Last summer I created a name tag to wear at a social media event in Indianapolis.

It had my name, my Twitter handle, @ScLoHo, and a QR code that would take people to a special web page I created.

After a couple of hours a college student that I was talking to asked me if he could scan the QR code, which he did and he won a prize that I had with me to reward the first person to do so.

I was surprised that only one person out of about 75 even said anything considering this was a Social Media group and this was a QR code, the latest rage.

But there were a couple lessons I learned.

Despite my interest and understanding of QR codes, they were not “universal” yet.

And as I thought back to the basics of marketing, when introducing something new, you should tell people what to do with it.

If I had included words on my nametag that said: “Scan this QR Code for a Free Prize”, even those who had no idea what a QR code was, would be tempted to ask and then perhaps scan.

Saturday I made a run to the grocery store and near the milk was this display that caught my attention:

Of course I snapped a picture and then decided to scan the QR code:

You can scan this code right now, unless you are reading this on your phone, and you will discover that they did everything right.

The QR code goes to a mobile friendly website with recipes for using the product that they want me to buy.

They also told me what to do with the QR code.

What I don’t know is if they will follow through and connect all the dots with the data they collect once I visit their website via my phone while in their store.

But as far as getting me and others to participate in the QR code promotion, they did everything right.

Tomorrow, an example of a QR code promotion that does everything wrong.