Ever heard of a ban on business cards? As the Chief Marketing Officer at Social5, that’s exactly what I’ve done within our company. Old-school business cards are officially off limits for any Social5 employee. Why? Because paper business cards are becoming as outdated and inefficient as yesterday’s Rolodex and rotary phone in today’s information age.
Instead, we have armed every employee with digital connectivity. Upon joining Social5, each employee receives a personalized mobile suite of tools that includes a digital business card, an email marketing engine and a blog publishing platform. They are trained on how to capture leads on their phone, allowing them to contribute to our company’s ongoing growth strategies. From a marketing perspective, it turns every employee into a brand ambassador and evangelist. From a financial standpoint, it allows our CFO to eliminate an entire line item from our company’s print budget.
Here are five of mobile-networking strategies that travel with all of our employees, giving them the ability to connect with people, and market our brand, from any conversation along their path.
1. Mobile Presence – Big or Small
For our company — or any company — the mere presence of a mobile marketing strategy can separate your brand from the competition. It signals that you’re invested in the speed of technology. It makes your operation more efficient by allowing employees to push, and capture, information relevant to your business at the touch of a button. It build credibility with search engines, which rank companies with compliant mobile platforms higher.
2. Visual Reinforcement of Key Identifiers
When introducing your company to prospective customers, it’s important to establish and legitimize your brand’s identity (logo/voice), major players (expertise) and services (major points of difference between you and the competition). That’s Marketing 101. These elements lay the groundwork for your brand’s “recall factor” when pursuing ongoing marketing. Strong visuals via a mobile platform will expedite and reinforce those marketing principles when placed in the hands of company leaders and employees.
3. Mobile Email Capture With Instant and Ongoing Payoffs
Looking for ROI? Our company is a leader in this arena when it comes to a mobile payoff. When any employee meets with an interested prospect or lead — whether by appointment or by chance — they simply click an icon on their phone to open a personalized mobile suite. From their phone, they can provide live examples of Social5 customers and services. They can highlight blog content. And, most importantly, they can tap into a lead-capture field that allows employees to “capture” the individual’s name and email address. Once the person’s email address is submitted, the mobile suite dispatches a friendly greeting to the prospect that includes the employee’s photo and contact information, plus links to the company’s social channels and website. What’s even more tactical is that the prospect will now receive a personalized monthly blog directly from the employee who started the relationship. Good luck achieving this connectivity and ongoing communication with a paper business card.
4. Expanded and Trusted Reach
What’s cool about the mobile strategy described above is that it can be replicated on anyone’s phone in just a few simple clicks. What that means is that employees can train their friends, family and satisfied customers to be mobile marketers for their company. Think about that for a second — as a marketer, there’s nothing better than having a mobile-enabled marketing team at your disposal, armed with a communications plan at the touch of a button, to build awareness and connectivity to your brand through their trusted conversations anytime, anyplace.
5. Short Video
With a mobile marketing team in place that includes friends, family and employees, it’s important that messaging about your brand stays on point. Video is the perfect vehicle to carry out this task. Instead of having a non-employee over-promise or under-state the services your company offers, you can attach a 30-second video that allows them to showcase your brand directly from their phone. This allows you to successfully introduce your 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!
