Tips on How to Use QR Codes for Your Dental Marketing
The question I got today is “What are QR Codes and how do you use them?”
What are QR Codes?
QR Codes are those black and white graphics that appear on some marketing materials on TV, websites, and print advertising. They are computer codes for smart phones to scan with their camera using a QR reader app and then it sends you to a specific destination through your phone’s internet capabilities.
It can be send to a URL or a page, a picture in Facebook , or even contact information.
The important thing about QR codes is that, it is mobile enabled.
How do you use QR Codes?
For our mobile clients, if we put QR codes on their marketing pieces so we can send the prospective patient to a specific area without them having to type in a URL or phone number. If they saw a marketing material about implants, we are going to send them to a mobile optimized squeeze page with information and an offer that appeals to them in exchange for their name and email about the benefits of implant dentistry only.
We’re NOT going to send them to the practice’s main webpage where they could get lost in information that is not related to implant dentistry.
Be Consistent to Your Message and Where to Send Them
So that brings up an important point. The number 1 mistake that I see with people using QR codes is that they are sending people to the main page. Of course, the main page talks about everything, every service you offer, and information there is very general.
But that’s too much information for someone looking for something precise. What we want to do is to be consistent in our message all along. We have to be specific. So if you want to talk about implants and you want to give more information about just that.
Once on that mobile squeeze page, we also add another feature so they can click right on the page to contact your office directly. This option is called “Click to Call Feature”. They will just push the button on the squeeze page and that will automatically call your office for them from their phone. They don’t have to write down your number or type it in. It is all on autopilot.
All they have to do is scan the code with their mobile phone, read the page, hit the click to call button on the screen for more information or for an appointment.
This is the best situation and it grabs people who are ready to move forward now.
QR Codes and Banner Advertising
QR code can take a lot of heavy lifting. If you have a good headline with it, you can run a smaller ad with just the headline and QR code that is connected to the mobile squeeze page. All the benefits of the service, testimonials, information and offer are there on the page, not in the ad.
A lot of our doctors are using that benefit with exterior banners. If they have a high traffic area around their office, they have a banner outside with a patient driven headline and a QR code on it. If it is a busy intersection or an area with a lot of foot traffic, you hang your banners with QR code there.
Then if a prospective patient goes by, they don’t have to write down any information, they simply scan the QR code with their mobile phone and voila! They can get your information.
So that’s how effective QR codes are. But remember, don’t send them to somewhere that they can get lost. Send them to a mobile (with few graphics on it so it loads quickly) enabled squeezed page.
Be sure to take this information and use it to get more new dental patients contacting you for an appointment.
Always be consistent!