QR Codes and Business Cards
Not too long ago, business cards were the easiest way to exchange contact information at social and networking events. Getting your business card into the hand (and hopefully, the card file) of a prospective client was considered a foot in the door. But this is the time of mobile. Just handing out business cards doesn’t have the same effect anymore. Instead of simply getting your card into someone’s hand, what you really want now is to get your contact information into their phone.
Enter the QR code.
As QR codes become more and more popular in the United States, we are seeing them on billboards, TV, print media, etc. But the one place that they are still surprisingly underrepresented is the business card. One of the standard formats for a QR code is designed to hold contact information. Placing it on your business card, like in the example below, provides people with a quick and easy way to get your contact information into their smartphone. And the easier we make a task, the more likely it is to happen.
Comments
Paul,
While you are conceptually correct that a QR code can trigger a contact, it is not that easy. It turns out that there are different formats for contact info (vCard, hCard, etc.) supported by Apple/Android/Rm devices and there is no way to program a QR code to do more than one. This means that one code won’t work for all smart phones.
For this reason we decided to point our QR code on our cards to the website. Sigh…
Kelly.
Great point Kelly.
In truth it is the bar code reader, not necessarily the device OS, that determines whether or not the QR code can be correctly read. From my informal testing, the MECARD format that is generated by Google’s Chart Wizard proved to be the most recognizable across readers.
ZXing’s Barcode reader for Android could recognize the most formats, with i-nigma’s QR Datamatrix Reader for iOS was a close second. Sadly, there are very few good, free QR readers for RIM users, and those that I could find had difficulty processing the contact code.
I have elected to use the MECARD format on my cards, with the understanding that there will be some people who won’t be able to take advantage of it.
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