Custom embroidered patches have long been a popular, stylish way to promote your brand or logo. If you’re trying to increase your brand visibility, they’re an effective addition to caps, t-shirts, hoodies and other apparel.
You might be concerned that the proliferation of custom patches in recent years might be diluting their impact. You needn’t worry. There’s plenty of evidence that they still function as a powerful marketing tool. If you want to try something new to increase your patches power, however, we have just the thing – custom embroidered QR code patches.
Why QR Codes?
You’ve seen QR codes just about everywhere recently. The small, square boxes of lines are on everything from TV ads to restaurant menus. They enable you to convey a lot more information in a small space than otherwise would be possible. With just a simple click of a smartphone camera, prospective customers can see your entire product line, pricing specials, shipping terms and much more.
Why QR Code Patches?
QR codes interest people! Give them away at trade shows, theater performances, concerts, cause rallies, and other public events, and watch your engagement with your audience increase. People can see special promos, facts about your cause, song lyrics and much more. It gives them a real connection to your brand.
More About QR Codes
The QR is short for “quick response.” Engineers at a Japanese manufacturing company developed it in 1994 to enable labeling and tracking automobile parts in their facilities. The company, Denso Wave, opened up their patent, which allowed other companies to use the codes.
It’s designed to make accessing a website fast and easy. All you have to do is point your smartphone camera at it and click. The code does the rest, taking you immediately to a web site.
QR codes are incredibly versatile. They can link to music, images, email and much more. You can even put them on a uniform and link to care instructions. It’s a fantastic way to provide information to your customers and show what your brand can do.
Getting Started
A QR code patch is easy to set up. It can be as simple as typing your desired URL into a free online QR generator. Next, it’s digitized it to work with your embroidery machine’s software. From there, it’s just a matter of starting the machine.
OK, it’s not quite that simple. There are a few things to consider when using QR codes.
Static or Dynamic?
With getting too technical, there are two types of QR codes, static and dynamic. A static code is simplest. It uses the one URL you enter, sending everything to that one web location. That works well if you just want to promote one page, or one particular product or offer forever. If however, you make a typo entering that URL, you’re stuck with a non-working code on your embroidered patch – forever.
A dynamic QR, on the other hand, can redirect to different URLs. If you want to offer changing specials and new promotions, you can update the code to go to them instead of the original page. The embroidery still stays the same, but you can change where it goes. And you don’t have to worry about typos – you can still send the customer to the correct site.
Dynamic QRs also can give you analytics about what works. If you have a QR code for a restaurant, you can track which menu items are most popular, for example.
Creating Embroidered QR Codes
There are a few factors to be aware of when creating embroidered QR codes. For starters, it’s important to choose your garment fabric carefully. Heavier-duty fabrics such as denim, canvas or outdoor-grade nylon work best.
Soft fabrics can distort the image, and might require a stronger backing behind the embroidery to stabilize it
Consider color choices carefully too. For maximum visibility and scanability, high-contrast colors such as black-on-white or the reverse, work best. You want the QR to be reliably readable in a clear way.
QA Your QR
Before you commit to volume production of your QR patches, be sure to test it. Triple-check the URL you want to use, especially if you’re using a static QR code. Remember, if the URL is wrong on a static code, there’s no way to fix it after production.
Run a test patch, and ensure the code works. Use more than one device to access the code to show it’s working for everyone. You might find you need to make a few little adjustments. Maybe the fabric puckers, making the code unreadable. In that case, you might require a different patch backing. Or maybe the colors don’t offer enough contrast for the QR code to be read. A color swap might be required.
Count on Patches 4 Less
When it comes to QR code patches, you want an experienced provider. That’s where we come in. We can help you decide which site(s) you want to link your code to, which colors and sizes to use for the most effective advantage.
We maintain strict quality control over production, so you can be sure your QR patches will have the proper thread density and are manufactured at the right production rate to ensure perfectly accurate reproduction of your QR code.
Want to find out more? Email us or call toll free at (866) 847-2824, and we’ll walk you through the steps of creating your own QR code patches and answer any questions you might have. Let us show you what the combination of digital technology and embroidered patches can do for your brand!
