It’s 2022, and by now we are all familiar with QR codes and how to use them (unless, of course, you’ve been living off the grid—technologically speaking!). In fact, what was once a novel shortcut is now a serious enterprise marketing solution that is taking the world by storm— with more and more businesses and organizations utilizing QR codes in their marketing campaigns in some truly new and innovative ways.
If you’re just getting started with QR codes, you may be thinking about creating one that opens your app or website and, like many companies, you have those marketing channels in multiple languages. So you’ve settled on your QR strategy because you see their engagement and revenue potential, but you’re faced with quite the dilemma: What do you do when you have 5, 10, 15, or perhaps even more language destinations?
Your first instinct might be to have your QR code send all of your visitors to an international English site. Or perhaps you send traffic to a landing page where the user can choose their preferred language. A marketing best practice, however, is to remove unnecessary steps in the consumer journey. Why, you may ask? Well, because the sooner you present the page or screen where your customer can receive the needed information, buy the desired product, register for a service, or redeem an offer; the more likely it is that you’re building loyalty and ultimately revenue.
With that being said, we’re going to illustrate for you another option that will put you on the cutting edge of the QR experience— a single QR code that can immediately match your customer up with the localized website or app location that corresponds with their preferred language preference! Yes— we’re talking about one intelligent QR code that contains logic within it that instantly sends your user to the proper location. Almost sounds impossible, right?
For example, let’s say you have two french sites— one in French for France and another in French for Canada. And let’s say you had access to a single QR code that leads an unlimited number of language destinations. Wouldn’t that be the perfect solution? What if we told you that we can make it happen for you— that you don’t need tech resources and that there is nothing you need to install? That you yourself can create this unique multilingual QR code?
Trust us, you won’t find a feature like this with a free QR code generator.
URLgenius is the enterprise-grade QR code and app deep linking platform that allows you to create more advanced QR experiences. You can embed instructions into the QR code, which will send your visitors to an unlimited number of sites in different languages. Plus, the QR codes are dynamic, meaning that you can update the destinations at any time— even after the QR code has been printed!
A multilingual QR code takes your visitor to the destination that is aligned with their language-geo location setting in the browser of the device they used to scan the QR code.
For example, a multi-language QR code could be created with several different destinations for Spanish that include “Spanish-Spain,” “Spanish-Argentina,” “Spanish-United States,” etc. If the browser on the mobile device is set to Spanish-Spain, for example, it sends a signal of “es-es,” which URLgenius receives and uses to send to the user to the right site.
When consumers are delivered to a destination in their local language, you are conveying that your brand truly understands their audience, which ultimately increases your company’s chances of driving sales.
Multi-language QR codes enable multinational corporations to overcome linguistic hurdles in their QR campaigns to market their products and services globally and increase sales volume and brand engagement.
Now of course, when it comes to directing traffic to your brand’s website, social media is today’s most important channel. The multi-language use case mentioned above can also be applied to the links behind your social media campaigns.
Instead of routing all social traffic to a single international site set to the default English, you could instantly send each user to a different language geo destination—all from a single URLgenius campaign link based on their language preference. There is no limit to the number of localized destinations you can link!
The first thing to consider is your default destination. This is where everyone lands that does not have their language preference set to one of the local destinations set in your code. If you’re a global brand, you are unlikely to have a local destination for each and every person that scans your code. Like most companies, you try to address the major markets. Consider where to send the rest of your audience and use that link to get started at the URLgenius homepage.
In our example, we’re going to create a multi-language QR code using the Tommy Hilfiger website, a company that has several different language sites. We’ll start with the link to the global site, which will be our default destination, but the QR code will send visitors who prefer “French-France,” “Italian-Italy,” “German-Germany,” or “Spanish-Spain” to their respective language-geo sites.
First, enter the default URL into the box on the URLgenius home page. Remember, any visitor that doesn’t have their language-geo preference set to the ones previously mentioned, will go to the default site.
Pro-Tip: You can customize the end of the QR link to match your campaign and in this example we’ll call it “holiday-campaign-2022”. You can also use your brand’s domain for the link behind your QR code. This is important for brand continuity and because your audience may not be familiar with the URLgenius domain.
Click “compose” to create your QR link and QR code. This is the settings page for your QR link and your corresponding QR code where you can click the tab that says “Routing” to enter the different local destinations. This is where you enter the destination for each language-geo combination.
As the French say, voilà! That’s it— you’re able to download your custom QR code. Remember, URLgenius QR codes are dynamic— meaning that you can add or change destinations even after the code is generated. But not so fast— you still need to consider the various settings for your QR code to maximize scanning.
Pro Tip: Contact us if you want to send your visitors to different app locations or to a different app entirely. This is a more advanced setup that we can implement for you.
QR codes are easy to create, but it’s very easy to get a minor detail wrong that ultimately makes the code unscannable. Whether you’re using the code for television, print, email, packaging, or retail displays; all QR codes need to be optimized for design, size, density, channel, and placement.
The “QR Settings” tab presents you with different options to customize your code, but beware— changing these settings can impact the ability of your user to scan the code. Contact us if you have questions about these settings, or if you’re working on a unique use case that requires expert guidance.
Check out our QR Experience Playbook and QR Code Strategy Guide to learn more about the common mistakes and what to consider in relation to apps, websites, and QR analytics.
Whether you’re creating a custom QR code for one language or multiple languages, there are several additional settings for your QR codes that will maximize the scanning process.
You can test this example we’ve just created by changing the language setting on your browser to one of the language-geo combinations we designated in the settings (French-France; Spanish-Spain; German-Germany; Italian-Italy). Make sure to consider these additional settings that will affect your customer’s ability to scan your QR code.
1. Provides a bonded user experience
As a business, you understand how essential it is to provide your customers with an easy and convenient user experience.
A multilingual QR Code allows you to accomplish precisely that in a mobile moment. It simplifies the user journey by redirecting them to the website in their language of choice with a simple scan.
The sooner they go to their native language website, the faster they can take action. This activity could be anything from researching your products and/or services, to making a purchase.
2. Extends your brand experience
Did you know that a multilingual QR Code can be completely customized? That’s correct. You can customize its appearance by adding your company’s logo and adjusting its color scheme. You can even download a code with a transparent background for placement on more complex colorful designs.
Just beware that the color of your QR code can affect the ability to scan. Contact us about the advanced transparency feature for advice about color, logo, size, and placement.
3. You can track scanner engagement separately from clicks
You may also track the scanning activity of a Multilingual QR Code. This data allows you to gain useful insights about your target audience. For example, how many individuals scanned your QR Code, what device did they use, and when was scanning activity the most active?
In addition, you can even add your Facebook pixel or Google Remarketing ID to your QR Code, which will help enhance and fuel your first-party database.
You can then connect that scanning activity to subsequent activity in your app or on website. Such in-depth information enables you to improve the performance of your ad campaigns and track long-term revenue trends of scanners.
If your brand has customers and visitors around the world who speak different languages and/or hail from different countries, delight them with a QR code that sends them to the right place in their preferred language.
Make their shopping experience or content journey as efficient and convenient as possible. In this day and age of growing competition in the global market, it’s important that you seize every opportunity to make your brand stand out from the rest. Multi-language QR codes can help you gain a long-term competitive advantage!
Dynamic multilingual QR codes also offer virtually endless use-case applications— place them in emails, direct mail, on packages, in-store app displays, and even in television advertisements. Your customers (current and prospective!) will appreciate this feature and be more than impressed. It’s your opportunity to increase local website traffic, app installs, or in-app engagement— ultimately generating more revenue for your brand.
Get started now. Sign up and create your custom multi-language QR code or contact us to learn more about the URLgenius platform.
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