Hello all, Ian here..
So we have all come to know that I am on the marketing team here for Robbins’ Rehabilitation. What I do though ranges from getting to know the doctors and their staff, to working with social media. The blog being my baby, of course, but I also get to work with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other forms of exposure. But something as of late that everyone in the marketing world has been using is this nifty little tool called the QR Code. What is it you might ask? The QR code is that little, square critter that you see floating around everywhere now. It slightly resembles a small compact barcode, black and white blocks and squiggles. Sound familiar now? When I stated that it is everywhere, I wasn’t lying either. I actually had one on my ketchup bottle and my toothpaste. Everywhere! They are nifty and is a great way to drive folks to your business’ website, however at this time they are still limited in their usage. Let’s get a little bit more in to what they even do and what you can do with them.
The QR code, which stands for Quick Response Code, is basically a barcode for your Smartphone. Unlike the old barcode that was designed to be mechanically scanned by a narrow beam of light, the QR code is detected as a 2-dimensional digital image by a semiconductor image sensor and is then digitally analyzed by a programmed processor. The processor locates the three distinctive squares at the corners of the image, and normalizes image size, orientation, and angle of viewing, with the aid of a smaller square near the fourth corner. The small dots are then converted to binary numbers and validity checked with an error-correcting code. In short, it’s a quick link to any website associated with that code. Doritos bag? Just aim and soon you are on your way to special offers and deals for Doritos. On your ketchup bottle? Yes, you are actually going to get specials and deals regarding your favorite tomato paste/puree. The only limitations to the QR code however is that you are literally stuck to just Smartphone users. In this day and age, most people have Smartphones, but for those folk (like my mother) who refuse to move on in the technological age, you are sadly not allowed to play with the QR codes around town. We are actually starting to implement QR coding to our products as well, thus the cause of topic for this weeks blog. While you are going through physical therapy with Robbins, we are with you in each exercise, but after you are done we give you exercise cards to continue your program at home. I’ve gone over our video exercises on-line but what we didn’t tell you is that these QR codes are on these exercise cards which…. anyone? Take you directly to the video correlated to the exercise! Awesome? We like to think so. They should be done soon, so that gives everyone a few more weeks to get the new iPhone or Droid. (Don’t want to leave out a brand)
It really is a very easy way to get the fastest deals from the manufacturer and to surf the web from your phone, because typing out the URL is just too tiring. It is as easy as aim, click, and PRESTO! Now if only the geniuses of marketing could come up with a way to lift the phone for me so the QR codes are just scanned with no effort at all. That is all for now but hopefully you folks have all been a tad enlightened to what these little boxes are on everything you see. Just aim at one and see where it’ll take you. I wonder where the world of marketing will take us next?
Yours,
Ian G of Robbins Rehabilitation
