Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 0:18

Happy Tuesday everyone, I am Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson, digital strategist with BWG Connect and we are a network and knowledge sharing group, we stay on top of the latest trends challenges whatever is shaping the digital landscape. We are on track to do at least 500 of these virtual events this year, due to the increase in demand understand everything in the digital space, we'll also be doing at least 100 in-person, small format dinners. So if you happen to be in a tier one city, feel free to shoot us an email, we'd love to send you an invite, the dinners are typically 15 to 20 people having a certain discussion around a digital topic. That's always a fantastic time. So I'd love to send you an invite on that. From these conversations that we have, whether they be dinners webinars, we're talking to brands each and every day is how we generate the topic ideas that we know people want to learn about. It's also where we gain our resident experts such as Brij who's with us today. Anybody that we asked to teach the collected team has come highly recommended from multiple brands within the network. So if you're ever in need of any recommendations within the digital space, do note that we have a shortlist of the best of the best service providers and we'd be happy to provide that information to you. Also, note that you have any hiring needs. We do partner with a talent agency formerly BWG Talent now called Hawkeye Search that we'd be happy to put you in contact with as well. A few housekeeping items. First and foremost, we want this to be fun, educational, conversational. So put those questions comments into the chat Q&A. If you feel more comfortable, you can send them to me at Tiffany@BWGconnect.com. And we will be sure to get to them. And this is a quick one today. So it's a 30-minute session. So we'll be moving on pretty fast. But we will formally wrap up at the 30-minute mark. So with that, let's rock and roll and start to learn why you should be using QR codes today. The team at Brij have been awesome friends in the network. So I'm going to kick it over to you Kait if you can introduce yourself, that'd be great. And then we can dive into that information. Thank you.

Kait Stephens 2:11

Amazing. Thank you so much, Tiffany. Hi, everyone. My name is Kait Stephens, I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Brij, we are a QR code experience platform. I'm also the host of a podcast called the AMI, called the omnichannel marketer. And one of the things that we think about a lot at Brij is you know how you as an omnichannel brand can can connect with your customers across those channels. And that's, you know, literally some of the, you know, founding principles behind Brij and how we're helping brands use QR codes. So, you know, we're really purpose built for this ecosystem, you know, working with omnichannel brands kind of across food and beverage, baby, hard goods, beauty, etc. And the problem that I'm personally passionate and solving is is one that I think all brands experience when they start to scale is that you're disconnected from your customer, especially when you're selling in retail. And so here are Brij, we bridge that gap. And so the name Brij actually comes from Bridging the Relationship between a brand and their customer, and then also bridging the offline and the online. And so one way that we can help enable that for brands is using QR code experiences. So those QR codes could be on the product, they could be on the packaging, it could be on out of home or digital out of home, they could be on an insert in your Amazon purchases in your post purchase the four main use cases that we work with brands on our educate and engage. So for health aide who is a customer for us of ours, you know, maybe that's recipes, or some sort of content around the brand. It could also be setup videos, if you have you know, a more complicated product, acquiring first party data. So it's more important than ever to have that owned customer base, especially with cookies sunsetting. And so this is the number one use case that we work with brands on across all of our, our ecosystem, build loyalty and reorder. So how do you make it really frictionless to make that one time purchase become a second and third time purchase? And then drive retail velocity. So when you launch new retail, what are tools that you can do to support your retail channels. And so that's, you know, another way that we will support brands. Right now I'm going to actually show you product, so that you understand a little bit more about what I mean when I say a QR code experience. So I'm just using the same example of health aid here. So this is our product, is it a no code builder or platform? If you want you can actually go ahead and scan this QR code and I'll give everyone a chance to take their phone out. But just while people are scanning, how I built this is, you know, we have this new coupe builder with different templates that we call modules. And so you know, drag and drop functionality, but just to kind of show you what a sample experience could be. So maybe that have a primary call to action, this is one of our clear best practices, enter to win. So easy signup capability, you know, give that customer some value, you can allow them to cross sell, you know, share some information, you know, for health aid, it's about gut health. And then feedback. So we have a feedback functionality, you can, you know, basically have these customized surveys, you know, for your brand, you know, and then on the back end will, you know, collect that data here, and then, you know, visualize it for you as well through our dashboard. So that's just a very quick overview. I'll pause there to start answering any questions,

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 5:56

That is so awesome. And I totally didn't do that. And it came up perfect. It was very cool. Um, I would say go back to the omnichannel, because we do a lot of dinners events, and the word omnichannel has come up now, all the time. And it reminds me, I've been in eCommerce since 2011. So that was like the hot word back then, kind of like took a backseat for a while. And now it's like, here on the stage once again, front and center. So I'd love to go back to that in. Why is it important? Why should brands be focusing on it? And where does the QR code play into that? Yeah, well, is it a critical part of the strategy?

Kait Stephens 6:36

Yeah, it's a great question. So you know, we believe at Brij and we align with partners that feel this way as well, that you need to be wherever your customer wants to shop, a consumer will shop online, in store through social media, on Amazon. And so it's important for you as a brand to be able to serve that customer wherever they want to shop. So that's what you know what we mean by omnichannel. The reason that it is the buzzword of all buzzwords today is there's a couple of different dynamics. One is that customers are used to just, you know, getting products when they wanted it. So it's an expectation that consumer demand. The second is, we'd all love to be a pure play DTC brand, if we could, because you know, the most information about your customer, you have that constant feedback loop. The problem is that CACs had been rising over the past four years. So the cost to acquire a customer is dramatically rising. And now because of iOS, you know, 14.5 update, and cookies are going away. So your ability to kind of use on owned traffic to target customers going forward, you know, in the next year is going away. So having that direct relationship with the customer and growing that list is more important than ever. So this is why we're hearing this virgin drive for more omnichannel brands know the value of being DTC. But they need to use retail and Amazon to scale their brands. So they're like, Okay, so now I'm across all of these channels, how do I have a consistent relationship with my customers across these channels? And how do I, you know, continue to tell my brand story and these channels? And then to, you know, how do I bridge all of those channels together to be truly an omnichannel brand. And so how a QR code can fit in there is it in a couple of different ways. So one, like your product itself, your product, you know, transcends all channels, and is this incredible tool to use for, you know, telling your brand story. And that's where a QR code on the product can enable a digital experience like the one that we just showed you for health aid. And so it could be on the product, the packaging, it could be an insert, depending on what type of product you have. But that QR code provides that you know, bridge between the digital and the physical, so you can use it as, okay, if I have a product that I want to, you know, share recipes, you know, that's what you shoot back to, you could share through the QR code, whether that customer bought your product, you know, in retail on Amazon, or from your DTC. On DTC, you have the ability to do so much storytelling about how you know how you should use the product and the right way to be doing so. I had a customer the other day that was like, if, if my consumer watches my video when setting up my product, our NPS goes from a five to a 10. So NPS meaning like the Net Promoter Score. So basically, that customer experience is two times better if they watch this video, that's a really good use of the QR code as well, your unboxing experience, you know, having that opportunity to guide your consumer, even though you know, they may maybe didn't have that same guidance from your DTC channel across all of your channels. And so that's like another way we think about it. Now the third is first party data capture so Um, that's an email that is like a way of contacting your customer, you have that on your DTC channels, you do not have that in Amazon. And through retail, a QR code is like effectively clicking a link so that as a customer seeing your link, so you're acquiring that scan. That is you know, retargeting opportunities and opportunities so you could retarget that customer. And then to if you know a step further getting them to opt in to providing your email that's extremely valuable now you can bring them into your welcome flows, you can nurture that customer. And so that's like, another way that we really think about using a QR code to kind of bridge that gap, omnichannel

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 10:41

That’s such a great way to look at it the Yeah, everybody, myself included selling on Amazon, that's the place that you sold your product, but then you don't get that one PII data. And now it's like, I don't know my customer, because my customer is owned by Amazon. So And where does my customer? Who is it? What's the journey there. And then again, is like a topic that's constantly brought up, it doesn't matter what the industry what the product is, everybody wants to know where their customer is, so they can meet them at where they want to be met. And what a cool tool to be able to like tie that in and get some one PII data, which is actually it's worth gold. I mean, it is invaluable to be able to get that and be able to better understand your customer and get them into the top of the funnel through their email address. So very cool. Got a question here? Which is a great question. So heard that people are getting QR code fatigue after the saturation of COVID? How are you seeing this trend progress? And using QR codes and engagement through them?

Kait Stephens 11:41

Yeah, so one way is that I'm getting QR code fatigue is in restaurant menus. And I actually wrote a post about this on LinkedIn. Listen, I credit COVID. You know, we were talking about this, Tiffany and I before the start, this is a COVID started business, it was QR code adoption, that really I saw it, we saw the opportunity in the space to, you know, use this as a tool to connect brands to their customers. But it was restaurant menus and COVID that really became that driving force of consumer adoption in COVID. I think that fatigue, you know, with, I personally hate having my phone out at the dinner table. So you know, needing to do so for a menu. So I do think that there is fatigue, and I share that fatigue in the restaurant space. I think from a you know, a marketing perspective, we're only seeing engagement go up, you know, more and more, just, you know, across the board as it relates to it being a tool. And the way that we have conversations with brands now is that it you know, adding a QR code to your product is free, you know, doing so thoughtfully, you know, you should pay a little bit of money for but we actually have the conversation with brands that you really like, even if you don't use Brij, please add a QR code to your product, because it's just a missed opportunity. Even if you don't have you know, the thought or strategic space to think about it right now pointed to your landing page. But you know, your most loyal customers or your most profitable customers, and they're seeking out more information about your brand, make it easier for them to do so again, going back to kind of like the recipe or the setup videos, we find that content is a really amazing engagement tool. I know, you know, historically everyone's like, okay, discounts entered a win is the you know, the one that I showed you, we do see, like brands using pretty, pretty creative marketing strategies on kind of the Enter to Win side or the sweepstakes side. But we also find that no customers are opting in you like just through content. So we have that, you know, cleaning, supply brand that you know, provides cleaning tips and tricks to their customer. And so it's like, you know, what your customer is interested in, you're using this content across your social channels, maybe your emails, now this is an opportunity for you to use that digital content on shelf, you know, when you're sampling. And so when I talk to brands about you know, first of all, it's a missed opportunity if you don't have it on your product. And then anytime you're doing anything out of home, so I was just at an event last week, and you know, this brand it super coffee was who were talking, you know, we're talking to you about becoming a customer, they were handing out samples of their products, and they had this bus wrapped in, in their product and their branding. And I'm like, Jamie, this is a missed opportunity for you to not have a QR code on the bus, like you have so much content as a brand. You know, this just becomes another touch point for the customer to learn more. And so whenever you're sampling, there's just all these touch points. I you know, I don't think it's you're wrong to say that there is some fatigue, though, I think like a lot of that fatigue to me, is you know, in the restaurant space, and then I think that there's also there's ways to do it well and not with QR codes. I'm being thoughtful about your strategy. If there's like a QR code on literally everything, one, you're going to overwhelm the consumer, and they're not going to know what they're supposed to scan. So that's not the right strategy. And there's definitely like, thought to be had as it relates to implementing your QR code strategy. You know, I like to think about it a lot when SMS was a new channel for brands like those companies that were enabling SMS, were really being thoughtful about what are the best practices like for this new channel for brands to connect with our customers? And that's, you know, exactly what we're doing. We're being thought leaders on, you know, how you can be most thoughtful, giving your customer the best experience with those QR codes?

Speaker 3 15:43

And what is best practices for placement?

Kait Stephens 15:49

So, yeah, great question. So putting the QR code in a place that is obvious for the consumer to see it to make it part of the on, let's see a post purchase experience, put that QR code in a place where the customer is going to see it. If it is an afterthought in like the corner of an insert, or like maybe on the bottom of the product row, they'll never see it, you're not gonna get good engagement. The first, you know, thing that you need to do and think through as a brand is like, Okay, how do I make this part of my customers journey, because that, you know, physical location matters a lot in your engagement. Second, best practice is having a clear call to action for the customer. You know, sometimes there's a QR code, and it's just kind of hanging out there. And you're like, was this for manufacturing was this for shipping? Is this for the customer, I don't know. And so if that's the case, your engagements, also not going to be good, because the customer is not going to know that it's for them. But if you you include a thoughtful call to action, like, register your warranty, or, you know, scan for more like information about you know where to enjoy your wine or wine pairings. Like there's, there's so much you can do on the content side here that's relevant to your brand. But that call to action is super important. And you know, making it part of that customer journey. So it's done in a visible way. Once you have the customer scan the QR code, there's a multitude of best practices that we can go through, including having one main, like, what's the number one behavior that you want your customer to have? So not overwhelming them with choice. And so that's kind of another one of our best practices. And then, you know, similar to what we're seeing across, you know, social media and content and not space, is that video is performing really well. So the more that you can use video to you know, educate and engage your customer. Once they scan the QR code, we're seeing really good engagement with that content.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 17:53

That totally aligns with everything we see to on the video side. The video is great engagement. Awesome. So there's a couple of terms I've been thrown out there. And just to be clear, so what is the difference between a QR code generator versus a QR code experience? 

Kait Stephens 18:13

Yeah, it's a really great, really good question. So what Brij is, is a QR code experience platform, a QR code generator is, is a commodity, you can you know, Google can generate a QR code for you. And there's a lot of platforms out there that you can go on and generate a QR code for free. What generating a QR code means is you're creating that black and white, maybe you add some color to it, it's effectively a short link to a landing page of your choosing. What Brij is really focused on is being an end-to-end platform, so you can generate the QR code, you can connect it to your eCommerce platform and ecosystem can build the landing pages, no code that are mobile optimized and higher converting, collect the data and store that all in one place. And then, you know, visualize that data. So understand who's scanning, who's signing up, you know, what revenue is being attributed from this channel. And so that end to end kind of experience is what we're defining as a QR code experience. So which is very different than just you know, the generation of that, that that shortlink.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 19:29

So, really a reminder, last 10 minutes, questions, comments, put them in the chat q&a, and we will get to them. Can you give some examples of those that are doing it awesome. And then those like the don't go there do not test this when it comes to a QR code like the do not do practices and the best

Kait Stephens 19:48

So yeah, like thinking of a couple of brands that we work with. So I'll start with canopy they're a humidifier brand and they basically have a device that they sell, which is the humidifier. And then they have a consumable component, which is their filters. And so they have a QR code inside the device. And if you think about your customer journey as a consumer is, okay, I have my humidifier. You know, my filter is like, it's full, it's time to change that filter. I'm like, Okay, how do I change my filter, what's the process here, it's like, has the opportunity for being a not great customer experience, once you open up the device, and you see the QR code that you know, has a call to action to scan for setup instructions, and to reorder filters. And so if you scan it, there's a video that shows you how to clean and change the filters on your device, you also there have the opportunity to opt into subscription to, you know, refill your filter. So you don't need to think about this in the past. And so what I love about this is one, it's definitely following the best practice of putting it in a location, that's part of the customer journey to like, they're now taking this potentially bad customer or consumer experience opportunity and making it a good one. And so what they're doing is like using kind of almost the NPS example that I gave earlier, by showing that video, they are giving that customer good experience, and now they're getting them to be a recurring customer, because they're getting them to opt in to subscription. So they that I think that's a really great example, something that, you know, we've also been seeing brands use, especially on the food and beverage side. So when brands are sampling at events, you know, different CPG brands, know, if they're a candy product, I've heard kind of the terminology cans and hands are basically they're looking to try to get customers or consumers to try their product, and then ultimately purchase the product. So we have brands that are using the QR codes at point of sampling as an opportunity for one to capture the customers who actually enjoyed trying that product. So they can then you know remarket to the customers, but then to also offer them a, you know, opportunity for some sort of discount or rebate when they're shopping in store. And so that becomes a really good opportunity to drive trial. And then ultimately conversion or retail, which I think is another really great use case. On the the bad cases. You know, we touched on this briefly earlier, something that we're actually putting together, you know, as like a database that we'll make available to the public is kind of good and bad practices across across the board. No call to action is not great. Just linking a QR code to your landing page is not great, I was actually you know, talking to a brand that they're like, it says scan for recipes, and the the link doesn't go to recipes. So making the call to action, you know, actually relate to the end landing page. You know, I think that like the base level of what a lot of brands now are doing is pointing a QR code to their homepage, that listen, that's not if you if you do nothing, if you if the difference is doing that versus nothing that's better than nothing. However, you know, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in you know, just making that a little bit more thoughtful. Your website is, you know, is meant to tell a lot of different stories to the you know, eCommerce consumer that you know, may be looking to buy your brand for the first time, this is, you know, depending on the location, you know, especially if it's on product customer who's already purchased your product, so you should be speaking differently to that customer. And it should be in the mobile form because a QR code is going to be like, you know, scanned by, by a phone. And so thinking you know, being more thoughtful about actually going through the consumers journey of where that QR code is, you know what the call to action is, worst thing you could do is like not have a call to action and or put the QR code in a place that just like is not is not visible. The other thing I will also say you know another kind of like tip to remember make sure you're testing scannability of the QR code so we recommend going no smaller than half inch by half inch. Our best practice is point seven five by point seven five inches. And you also need contrast so it does not need to be black and white, but it needs to be contrast like dark and light colors to make it scannable when you're testing different materials and surfaces so like a curve can just test before you scale that across all of your products, I have seen unscannable QR codes, that hurts a lot. I have seen QR codes that go to dabblings. Like that happens when you're using a random QR code generator, and then you don't know where the landing pages. So invest in, you know, a QR code management platform where you can actually keep track of your links. And you know, and also coordinate with the rest of the organization because you shouldn't have different parts of the organization using different generators. Because I can't tell you how many companies that I've, I've met that they're like, ah, yeah, we want to use Oh, shoot, we don't know where this QR code goes. We don't know where like the source of it is, all the time, very common. But just like, you know, being a little bit more thoughtful about the management, kind of in your org, as it is another thing that I'd say, to stay away from

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 25:47

Into the free QR code generator, do they expire after a certain amount of time?

Kait Stephens 25:53

So good question. I'm not to my knowledge, most of the time, they're static links. So another best practice is to always generate dynamic QR codes. And what that means is, so say, I did a static QR code to google.com, it's always gonna go to google.com. If you do a dynamic link, say I did it at the time to google.com, I can redirect that link at any point in time. And so always do a dynamic link. They're not often available completely for free. Usually, you're going to be something for them. But like, recommend always having a dynamic link versus a static link, then you're literally stuck with that. That specific URL.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 26:40

Do you see social media traffic, this being a tool to help drive if that's the objective that brands want to drive more traffic to their Instagram or TikTok? or Facebook? They’re using QR codes?

Kait Stephens 26:51 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are so many different use cases for QR code, it's hard to even like articulate all of them in in any sort of setting. But yeah, if you want to do Instagram download, so something that we do as part of Brij experiences, we have the opportunity to add your social handles to the bottom of all the experiences but you could also make like the main call to action to just be to you know, to sign up or follow on those respective social media channels. It's definitely something we say.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 27:24

Very cool. We are about a time final thoughts. Anybody has any final questions to feel free to put them in the chat now? That’d be awesome. If they're gonna go today, like I guess, what is implementation look like? How fast could this turnaround?

Kait Stephens 27:43

Super quick. So if you have existing QR codes, we we can do what we call upgrade them and update or add them to a QR code or Brij QR code experience? If not, we'll work with like, what's the first place we can get started? What's like the Phase One the low-hanging fruit? Can it be an insert in your Amazon packaging? Can it be an event installation and out of home campaign that you're planning, maybe a sampling that you're you're setting up in the next couple of months, so we can have someone you know, live in one to two weeks is typically the turnaround time on the implementation side. As a courtesy, we actually build the first experience the digital experience for a brand, regardless of the plan that you sign up for. And what we find is that's like a really good jumping off place for the brand to understand kind of the capabilities of the Brij platform and also to work off of that digital experience to help create their next one's.

Tiffany Serbus-Gustaveson 28:37

Very cool. Awesome. Well, we definitely learned a lot in 30 minutes. I will say that so we encourage a follow-up conversation with the Brij team. Fantastic information today. Kait, thank you so much for sharing, and we would love to have a conversation with you. That's where we get the topic ideas for our future events. So feel free to reach out or you can personally send me an email at Tiffany@BWGconnect.com. And we will get some time on the calendar. Thank you so much. Awesome content. Hope to see you soon and have a lovely week everyone.