WeChat QR Code Marketing

This post is the first part of the five-week-long Flow WeChat Marketing Special series, in which every week we introduce and explain the practical use of selected WeChat features.

QR Codes: Simple way of connecting offline and online experiences

QR codes (Quick Response codes) are an array of black and white squares, that are the two dimensional version of barcodes. They are often used to store text, URLs, account information or even coupon codes for sales offers.

QR code scanning is one of the most popular features of WeChat. This is how we add friends and how we start following brands, superstars and WeChat official accounts. Due to the deep integration of the QR code feature into the platform, QR codes in China are now primarily associated with WeChat . QR codes are surrounding us everywhere in our daily life, in restaurants, shopping malls or coffee shops, taking digital marketing and consumer experience to a territory where the virtual world meets our offline life.

Brands often use WeChat QRs to extend their offline events to the online world.
In 2014, at the annual Nike Sport Festival in Shanghai, visitors could take part in badge-collecting game by scanning a QR code. Participants of the game could win prizes, meet sports stars and access extra content on Nike’s WeChat page.

During the “Modern Elites” campaign, Martell Cognac was exhibiting photographs of successful creative professionals in high foot-traffic places like the Beijing and Shanghai Airports. By scanning the WeChat QR a beside the portraits users could receive audio commentary of the picture, meanwhile also taking their first step to engage with the brand online.

The Chinese APP Yaoyaopaidui “遥遥排队” took QR code use to a whole new level. Their service allows users to virtually wait in line for their table in the restaurant by just scanning the QR code of their waiting ticket using their official WeChat account. Through their WeChat minisite you can also browse through the restaurants in your area and check if you need to wait in line. The virtual queue made up of every other user who scanned their own waiting ticket.

Integrating the WeChat QR code scanning feature to your dedicated campaign web page is a relatively easy step in terms of web development. Using a few lines of code from WeChat software development kit, you can create a button on your own page that triggers the WeChat QR scanning feature if your web page is opened in the WeChat browser. This allows your web server and application to retrieve data encapsulated in QR code, leveraging WeChat’s scanning feature.

There are many practical ways to use WeChat QR scanning feature:

could speed up your event registration process
could be a gateway to enter competitions
could help accessing rich online content on exhibitions

Overall, WeChat QR is a powerful O2O feature that is very user friendly and could be applied in a wide variety of ways and it can certainly have a place in your marketing arsenal.

References:
http://jingdaily.com/selfies-puzzles-and-quizzes-the-top-5-wechat-luxury-campaigns-of-2013/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140708000841-1212042-maximizing-your-wechat-campaigns
http://admin.wechat.com/wiki/index.php?title=JS_SDK_DOCUMENT#API_for_Scanning_a_QR_Code