The Best QR Code Generator App for Canva with Tracking & Branding

In this episode, we break down the easiest way to use Canva to create a QR code that's brandable and trackable. You can even make money when people scan your QR codes! Tune in and add this new hack to your brand marketing strategy.

0:00 What is a QR Code
0:52 Ways to use a QR Code for links, PDFs, and more
1:55 How to make a QR Code in Canva Tutorial
3:54 Branding and Tracking QR Codes Easily
6:55 ME-QR vs. Canva QR Code Generator


If you’re on the podcast and want a video walkthrough, click here: https://youtu.be/qH7eLfTwHGs 

Otherwise, use the following steps to find the QR Code generator in Canva:

1. Open a project file in Canva
2. Using the left hand side menu, click the “Apps” tab.
3. Search “QR Code”
4. Choose either
   1. “QR Code” to use Canva’s QR code generator
   2. “ME-QR” to use the ME-QR code generator

NOTE: If using “ME-QR” for the first time, you’ll be prompted to create a sign-in. Once you’ve created an account and created your QR code, you can access it anytime right in Canva!

Grab 25 CTA Ideas to use with your Canva QR Codes: https://kattwagner.com/create-custom-qr-codes-with-canva-free-trackable/

Canva: https://partner.canva.com/c/2992110/619765/10068

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Transcript

0:00

This is a super fast Brand Hack podcast. What's up guys? Today we're gonna be talking about QR codes and how you can easily create custom branded QR codes for anything you can imagine, quickly add them to your candor projects, track your clicks, and even get paid for them. What is a QR code? Really simply, it stands for quick response code. When someone scans it, whatever that action that's tied to the QR code is, it pops up for them. They're a really powerful tool to bridge the gap between your call to action and the action actually being. You can store a variety of different medias in QR codes, such as links, vCards, PDFs, links to social profiles, or you can use QR codes as CTAs for anything you're doing in your business. Drive people to register for an event or download a free ecor. You can link them to your YouTube channel or send them directly to a specific video on your YouTube channel. The tech stack I use with creating QR codes is really simple. It's two tools really, but it's like built into one. So it's really just Canva and you don't need to have Canva Premium. But if you have been using the regular Canva and you wanna use Canva Premium, it's totally worth it. I have a link in the description you can use, but you can totally do this with the free version of Canva. And there's two things you can do in can. You can create a QR code to download and use elsewhere. Maybe you want to send it somewhere else to get materials printed with this QR code on it, or you can create the entire project like a postcard and plop your QR code right in there. And you can either download the design file, share the design file, or use canvas straight to print action to order the material printed and fulfilled for you. I'm gonna walk you through, watch my screen here. I'm gonna walk you through the different steps to create a QR code in Canva. We're gonna do two things. One is going to be that we're gonna use Canva's in-app, QR Code Creator. It's completely free. It's super simple. You put a link, you have to use a link, you use a url. You plop it in and it generates the secure code for you. To do that, you go into a project that you wanna work on. I'm going to use just a quick template that's pre-made for a real estate agent. It's a postcard and the backside of the postcard. has some space to put some contact information, and there's this big open space that I wanna put a QR code in. So we're gonna do that and it's, it's as simple as this. We would put the URL we want to land people. I'm gonna use just a generic URL here, but I would use the real estate website URL for this. If this is a real example, you plop it in, you hit answer, and your QR code is ready to go. You plop it in your design, you align it and resize it, so it looks how you want it. And then you're done. You can share this. You can send it off for printing. You can email it to somebody. Voila. Is that simple?, if you wanna just create a QR code that you can download and use any time, my favorite way to do that is to start a new project. Make it a one by one image. That means it'll be square. If you don't wanna pick dimensions, just search Instagram post and look for the 10 80 by 10 80. So it'll give you a square project file, and once you're there, create your qr. Stretch it and expand it so it takes up as much space as you want. At this point. If you wanna add any branding or other information around it, you can use the margins to do so. But if you just wanna plain QR code, you can leave this as is fully sized and then hit the download button. P and g should be a fine quality to use for most things that you would use a QR code., you might wanna do an SVG file if you wanna print it for a big storefront print or huge poster because you won't lose the quality necessary to make it blow up that big. However, a smaller file size is adequate for digital sharing and print like a letter and envelope or a postcard. The next thing I wanna talk about is still in Canva, which is really cool, but it's using me qr, they have an app integration with Canva, so all you have to do is when you're in a project file, and let's say we wanna add it to the scene postcard we just made, we would click apps and in the search bar we're gonna search because this is the first time we're using it, we're gonna search me hyphen. You'll see it pops up right away. It's gonna prompt you to sign in and we can go through those steps. We set up an account and you'll land on a dashboard where it gives you all these options of different types of files and asset types you can use to create a QR code. So once you've decided what you want your QR code to be, you choose the type, we'll use a simple. you supply the URL you want the QR code to correspond to, and then you can do all these different customizations to make it personalized and brandable. Again, you can do some branding around the QR code in Canva, but this lets you add a logo to the center of the QR code if you want. You can change some of the dot colors, you can change the stylistic view of the dot shape. I personally like to stick with the regular squares because I think that's the most recognizable to people that have seen other QR codes. I wanna keep it familiar and then once you've come up with a nice look for it, you can download it. Cool. You can go over to your Canva window and refresh, and it will be right there in your Canva Meek QR code library to use anywhere you want. And if you stay on Meek QR in the dashboard, you'll actually get more options to give a custom name. So if you're gonna create mini QR codes, you can easily remember what this one was associated with. And you can also track insights. So if you're gonna use us in a direct mail campaign, you're gonna send out a thousand letters and you're gonna put a QR code. on it, right to correspond with your, your call to action. Maybe it's get a free home evaluation by visiting my website. And then you've got the QR code there and you send those letters out and a month later, 30 days later, you wanna see if that QR code helped anyone get to your website. All you have to do is load up your ME QR profile. Click over here and you can check all the insights that have transpired from any QR code and decide like, , this one was working great. I wanna use this called action more often, or This one didn't really work, so maybe I need to put it in a better position on my marketing, or maybe I need to make my offer different and try something else so you can actually do some split testing and get some really good feedback and insight. Depending on how and where you use these QR codes. The other thing that's really cool about me QR code is you can upload text or audio PDFs and image files to create a QR code and it doesn't need to live on a live webpage. Basically, if someone were to scan it, whatever that media you uploaded was will just pop up on their screen. So it's really great way, if you wanna. The equivalent of a video text message or just send a quick PDF free download and of course your PDF can be branded and have all other links and everything in it so people can still continue to learn about your brand, but you don't always need to land people to a website. So those are the really cool features of me qr. With a free version of me qr, there will be display ads when someone scans your QR code. Now this might seem kind of weird. I don't think it's that big of a deal. We're so used to seeing ads everywhere, but if you feel like it makes your business look less professional, you can unlock the premium version of me QR for $99 a year. However, you can also earn money using me qr. So if your QR codes are gonna be used somewhere with high foot traffic, maybe you run restaurant and you have people scan your takeout menu to place their order and couple dozen people scan it every day to think about what they want and another couple dozen more, scan it at home from their takeout menu to place an order. you can actually earn income. A percentage of the ad revenue from the ad display and me QR code. There's a little button in the profile to set that up. If you have high traffic and you're willing to make money on those ads, why not? I mean, I think it's really cool that not only does me QR offer a free version to use, but you can actually make money by using it if you don't want to, again, you can purchase the premium version or you can just use Canvas Built-in Q app if you don't care about any of those tracking and insights and don't want the display. Either way, it's built right into Canva. It will help you get so much done, so quickly. Complete projects from start to finish with a custom QR code right there ready to go. So it's really easier than ever to add QR codes to any of your project designs if you aren't already using Canva Premium. But would like to check the description for my link. It helps me out. Um, my goal, if you guys don't know, is to get paid by the platform. So rather than charge people one-on-one to have me, Teach what I want to teach many for free. I'd rather have platforms like YouTube and Canva, PMI and keep things free for you guys. So anything you can do to support if you found this valuable, make sure you're liking and subscribing. If you have someone that would find this useful, please share it. And again, if you ever think like, oh, I think I'm gonna sign up for a software, let me check if Kat has a link. And I would always appreciate it if you use a link that I post in the description. It really helps me a lot. Well, that's all. I am so excited. If you're gonna make some QR codes and some designs and you want some feedback, or you just wanna show it off, use the brand hacking group on Facebook. Post it in there. We'll all support you, I'm sure. And if you want feedback, just ask, As always thank you for tuning in and happy brand hacking. Brand Hacking" is a brand new podcast hosted by Katt Wagner. Katt has helped hundreds of professionals in the music, retail, and real estate space build big brand power with small and simple steps. Be sure to like and subscribe to catch future tips on building an unbeatable brand.