 

Since all this is just a normal Qryptal Mobile Form, all the uploaded photos and videos appear in the report:

Further notification emails can be forwarded to your normal fault reporting address or you can use web-hooks to get each form fill notification posted to your server.

We have made the above sample a ready to use template. Clicking on the button below will give you a copy of the above mobile form loaded and ready for you to try, customize and use:

Smartphone users prefer scanning QR Codes or typing URL links?

Many of our customers ponder over this question before rolling out a mobile campaign.

It is a relevant question because, for most out door or print campaigns - the end user will be interacting with your campaign with their always available smartphone.

What does the data from campaigns conducted on Qryptal say?

Given a choice, an over whelming majority preferred to scan the QR Code versus typing the URL in their phone browser.

This is probably because:

• For people who know about QR Codes, it is much easier to scan the code with their usual QR Code Reader App and avoid the frustration of typing either long readable URLs or cryptic short URLs (common to make typing mistakes on the small screen)
• At least for campaigns conducted on Qryptal, the awareness about QR Codes in the target segment is very high (latest data from 2013 indicates an even higher preference for QR Codes)

Even with this data, our recommendation to customers is to keep the URL: caters to a wider audience and gives a human readable clue on where they are heading (at times it has helped the people printing and putting up the material to verify that the correct QR Code is being used).

This data clearly indicates that you will be making it easier for your customers by giving them an option to scan the QR Code instead of just providing a link to type.

But do keep in mind that the QR Code is just an enabler provided you get the much more important foundation right: make it mobile friendly and have a relevant call to action. Many of our customers have come to us after discovering this the hard way - using a desktop page for an out door or print campaign is a dead end today.

Managing Mobile Contest Lucky Draws and Sweepstakes

Customers have been using Qryptal for running contests for quite sometime. Here is a photo taken inside a supermarket for a very popular contest from 2012:

We have applied what we have learned from these contests and recently made it even easier to create and manage such contests.

For consumers, entering the contest was always easy with Qryptal (including providing proof of purchase).

The recent improvements are about making life easier for the contest organizer running draws once the contest closes. So easy that you could be running contest draws in minutes. All this with reporting and audit trails to help you comply with your company and/or local regulations (you will need to check those on your own though).

Let's consider an example to understand all this better.

Example Background:
You are running a weekly contest. Consumers scan the contest QR Codes, fill a mobile form to enter the contest. Say every Wednesday you would run the draw to pick 2 winners for entries received during the previous week.

Contest rollout steps:

1. Create a mobile form that consumers fill to enter the contest. Typically consumers would reach this mobile form by scanning a QR Code. Other rollout options could be SMS/Text, NFC tags or direct URL links.
2. Create some collateral (posters, flyers etc) with the QR Code to explain the contest.
3. Put up this collateral at various points of sale: supermarket refrigerators, posters, advertisements etc (you can have tracking codes to track entries by partner/location etc)

Now contest entries would start rolling in and soon it would be Wednesday when you need to run the draw.

Running the weekly draw:

1. Go to the Manage Draws tab within the Qryptal interface (if the tab is not visible then you will need to enable Contests for that project: see this).
             
   
2. Fill the create draw dialog:
   
      
   
   
   
3. Now when you create the draw, the system will pick the draw entries based on the criteria above. It will also give you a summary.
4. After that just do the following to run the draw:
   
   

That's it! Every week it would take you a few minutes to run the draw.

You can try the above by creating a free trial account here. For any help - just click on the Support tab.

Related posts:

Proof of purchase integration for Contests

Smartphone users prefer scanning a QR Code vs typing links

Qryptal Pricing Plans Update

Over the last few months we have added many new and enhanced capabilities to our  platform:

• Mobile Forms for Feedback, Contests, Coupons, Surveys etc.
• Form Payment integration, Photo-upload integration
• Special features for marketing and advertising agencies using our platform to serve their client base
• Bulk database integrated template based mobile pages and codes
• Mobile purchasing solutions
• Project based organization

Most of these features were added based on customer feedback, end users and mobile technology changes.

To a large extent, most of the new features revolve around enhancing mobile interactions implemented via mobile forms on our platform. To align the value of the platform with our pricing, earlier this month we changed our pricing plans. You can check out the new plans here. 

Major changes:

• Less emphasis on number of codes and scans
• Pricing now scaling based on number of FormFills, Projects and Users
• Larger plans to reflect the requirements of some of our new customers

The other major change is suspending new Free Account registrations: 

(existing free plan users can continue using their accounts as before)

Last year we introduced a feature and usage limited free plan to encourage small businesses to leverage mobile pages and QR Codes the right way. 

But today, with so many new features - the gap between the free plan and paid plans had increased so much that we did not feel right about repeatedly informing free plan users: "you need to upgrade to get most of the new cool stuff". 

So in lieu of the free account, we now offer a full feature free trial account backed by our usual comprehensive support.

We feel that this would enable potential customers in doing a better evaluation of all the capabilities of Qryptal.

We have some new exciting things coming and look forward to sharing them with you.

The Mobile tsunami is here, and your mobile strategy is?

More and more users are using their smartphones to reach your business and unfortunately very few businesses are gearing up for this.

Consider these recent articles:

"Mobile-based browsing has tripled in the last two years, and is making significant inroads on traditional Internet access from personal computers, according to statistics from a Web metrics company."
- source: Infoworld Mar 25, 2013

"Mobile-Optimized Experience Results in a 153% Lift for Deluxe"
- source: Ioninteractive Mar 1, 2013

"According to Google, 85 percent of online shoppers start searching on one device — most often a mobile phone — and make a purchase on another."
- source: New York Times Dec 21, 2012

The mobile tsunami is now finally here. If you are a business, ignore it at your own peril!

It is not a surprise. A very large segment of population now has smartphones and they are using these phones for more than just making calls and texts.

What do you have when you are commuting on a train? bus? waiting at the dentist? any kind of waiting? In-between meetings.....

Smartphones are now virtually our body appendage and the above stories are just confirming the obvious.

You need to make your business accessible over mobile - now!

Users are much more task focussed on mobiles. So just 'sizing' your existing website for mobiles (though a good step in 2012) is probably not going to be very effective now.

We recommend creating single focus mobile pages and avoiding the typical desktop clutter. Create specific call to action mobile forms so that your customers can interact with you when they want rather than when they get back to office/home  or increasingly never.

Users can reach your mobile pages via organic search, other links, SEO, QR Codes and NFC Tags.

Qryptal and other services are there to help you make this transition but the important message is to start implementing your mobile strategy now because your customers are already there!

A page like this can be created very quickly on Qryptal:

Further reading:

How Mobile Forms work (slide show)

How to create mobile pages when you have hundreds of products

Google's Enhanced Campaigns an opportunity to do Mobile Ads the right way with Mobile Landing Pages

Google recently announced Enhanced Campaigns. Much has been said about it on both sides of the fence and if one should upgrade now or wait till it becomes inevitable.

Nevertheless with this change, it is at the very least making every Adword advertiser to think through the process of allocating some of every campaign budget to target mobile devices. While it may seem like  early days for Mobile, a recent article in NYTimes that about 25% of visits occur via mobile indicates that today, a business ignores mobile at their own peril.

With this change,  one can indicate if an Ad should be targeted at a mobile device.  Which is a good thing, as we would argue that a Mobile Ad must always be different from a desktop Ad for two main reasons:

• the landing page experience should be mobile optimized.
• singular focus: while desktop website ads can be a bit more generic, mobile is mostly about doing one task at a time, as easily as possible. So both the mobile ad and it’s mobile landing page experience should be much more focussed.

Just as with QR codes, a Google search on a mobile does not do justice if it gets leads to a page designed to be viewed on a desktop. A page that is properly formatted for a mobile goes a long way towards getting someone to register their interest for your service or purchase outright.

Some of our clients have started to use the Qryptal platform to create mobile landing pages that are used on mobile Ad networks with good results.  A great example is Xpressflower.com. Before Valentine’s Day their mobile ads landed visitors on their Valentine’s Day flower ordering pages. Users could not only get the information but also complete the entire transaction (including payment) on their phone within a few minutes.

Not surprisingly, a page designed for mobile leads to better results on a mobile.  Such a page typically has form elements that are designed for touch entry and with intuitive form entry elements such as bringing up the numeric keypad when entering a phone number.

So if you’re an advertiser on Google or an Advertising/Marketing agency and faced with updating your Adword campaign, it’s a good time to look at platforms such as Qryptal to quickly create effective mobile landing pages. We would be happy to share our experience.

Which Mobile Bar Code Ad Is Best?

via stephanietruemoss.sharedby.co

Good article - recommended reading for those using QR Codes in their advertising.

"When Moen's QR Code is scanned, I'm brought to a mobile website, which features a video about the product featured in the ad, as well as tabs to click on to learn more about the product, what others have to say and to view other kitchen products. .....

When Delta's SnapTag is scanned, I'm brought to a mobile landing page, which shows three product images of the product depicted in the ad, and buttons to "pin" the product to Pinterest. Other than that, nothing else is offered to the reader of the ad. "

Hybrid Library: QR Codes Access eBooks in Subway Station

via weburbanist.com

"If you happen to be in Bucharest, you can snag a volume from their floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall collection of ebook posters at the station. Just scan the QR Code, read the sample and if you enjoy - just purchase the full book!"
Great use case! Mobile is all about helping folks do stuff NOW!

Buy Valentine’s Day Flowers Using QR codes

Many retailers feel overwhelmed during holidays. One way to handle an overflow of business is to use QR codes as virtual sales assistants.

When your employees are busy, or still in training, your customers can scan QR codes to learn more about your products and can even place orders and make payments. You can also use this to extend your physical shop by placing the ordering QR Codes in other places as shopping walls.

Qryptal customer, Xpressflower.com has been using these shopping QR Codes for over a year now. Xpressflower.com is a major florist based in Singapore with 13 outlets spread all over the island.

Since we are approaching Valentine's day, I thought of sharing the mechanics of this special project.

In the backend, a QR Code shop is configured and unique QR Codes are generated for every outlet. This is done to enable order tracking so that proper credit can be provided to sales staff at every outlet and incentivize them to promote this new system rather than use traditional manual processing of orders.

The prices for items, categories, available delivery slots, payment integration are also configured in the backend. The slideshow below walks you through the scenario of a consumer scanning the code and ordering them.

The system has been working well and we are adding a few more features like self-collection. 

Contact us if you want to implement something similar for your business.

Airline QR Code Scavenger Hunt

via 2d-code.co.uk

"Under the title “Crack the Code” the QR Code posters are displayed in cafes, restaurants and shops around Istanbul’s main attractions. Six different QR Codes are encoded with a letter and the six letters together form a word which is required to enter the competition. First prize is two airline tickets, two nights at a 4-star hotel and an exclusive helicopter tour."

Scavenger Hunts are a great fun use case for QR Codes. We also have a lot of customer interest in this and are thinking of creating a quick start template for such campaigns.

McDonald's Adds QR Codes to Bags and Cups to Deliver Nutrition Information to Consumers

via getthefive.com

Another good use case for QR Codes on packaging.

QR codes sewn directly into clothing by Dita Von Teese

via qrcodepress.com

"When the QR codes are scanned, using any scanning app, the consumer is immediately linked to the Twitter page for Von Teese, where they can see the latest from the designer, who writes and updates her own feed."

A good use case for designers.

QR Codes Are Perfect For The Internet of Things

via shkspr.mobi

"The costs associated with setting this up are close to zero. Amortized over every sachet it's probably less than the cost of a grain of salt.
There's no opportunity cost lost - what else could you stick on the side of a packet that small?
I like the fact that I can instantly see nutritional information and can certainly see it being more useful on larger items. But, again, that's the point. QR codes are free - so you might as well stick them on everything."
Do read the full post - great points contrasting QR Codes and NFC.

Singapore leads the world on mobile take up

via wallblog.co.uk

"90% of Singapore owns a smartphone". The numbers should be similar for other major cities.

QR Code awareness is also very high. For a recent contest we offered multiple channels for entering the contest, about 95% preferred to participate by scanning the QR Code!

Proof of purchase for QR Code Contests

Contests and sweepstakes are an effective way for companies to generate interest in their products. The problem is, most of these promotions still require pen, paper and traditional postal mail for registration and for supplying a proof of purchase.

We solved the first half of the problem earlier this year, enabling consumers to enter drawings by simply scanning a QR code and then registering with a few keystrokes on their smartphones.

Mobilizing the proof of purchase requirement was a bit trickier.  However, with the recent release of Apple iOS 6, we were able to enable consumers to take photos of their purchase receipts and to easily upload/attach them to the mobile contest registration form.

By the way, if some of your users are still using earlier versions of the software on their phones - the system provides for alternate mechanisms for uploading the receipt later.

You can try out our new mobile contest registration functionality by scanning the QR code below (a sample contest registration form appears to the left):

We also make it easy for companies to manage their QR code contests and drawings. Below is a sample of our administrative report, showing the email addresses of the registered users, as well as photos of their purchase receipts:

If you’d like help in mobilizing your pen-and-paper contests, please:

Related posts:
 QR Codes for Contests 
 QR Code Mobile Forms Data Capture and Export

QR codes for school projects

via qrcodepress.com

"The QR codes that are placed on the books in the library give the kids the chance to scan and then listen to information about what is found within its pages. The fifth grade students have been tasked with creating reviews for the books that they have read, so that other kids attending the school can listen to them and learn more about what the book is about."

Great idea for school projects using QR Codes!

QR Codes Streamline Permitting in Roanoke, Va.

via govtech.com

'Roanoke officials see the QR codes on permit placards, added last spring, as a valuable service they can provide to their customers. McHugh reports that the main reason customers use QR codes is to request an inspection once they’ve reached a certain stage of their project.
”It's really just another tool that we can utilize, and something to give a little bit of ease to our customers in the community,” he said.'

Another great use case for QR Codes!

Managing such projects on a large scale becomes easier with specialized technologies like:

Database integrated QR Codes (permit code generation):
http://blog.qryptal.com/2012/09/bulk-database-integrated-qr-codes-with.html

Mobile forms (requesting inspections):
http://blog.qryptal.com/2012/09/qr-code-mobile-forms-data-capture-and.html

QR code tagging project in Philippines

via webgeek.ph

"Examples of a Cebu cultural heritage with a QR code is the San Juan Bautista Parish Church located in Pari-an. This church is a small but unremarkable chapel that stands on the ruins of what used to be the most opulent church in Cebu. That church was torn down, reportedly in the late 1870s, because of a conflict between Pari-an residents and a Spanish friar. So there you are, looking at a small, unexceptional chapel but your phone is showing you the grand San Juan Bautista Church as it used to stand."

Another good use case for tourism. Content and QR Codes for projects like these can be managed easily with:
http://blog.qryptal.com/2012/09/bulk-database-integrated-qr-codes-with.html

QR codes make plant identification easier at Cincinnati parks

via wvxu.org

This is a great use case: can convert a stroll in the park to an in-field learning experience. Doing this kind of stuff is very easy and manageable with Qryptal's database integrated QR Codes:
http://blog.qryptal.com/2012/09/bulk-database-integrated-qr-codes-with.html