A few weeks ago I got an email from the place where I get my oil changed. This place is huge on coupons. They put them in the Sunday paper, if you live within a certain number of miles you receive them by mail, and now that I’m on their email list I get them by email.
Despite the fact that I get so many coupons from them, I never seem to be able to scrounge one up when I’m thousands of miles overdo and REALLY need that oil change. My fault, not theirs. But funnily enough, at that point in time, I usually rationalize putting it off until I get another coupon. This hurts both me (well, my car) and them.
So when I received the most recent email from them which contained a QR code, I immediately thought:
Cool, I’ll scan this and it will take me to their mobile app or at a minimum their Google Places page where I’ll always be able to put my hands on a coupon when I need it. Mu-ha-ha-ha.
No such luck. The QR code takes you to their Facebook page which doesn’t really have any useful content besides pictures of all of their locations throughout the state. This is a prime example of how not to use QR codes in your marketing.
Perhaps it would have been a little better if they’d said where the QR code would lead to, such as “Scan this code to Like Us On Facebook”. And certainly some more enticing content should be posted on their wall if they want visitors to convert into Likes.
If I were handling the mobile strategy for this company, I’d build a simple mobile app listing all of the locations, phone numbers, and hours of operations; a page with some tips to get better gas mileage or extend the life of your oil; a coupon of course (which they could change out easily based on the current offers they’re running); and maybe even a place for me to subscribe to SMS messages from them so they can alert me when they’ve got a REALLY great deal running.
It would probably cost them less than $1,000 to have this app built and maybe a couple hundred bucks a year to maintain it. A drop in the bucket compared to what they’re spending in the newspaper and on direct mail. But I guarantee it would pay off in both customer loyalty and customer frequency.
This is a funny video from Scott Stratten titled “The Problem with QR Codes”
Writer.