Resources

I was helping a bookstore in Denver last April, and the owner, Mark, had a problem. His shop was tucked away on a side street, and even with great window displays, people would walk right by. We printed a simple sign with a QR code that linked directly to his Google Maps location and stuck it in…

You might think QR codes peaked around 2012, but here's a surprise: in 2023, Starbucks reported that QR code scans in their U.S. stores increased by 47% year-over-year. That's not a fluke. Business owners, marketers, and tech professionals are quietly reinventing how they connect with customers,…

I was reviewing analytics for a boutique gym in Denver last month when the owner, Mark, pointed at his front desk. "We put that QR code to app store on our counter in January," he said. "By March, we had 213 new app downloads directly from it. That's about 40% of our total sign-ups." He didn't…

I was sorting through last quarter's client feedback when a note from Sarah, a marketing director at a mid-sized firm in Seattle, caught my eye. She'd been to a major conference in March 2023, handed out roughly 500 glossy business cards, and heard back from maybe 30 people. The rest? Lost to…

Have you ever considered how much time we waste on inefficient processes? I was at a cafe in Seattle last week, watching a person fumble with their phone, trying to manually type a URL from a window decal. It took them 47 seconds. That's a lifetime in customer attention. This is where

I was reviewing campaign data for a client, a craft brewery in Portland, back in March 2023. Their email newsletter had a solid 10,000 subscribers, but the call-to-action button for a new seasonal release was only getting a 2.1% click rate. We swapped it for a qr code for a link…

I remember walking into The Harborview Hotel in Seattle last March. It was a rainy Tuesday, and the front desk staff looked exhausted. Lisa, the front office manager, pulled me aside. "We're spending roughly 20 minutes per check-in just handing out Wi-Fi passwords," she said. "That's about 200…

Last March, I watched Sarah, the event manager at a historic venue in Savannah, nearly break down during a 300-person wedding. Guests were backed up at the door, fumbling with paper tickets, and the bride's mother was glaring. We'd talked about adding an invitation qr code months earlier, but…

Sarah, the marketing director at a mid-sized tech firm in Austin, told me something last week that stuck with me. They'd been using standard link QR codes for events, but response rates were flat. Then, in November 2022, they switched to sending a pre-written qr code message…

Last March, I worked with a tech startup in Seattle that was hemorrhaging time on no-shows for their weekly syncs. Sarah, their operations lead, was sending calendar links via email and Slack, but about 30% of invites got lost in the shuffle. We tried something simple: turning a link…