If you’ve been following our blog you will have seen that in our recent post “14 Top Tips to Increase Your Sales with Direct Mail” one of our tips was using QR codes to make it as easy as possible for your recipients to act on your mailing.
We’ve now opened up our own QR Code generator to our API users to make it even easier for you to do exactly that! Using this system, with a simple API call you can generate QR codes ‘on the fly’ and include them in your direct mail pieces.
The data string the QR code points to can be different for every recipient, making it very easy to combine your QR codes with personalised URLS (PURLs), allowing you to seamlessly merge your printed and digital content into a fully personalised individual experience, and track individual responses to your campaign too.
What is a QR Code then?
A QR code is a square image that looks and functions in a similar way to a barcode, and will look a bit like this;
QR code stands for ‘Quick Response’ code. QR codes are 2 dimensional bar codes, with data stored both vertically and horizontally (unlike the the 1 dimensional ‘line’ bar codes (known as UPC codes) that you are familiar with on the back of your favourite brand of coffee.
Being 2 dimensional QR codes can store considerably more information that a UPC code, over 230 times as much in fact, which means that QR codes are a great way to encode any web address that you would like to your recipients to visit; a personalised page (PURL) on your website, a YouTube video, a facebook page or post, or any other hyperlink of your choice.
With our API QR code generator your QR code works as an ‘image-based hypertext link’ that can be used to take people from your direct mail to any website you would like them to visit online.
How do recipients use my QR codes?
Any recipient with a smartphone can simply use their phone camera to scan the QR code on postcard or letter you’ve sent them, and their phone will take them straight to your link. It really is as simple as that!
Is It Secure?
As an ISO27001 accredited company your data security is important to us. To avoid any potential security issues from revealing your API key in public code we’ve also introduced public API keys (which are restricted on the Stannp platform to non-sensitive requests like generating QR codes).
You will need to generate a Public Key from your Stannp account’s API page before you can use the QR code Generator.
To find out more about generating a public QR code and how to set up you API QR calls, you can use our online API documentation here: https://www.stannp.com/direct-mail-api/tools
We hope you’ve found this guide useful. Don’t forget, for more useful hints tips and info find us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and speak to your account manager.
