Donors aren't using QR codes yet; are you?

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06 March 2012

Donors aren't using QR codes yet; are you?

Here's a reality check for those besotted with QR codes, thinking they're going to rocket fundraising into some kind of smart-phone nirvana: QR Code Scanners Likely Male, Young.

Here's the takeaway for fundraisers: Only 16% of women have used QR codes. But worse yet, only 7% of people age 50 and over have used them. And I bet if we could see the usage percentage for 60+ it would drop steeply from 7%.

Women and older people don't use them. That means donors aren't using QR codes. I've heard about a couple of tests where the mere presence of a QR code in print chased away a lot of donations. QR codes are not yet ready for fundraising primetime.

If you're still excited about them, test it.

Thanks to Elaine Fogel for the tip.

Posted by Jeff Brooks on 06 March 2012 at 04:23 in Net Stuff | Permalink

Technorati Tags: fundraising, nptech, qrcodes

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I have a grant writing business that is soon to be incorporated as a nonprofit. I'm having new business cards printed at the end of the week and I was considering putting a QR code on the back that will take the user to my website (http://www.grantpros.org. I'm able to track website visitors through scans to the QR code. I'm going to test this theory. I'll get back to you in 6 months with my findings!

Posted by: Jason Shechtman | 06 March 2012 at 22:32

Nice! Thanks for breaking this down. Always a lot of noise out there on the next best thing, but never a lot of stats to say when we should adopt the strategy. Appreciate your work!

Posted by: HigherPixels | 07 March 2012 at 07:17

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The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here. More.

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Jeff Brooks, creative director at TrueSense Marketing, has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 20 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff.brooks [at] truesense [dot] com. More.

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