Authors, Small Business Owners, Educators, Concept: Add a QR (Quick Response) Code to your business card and direct people INSTANTLY to your article, your novel, your website, your linkedin page.
The "Back Story": We fell in love with Newport Beach from the moment we visited there several years ago. We positioned ourselves to live and do our business in one of the most beautiful areas in California. How? We live in an RV resort and write and do business from there! It's lively, it's fun. It's blocks from the ocean. People are always on vacation and they come from all over the country. Because we experienced Newport Beach as a non-native, I was discovering great spots that every visitor would want to experience. So I wrote a one-day, do-it-yourself itinerary for newcomers and visitors to the area. Everytime we met a new person at our resort, I'd ask them if they had seen the view from Corona del Mar or Crystal Cove yet. I'd tell them about the Balboa Island Fun Zone Tour, and then direct them to my article which was on a website with a long URL. It was too "hit" and "miss" to explain to people where to go, but my husband suggested that if we printed the QR code right on our business card, we could show them the article in an instant.
How It Works: With a QR code on your business card, your customers, readers, students, clients, etc. can scan the image with their smartphone and go straight to the page you want them to.! It works well. If your customer doesn't know how to use a QR scanner, just direct them to Free Apps for QR Scanner that are available for iOS and Android devices in their respective app stores. We don't know if one is better than the other, but here's the one we use on our Android phone:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kaspersky.qrscanner
How to Create the QR Image: There are several websites that will do that for free, like this one: http://www.qrcode-monkey.com/
Tips:
- You might want to use an image bigger than the one we did because the QR Scanner app has to focus and re-focus to resolve the image when it's too small.
- Since your customer will probably go right to your website on his cell, be sure your website looks great on a mobile app. I had some extraneous pictures on my "What to See in the OC" article which were cumbersome in the mobile version, so I moved them around to look good both on the web and on the mobile app.
Note: If you want to see how this works, you can simply hold your phone and scan my business card with your cellphone and my article at http://billiekelpin.hubpages.com/hub/Trippin-in-LA-What-to-See-in-the-OC will appear in a flash on your phone. If you have questions, just email leftpawedpuppy@gmail.com with "OR" question in the subject line, or leave a comment here :)
