5 Reasons You Should Use QR Codes to Promote Your Rotary Club

Posted by Dan Herbert

What is a QR bar Code and? And how can a QR bar code help my club?

You have seen those little square boxes of squiggly shapes show up in magazines, including the Rotarian and Rotary Canada and on signs and posters. Those are QR codes and they can help you promote your Rotary club.

QR codes are activated when they are scanned or read by a smart phone or tablet. The only requirements are a smart phone with a camera and an installed barcode reader. Many free QR and barcode apps exist for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android. When you scan a QR code, you can link to many different types of content, including web, video, telephone number, email or short text message.

Basically, head over to www. goo.gl and type in the URL you want shortening. Then stick that in the URL bar and simply add .qr to the end and, voila, your own unique QR code for the URL. There are lots of other sites that do a similar job and even produce coloured QR codes. Here is the QR code for District 7010.

Why Use QR Codes for your Rotary club?

· Generating a QR code is not only easy, it’s free

· QR codes are convenient for users, who can access your club information after a simple scan

· Many QR codes, such as the ones offered by Google’s URL shortener, come with built-in analytics – so it’s easy to track their effectiveness

5 Ways to use QR Codes to market your Rotary Club

1. Get a free QR code with your club’s website and then print labels with your ink jet printer and stick the labels on brochures you can order from Rotary such as This is Rotary #001 or Rotary Basics #595. In addition to the QR code include contact information for your club and use these brochures to promote membership

2. Add a QR code to your club’s “Rotary Meets Here” or highway sign. Visitors can be directed to your club website to assist them in finding the meeting location with a map link. Make sure the website page is friendly for mobile devises.

3. Add a QR code to your club brochure with a stick on label or use one of the available club brochure templates from RI and add the code before printing.

4. Add QR codes to your fundraising posters and flyers to direct people to your club website or web page about the special event. Place the QR code on event tickets. You could even have the QR code direct people to a YouTube video about your event.

5. Place a QR code on the back of your Rotary business cards directing people to a website or Vcard information to add to their contact list on the phone and computer. You can also print cards to invite prospective members to your meeting, such as the Rotary wallet cards Start with Rotary and Good things happen.

add a QR Code to your
club highway sign

just scan on your smart phone

add a QR Code to your club brochure

This is a neat video about QR Codes and how to use them