Are QR Codes on Business Cards - Essential or Not?

Have you climbed on the QR code bandwagon yet, or are you still wondering what all the fuss is about? These little boxy bar-codes have some people enthusing over all their applications - you can cram all your contact information into them on business cards, so clients can just scan it all in with their Smartphones; you can conceal a url in one and send clients to any web page you choose. Others however are left cold by the whole business, and others still don't know what they are. So how essential is it to use QR codes on your business cards these days?

The answer is of course that it depends. Most of all it depends on your target group of clients.

Use QR codes if your clients are media savvy, tech-orientated, smart-phone users. They will welcome the ability to scan in your contact details at the click of their phone camera and probably wouldn't take the trouble to enter them manually anyway if you didn't have the QR code available to make things easy for them.

QR codes are not essential if your main client base is conservative, technophobe, or just are not smart-phone users. These clients prefer traditional formats to business cards and are not impressed by the latest techie gadgets. You would be wasting the space taken up by the QR code if all your clients are of this type.

What about if your client base is broad, including both technophile and technophobe? One approach that has been tried and tested is to have a double-sided business card. One side has the traditional format with contact details all laid out. The reverse has the same design but with a QR code incorporating all the contact details.