Author: Nikhil Khandelwal

Link offline and online using MysteryQR

Post author By Nikhil Khandelwal
Post date October 6, 2020

A decade back, marketers tried to connect offline customers with their online platforms by using QR codes only to discover that they were way ahead of their time because of slower internet connection speeds, lower smartphone penetration rates and the need to download separate apps to use the technology.

Fast forward today, everyone now has a smartphone clubbed with fast speed internet and QR code scanner and that has resulted in the usage of QR Codes go up by leaps and bounds. The number of smartphone users worldwide today surpasses 3.5 billion and is forecast to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years.

QR codes allow targeting smartphone users in a quick, simple, and affordable way

In today’s world, it’s all about accessing everything in a fraction of a second and getting the information across from one person to another or from a business to consumer. Now days, users are done with anything that’s slow and time-consuming. It’s all about being instant and fast, especially in the world of marketing. QR codes can provide more information about the product or service without a sweat and the information quickly goes to the user’s device.

QR code marketing is more affordable than other mobile marketing solutions owing to the various benefits.

QR codes are images that can be decoded through specially built-in readers in tablets and smartphones. These are two-dimensional codes that contain a lot of information than traditional bar codes.

QR codes are easily trackable, appeal to people’s curiosity, and can be found in many places such as social media apps, newspapers, billboards, magazines, web pages, and any other marketing material.

Gamification in marketing by using MysteryQR

Marketers are always on a lookout to make a customer feel special by offering discounts, promos, coupons, deals, giveaways. In order to gain an unfair advantage over others who are possibly trying to do the same, marketers use MysteryQR as it’s a gamified way to gratify the customers. Gamification is a new but rapidly growing trend impacting a wide range of areas such as education, marketing, and others. Companies are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of gamification. Gartner studies highlight that 70% of companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list are currently using gamification techniques and that 50% of innovation processes will be gamified in the coming years.

There are upfront benefits of using MysteryQR are:-

Instant Gratification – Over 80% of the customers appreciate instant gratification via mobile offers while shopping
Mass Gratification – Customers do not like ads, they love to get gratified. This can be achieved with simple messaging such as “Scan to Win” in the offline or online space. We all have seen how people queue up to spin the wheel of fortune to try their luck. Scanning a QR code is exponentially faster than that.
Play with the marketing budget – Marketers can play with their marketing budget as because of the gamification concept, their cost to run the flat discounts or coupons can go down.
Build the database – This is where marketers win big. Upon scanning, in order to win a mystery reward, the user key in their phone number or email id and the reward is sent to them digitally. This is indeed a valuable piece of information that every marketer looks up to.

All this information helps marketers to craft their next marketing strategy, stay connected with their customers, grow their online presence, channel the footfall to their online platform.

Read more: What is MysteryQR?

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MysteryQR vs. Regular Promo Campaigns

Post author By Nikhil Khandelwal
Post date October 4, 2020

One of the key differences between the regular campaign and MysteryQR campaign is that with MysteryQR you can promote your multiple campaigns with the help of one unified QR code in a gamified manner.

All marketers, SMEs run promo campaigns to engage with their customers. In fact, most of them run multiple campaigns simultaneously.

It could be to:-

Acquire new customers,
Retain the existing customers,
Reward loyal customers,
Cross-sell them to your new service,
Up-sell them to drive their average spending.

While at the consumer end, these campaigns are pretty straight forward but at the business end, executing each and every campaign can be a task to juggle with multiple items.

And after rolling out the campaign, there is a possibility that campaign might not perform as expected because:-

It simply doesn’t attract customers or;
It could be because your competition decides to do better promotion or;
Your campaign is not getting enough visibility as you are located on the 5^th floor of the shopping mall or;
You do not understand digital marketing as it is evolving too fast, and even the most trusted digital marketing resources can go out of date almost overnight.

At that point, the problem becomes even bigger as it gets difficult to go back. As a marketer, business owner, you cannot pull back your campaign, or even make the edits in the structure. For most of the business owners who are lean on resources, they end up giving it up and accepting that nothing more can be done.

Aggressive Campaign Structures

MysteryQR makes the campaigns stand out from others. While rest of the world is stuck up with the offers like 10% or 20% off, MysteryQR allows the marketers to do aggressive campaigns like “Scan to get up to 100% off” or “Scan the QR, Win up to Free Tesla”. Like, this image shows an eye-catching billboard in a shopping mall asking customers to scan the QR code and grab a change to win a Tesla.

Promoting Multiple Campaigns

Businesses can promote multiple campaigns via one single QR code. Businesses run multiple campaigns at any given point in time. Let’s take an example of Domino’s. You receive a flyer with multiple promotions along with the Domino’s delivery but not many people look at it as it’s too much content. Putting up a sticker on the delivery box that says “Scan to Win a Promo” on the box is a much better call to action.

Leveraging on the existing channels to increase the visibility

Marketing is not about spending money. It is about having multiple channels where you can push your campaigns to reach out to the audience. Many marketers, SMEs, business owners; do not acknowledge the ecosystem they have that can be used to go beyond branding purposes and to promote their campaigns and digital platforms. It can be business cards, delivery boxes, shopping bags, receipts, webinars, staff, blogs, flyers, and other promotional materials.

Optimizing operational & marketing costs

MysteryQR benefits the marketers and SMEs by keeping the campaign execution cost low. There is so no need to burn money in printing the promotional material that usually has a shelf life of a few weeks or a month. Also business can improve the ROI of the campaign as rewards can be tiered in a manner that can bring down the blended cost lower than what usually merchants incur when they do flat discount campaigns.

Get Started with MysteryQR

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Why Marketers and SMEs use MysteryQR?

Post author By Nikhil Khandelwal
Post date October 4, 2020

Everybody loves to get gratified

People do not like to see advertisements, they love to get gratified. As per the survey done by Global Industry Analysts in the US, 80% of customers appreciate instant gratification via mobile while shopping.

Connecting the offline-online world

Marketers, SMEs, businesses are targeting mobile users via QR codes as they are cost-effective, universally applicable. QR Codes help marketers reach their target audience in the offline world and connect them directly to their digital platforms. At any given point in time, marketers, SMEs, businesses run multiple marketing campaigns across various online, offline channels.

We have seen merchants doing promotions:

For off-peak hours
For off-peak days
For specific days
For a particular store
For social media
For early bird offers
For giveaways
For cross-selling
For upselling

The list can go on and there are many combinations that can be added further.

Marketers love MysteryQR as they can amplify all of their promotions by collating all of them into one QR code and putting them across online and offline channels. Upon scanning, the user gets gratified by a mystery promo from the pool of options that are pre-fed by the marketers or business owners.

Guaranteed wins for the marketers and business owners by using MysteryQR

Gratify your customers – We all have played spin the wheel or scratch card in our lives and unanimously we all agree how appealing they are, right? We’re all human; it’s normal to want instant gratification. MysteryQR brings the concept of gamification to make the marketing campaigns go viral. The good part is that it doesn’t require marketers to spend a lot in building heavy billboards or printing tons of scratch cards. All they need is a QR code that can be put up on the online and offline channels.
Building database – MysteryQR helps marketers and business owners to build the database at a fraction of cost. Upon scanning, the user key in their email/phone number, and the reward is sent to the user. Owning a database is super valuable. It can be used further for many different monetization purposes. It can be setting up your own not-so-complicated CRM mechanism, loyalty platform, and more.
Measure & Improving ROI – MysteryQR allows marketers to measure the performance of their campaigns by the number of users who scanned, claimed, redeemed, and redirected to their digital platform.
Totally customizable – MysteryQR allows the marketers and business owners to play around with the offers that are doing well by pushing them more and editing the offers where redemption is low. Marketers and business hours spend hours, days, and months to roll out a campaign and often they face bottleneck because of a lack of creative resources such as designers, content writers, or even getting physical printing done. With MysteryQR, marketers, and business owners do not need to haggle around with such stuff. Imagine you are a restaurant owner and you forecast a lot of perishable inventory that may not move off the shelf by end of the day as it has suddenly started raining or generally footfall is low. You can just go to the backend and throw a crazy deal such as “10 cents for a pastry after 9 pm”, set the quantity, and share the MysteryQR within your network or to the people who are around. There are numerous possible curated use cases that any marketer or business owner can think of that can fit their business.
Easy to roll out – MysteryQR doesn’t require users to download an additional app or any sort of integration at the business end. You can create a campaign from your mobile itself on a real-time basis.
Incremental Revenue – Marketers and business owners use MysteryQR to upsell and cross-sell. You do not need to always give a deep discount to attract a customer. No need to re-invent the wheel. Just put your promos for the inventory that you want to push out. Example – Spend $100 to avail the promo. If you are a platform that has super high traffic, then you can even push promos sponsored by other businesses. You can recall the promos that are funded by the banks, Visa, Mastercard running at big brands.
Optimize Resources – Marketers, SMEs, Business owners spend a lot of their resources in printing, re-printing exercise. Spend tons of money on Facebook ads that by the way, don’t give single-user data. There is no unfair advantage that marketers or SMEs or offline business get as they are doing the same campaigns which their competitor is doing. Digital Marketing is always evolving, and even the most trusted digital marketing resources can go out of date almost overnight. Small businesses looking to grow in the digital world know that internet marketing is a must. The shift toward digital marketing has become almost mandatory, impacting small businesses big time. The cost of creating sustainable digital marketing strategies can be immense. MysteryQR is emerging as a prominent tool for small businesses to bridge the gap between the online-offline world in a quick and simple manner.

Read more: What is MysteryQR?

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Do Marketers use QR Codes?

Post author By Nikhil Khandelwal
Post date October 4, 2020

QR Codes today are used everywhere, largely for marketing purposes to deliver an enhanced customer experience by brands and businesses of all sizes. But if you are a marketer who used QR Codes a decade back, you probably hate them. Back then, the end-users had a terrible experience using QR Codes: there were problems galore with mass end-user adoption.

Most consumers had terribly slow speed internet, did not own a smartphone and even when they did, they had to download an app that took forever to scan a QR code. Upon scanning the QR code, the websites where users get redirected to were not optimized for smartphones making the whole situation worse.

People stopped using it and hence QR Codes failed to pick up as a marketing tool.

Do people use QR Codes now?

QR codes are being used by millions now. Everyone now has a smartphone clubbed with fast speed internet and QR code scanner. The number of smartphone users worldwide today surpasses 3.5 billion and is forecast to further grow by several hundred million in the next few years. Smartphone owners do not have to download a separate QR Code app.

The use of QR Codes surpasses the bazillion mark. QR Code usage is now more than ever for marketing purposes, payment services, and various industry verticals for other useful use-cases. QR Codes have become an integral part of everyday life. In many countries, primarily QR codes are getting used for making payments, receiving offers, and unlocking coupons.

Why marketers are using QR codes?

Businesses and brands have come to realize just how powerful QR Codes are as a weapon in their marketing arsenal. People now keep track of their favorite brands and products through their mobile devices. Targeted to mobile users, QR Codes are cost-effective, universally applicable, and help marketers reach their target audience in the offline world connecting them directly to their digital platforms.

Since the Internet hardly extends beyond digital platforms by itself, object hyperlinking aims to extend it to the physical world by attaching tags with URLs to tangible objects or locations.

QR Codes do just that by linking in-store products to Internet resources, enhancing the value of the shopping experience for buyers. This is a simple and easy way to enhance shopper’s experience and how customers interact with your product and services.

QR codes allow contactless marketing – This is one of the essential reasons why QR codes are useful and can serve as an effective marketing tool, especially now that we are facing the Covid 19 pandemic that requires us to minimize human contact. Customers can access QR codes using their smartphones and be in control of the situation.
QR codes in marketing provide quick access to information – QR Code provides quick information directly to your target audience just by scanning them and without the need for bulky devices. Again, who doesn’t own a smartphone in this era?
QR codes can build a relationship with customers – QR codes in marketing allows marketers and business people to have a more in-depth insight into their products and services, helping them build a deeper connection and trust with their customers.
Bridge the gap between the online and offline world – Throughout the marketing campaign, marketers and business people use different types of medium to interact and engage with their audience, both offline and online media. QR codes help bridge this gap by integrating a virtual experience to their marketing that enhances the overall customer experience while being in a real-world setting.
Access to real-time information – Using a Dynamic QR code generator online, you can also give out updated information about your products or services by changing the data behind your QR code anytime you want without having to re-print the QR code. You can easily update them about the changes in your product, and they can instantly access such information by scanning the QR code.

QR codes in marketing pique customer’s curiosity – customized QR codes can spark customers’ curiosity, and many brands are using them as part of their effective marketing strategy.

Read more: What is MysteryQR?

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Spotlight on what is MysteryQR

Post author By Nikhil Khandelwal
Post date September 29, 2020
No Comments on Spotlight on what is MysteryQR

MysteryQR is redefining & re-engaging offline-online mobile advertising campaigns by using QR Code. It’s a gamified way to make the marketing campaigns go viral. Upon scanning the QR, the user gets a mystery promo. Merchants use the MysteryQR Code for multiple reasons that can get them extra advantage over others. It could be to drive engagement, build the database, avoid the challenges to execute complex digital marketing strategies, and leverage on their existing ecosystem.

Let’s take an example of Domino’s. Today, when you order Domino’s, you receive a flyer that has multiple promos on it but the large numbers of recipients do not act or react to it. Instead of spending a crazy amount of time, money, and the effort to roll out the next campaign; just place a MysteryQR on the delivery box with the text “Scan To Win”.

Now when user A scans the Mystery QR Code, he/she receives promo of Buy 1 Free 1
User B scans the same Mystery QR Code, he/she receives $5 off the next transaction
User C scans the same Mystery QR Code, he/she receives a free choco lava cake promo on the next transaction

QR codes are starting to pick up steam among the growing smartphone-browsing crowd – a statistic that has marketers brimming with creative ideas and promotions. Companies are finding innovative and unique ways to not only get you to scan their code, but boost its brand awareness in the process. And now, companies can gamify their marketing campaigns, bring down the cost, improve ROI, track data, and build CRM strategies.

We can highlight all the great opportunities you could get from using MysteryQR Codes on your existing platforms, but the best way to learn is through examples. Below are a few snippets from fictional brands to inspire you:-

Social Media

Billboards

Influencers Marketing

Printed Marketing Material

Business and Loyalty Cards

Receipts

Live Streaming

Press Release / Blogs

Delivery Box

Every business owner, be it SMEs or big boys, runs multiple campaigns at any given point in time. MysteryQR helps business owners to amplify their marketing promotions by expanding their reach to the masses. Running a campaign using MysteryQR Code helps you in multiple ways:

Promoting multiple campaigns – Merchants, SMEs, or business owners can collate all of their promos into one QR code
Aggressive promotions – We all quite often see merchants doing promotions like “Get 20% off”. Honestly, they do not make an impact anymore as every other merchant is doing the same. With MysteryQR, merchants can do aggressive and impactful campaigns like “Get up to 100% off”
Building database – Merchants can build a database at the fraction of a cost and such can data can be used from various angles to further, monetize it.
Gamifying campaigns – Users do not like to get advertised. Users love to get gratified and MysteryQR does exactly the same.
Campaigns going viral – Imagine if you see a billboard outside the mall that says “Scan and you can win up to a Free TESLA”. We are sure that you are definitely going to scan once and will push your friends and family as well to scan it. You are definitely going to go a step forward and share the photo of the QR code in your social media platform making the campaign go viral.
Cost-Effective – Running a MysteryQR code campaign is very cost-effective as you do not have to haggle with re-printing your flyers or printed materials again and again.
Customizable – MysteryQR code campaigns are totally customizable and can be edited anytime and anywhere easily. You can play around with your inventory, messaging, promotions easily
Optimize your resources – Many brands do not like to give discounts as it cheapens the brand value but they do not mind using their inventory to reward the customers. Example – You scan a code and receive a promo that says “Free Choco Lava Cake for $1 only after 9 pm”. It makes much more sense to move the perishable inventory off the shelves rather than dumping them. For customers, it would be a sweet deal 🙂