When our Chief Content Officer reminded me it was my turn to write our company’s monthly blog I replied, “Easy, I’d like to blog about mobile networking!”
Anyone who works with me — or has heard me pitch the advantages of social and mobile marketing — knows that not only am I a strong advocate for mobile networking strategies, but I also practice what I preach.
For example, as the Chief Marketing Officer at Social5 I’ve implemented a company-wide policy: no old-school-style business cards! Meaning none of our employees carries a paper business card – instead every employee is armed with digital connectivity. Which, if nothing else, makes our CFO very happy because I eliminated an entire line item in our company’s print budget. More importantly, what makes me very happy about this strategy is that on the first day a new employee starts with our company they receive a personalized mobile suite of tools that they’re trained to use on their phone so they can immediately contribute to our company’s ongoing growth strategies.
Here’s five of those mobile networking strategies that travel with all of our employees, allowing them to consistently market and connect people to our brand from any conversation along their paths:
1. Mobile Presence – Big or Small
For our company, or any company, just the fact that you embrace mobile and have a presence on the small screen can separate your brand from your competition. It signals that you’re vested in the speed of technology and demonstrates instantaneous efficiencies in time management by the sharing of relevant information about your services conveniently pushed out at the touch of a button. Plus search engines rank companies with compliant mobile platforms higher.
2. Visual Reinforcement Of Key Identifiers
Marketing 101 supports that anytime someone is being informed about your company for the first time you should establish and legitimize your brand’s identity (logo/voice), your major players (expertise), your services (major points of difference Vs competition) about your company. This lays the groundwork for your brand’s “recall factor” in future and ongoing marketing efforts. Strong visuals via a mobile platform that all employees can swipe through effortlessly will only expedite and reinforce these tried and true marketing principals.
3. Mobile Email Capture With Instant & Ongoing Payoffs
Our company is a leader in this arena. When any of our employees are in a conversation that moves towards an interested prospect, or firm lead, they simply click an icon on their phone that opens their personalized mobile suite. From their phone they can facilitate the conversation with live examples based on questions from the prospect. Most importantly there’s an email capture field where our employees can enter the email address of the person they are talking with and within seconds that recipient receives a friendly greeting email from that employee. The friendly greeting includes their direct contact information, all of our company’s social channels, our website, phone number and a short video that highlights our services. What’s even more tactical is now that we have a new email address in our system that recipient will start receiving a personalized monthly blog directly from the employee that started the relationship. The email includes a picture of that employee and messaging that highlights ongoing initiatives important to our company and clients. Good luck achieving this connectivity and ongoing communication with a paper business card.
4. Expanded & Trusted Reach
What’s cool about the mobile strategy I just described above is that it’s replicable on anyone’s phone in just a few simple clicks. Meaning that our employees train their friends, family and satisfied customers to be mobile marketers for our company. Think about that for a second — as a marketer there’s nothing better than having a mobile enabled marketing team armed with a communications plan at the touch of a button that builds awareness and connectivity to your brand through their trusted conversations anytime, anyplace.
5. Short Video
With a mobile marketing team in place that includes people not employed by our company it’s important that messaging about our brand stays on point. Video is the perfect vehicle to carry out this task. Instead of a non-employee over or under promoting our brand they can simply play a 30 second video from their phone that successfully introduces our brand to a potential new customer in a clear, consistent and concise manner.
So move over business card. You had a good run – but as a marketer of where the future of business is headed — I’ll take the advantages of mobile networking!
