Creating QR Code Flyers for Bars and Restaurants

If paper flyers seem dated to you, then it’s time to add a QR code to your flyers and optimize your worldview.

Traditional marketing assets remain a highly effective marketing tactic. Customers love to hold things. Even digital natives enjoy a tactile experience while shopping and eating out, and as much time as customers spend online, when they go to bars and restaurants, you can reach them more effectively with paper flyers, posters, and brochures. Adding a dynamic QR code to your tangible advertisements transforms them into a QR code flyer, adding a layer of marketing muscle in the digital language customers speak.

Why QR Codes?

QR codes are a matrix barcode that contain product and brand information that customers access through their smartphone. Once scanned, QR codes lead users to a designated URL, often the business’s website, where they direct customers to store information, promotional campaigns, product listings, and discounts, and help drive in-store traffic.

QR codes have experienced a resurgence as a safe, socially distant way for customers to get information quickly and efficiently. While boosting print marketing efforts, QR codes provide scan analytics and user information so business can optimize their marketing campaigns.

Why Use QR Codes on Flyers, Posters, and Print Marketing Materials?

A QR code flyer and QR code poster expand your offline campaign to your online platforms, blending digital and tradition tactics for our hybrid world of screen time and brick and mortar locations. Effective marketing is about finding customers were they are out in the physical world so that they can find you.

1. QR codes unlock digital experiences and reduce print costs

   Printed on a single sheet of paper, flyers are simple, inexpensive assets. Nicely designed, you put your static details on them including logo, operating hours, website, address, and contact info on them. Dynamic QR codes let customers access additional information, such as up-to-date operating hours and evolving offerings. Optimizing flyers with QR codes gives paper assets a longer life and allows you to make changes to the digital content without reprinting the flyer. QR codes can also unlock immersive digital experiences, such as games, giveaways, coupons, and recipes that promote your brand.

2. QR code promotions can influence purchasing behavior

   Bars and restaurants use QR codes to advertise special events, offer discounts, and announce promotions. Your bar or restaurant’s QR code menu can promote cocktail specials, seasonal beers, and holiday dishes. Baking seasonal pies? Pairing Octoberfest ales with bratwursts? Serving summer brews on your sunny outdoor patio? QR code flyers broadcast the news and influence purchasing behavior. When QR codes direct customers to your website, you can playfully post about how much of your seasonal craft beer is left in your keg: quantities are going fast! Following your depleting keg in real time can motivate customers to come for a pint.

3. QR codes optimize any type of traditional advertising

   When sized correctly, QR codes work on nearly any type of sign. Add a QR code to a QR code poster on your bar’s front windows, to nearby bus stations, and the waiting area outside your restroom. Add a code to create a QR code banner to advertise your bar and restaurant at local farmer’s markets, street fairs, and art shows. Add a QR to the advertising wrapped around delivery trucks and company vehicles to direct customers to your website. Whether it’s a QR code flyer or an optimized mobile billboard on wheels, customers don’t have to jot down or memorize your address or phone number. Find customers were they are out in the physical world so they can find you.

4. QR code marketing expands the reach of your promotions

   Channel strategy is about reaching your customers where they are, and your customers are out there in the physical world, and they’re on social media. Adding QR codes to flyers combines online and conventional marketing tactics into one asset and will drive followers to restaurants’ Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.

   “This is the first time generations holding the most purchasing power are doing everything online,” Rachel McGann wrote in Localogy. That means QR code flyers can transcend generational differences, bridge the gap between digital and analog, and cast a wider consumer net.

5. QR code flyers provide valuable consumer data and analytics

   Dynamic QR code flyers let you track the number of times a code got scanned, understand, and optimize QR code performance. They track the time, location, and date of each scan, and what device did the scanning. Certain QR code software also allows businesses to retarget the consumers who engaged with the QR codes. Insight into your target audiences’ behavior lets you gauge your marketing efforts in a way print material never could, so you can modify your strategy for increased ROI. Because when you know where flyers are getting scanned and by whom, you can determine the most effective places to distribute your next flyers and which content resonates the most.