Tag: online pathways

The Death and Rebirth of QR Codes

How to Use QR Codes to Enhance Your Marketing Strategy

December 28, 2022

Part 2: The Death and Rebirth of QR Codes

With the rebirth of QR codes, your business can (and should) leverage the QR tool to enhance your marketing and advertising. Diversify your marketing strategy by using QR codes to do the following three things:

1. Drive Traffic to Your Website

QR codes can provide opportunities for prospective leads to quickly visit your website, learn more about your business, or sign up for an advertised event.

2. Optimize Calls to Action

The main role of the QR code is to connect traditional and digital marketing. Adding the codes to flyers, posters, brochures, mailers, postcards, and other print marketing materials is much easier than typing out full destination links. QR codes eliminate the need for URL typing or memorization and connect a lead to your preferred destination on their own device.

Whether you’re selling a product, driving donations to your nonprofit, or generating leads for your school’s information session, a QR code will easily take an interested person to the right page in a matter of seconds.

3. Visualize Promotional Materials

QR codes can lead directly to various multimedia elements, such as images, videos, or music, enriching the customer experience with more than just text. This supplemental material adds an interactive element to your ad, making it stand out.

Translation services, grocery shopping, online orders—these are just a few of the capabilities QR codes already offer. QR codes will most likely transform in the future and become even more versatile, which should serve as another incentive for marketers to hop on this trend now and utilize QR codes in their marketing strategies going forward.

If you or your business needs help staying up to date with the best marketing practices such as this one, let us know. 5 Horizons always keeps up with the latest marketing trends–and you can too on our blog.

The Death and Rebirth of QR Codes

Understanding How QR Codes Have Evolved Over Time

December 14, 2022

Part 1: The Death and Rebirth of QR Codes

A Brief History

Quick Response codes, known simply as “QR codes,” were first invented in 1994 by an automotive company. Back then, QR codes helped in the manufacturing process, tracking vehicles and parts.

Over the years, the use of QR codes has moved beyond the automotive industry, but their main function remained–to merge the physical and digital worlds together. 

Death to QR Codes

Though briefly popular for event marketing when QR codes became accessible on cell phones in 2010, the technology never fully caught on. QR codes remained mostly unrecognizable and sometimes even inconvenient because users had to download additional apps to scan the codes.

The Sudden Rebirth

In September 2017, Apple Inc. released the iOS 11 update, providing iPhones with the ability to scan QR codes directly from the phone, eliminating the need for third-party apps. This built-in accessibility became paramount in 2020 when COVID-19 shut down the entire world.

Like a phoenix, QR codes rose from the dead, providing contactless options for digital menus, payment, post-event surveys, and more. QR codes brought enormous relief to restaurants, businesses, and outdoor events that were struggling during the era of social distancing. 

Looking Toward the Future

It’s been over two years since the beginning of the pandemic, and the usage of QR codes is still high across a multitude of industries. The public quickly adopted the practice of scanning QR codes directly with their smartphone cameras, which eased the burden for struggling businesses to cut down costs on printed marketing materials. With such a streamlined comeback, the popularity of QR codes can (and should) be leveraged by marketers and advertisers in multiple ways. 


If you or your business needs help staying up to date with the best marketing practices such as this one, let us know. 5 Horizons always keeps up with the latest marketing trends–and you can too on our blog.