John Foley Jr. is the founder and CEO of interlinkONE, and CEO and CMO of sister company Grow Socially. Forbes magazine recently recognized him as the 15th Most Influential CMO on Social Media. We asked Foley, who presented “Untethered Marketing: How to Effectively Use Mobile to Market Your Business” at PesTech 3.0, the following five questions:
1. How has mobile technology changed the business landscape?
Mobile technology is everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Consumers are constantly on their mobile devices, and businesses in all industries have embraced mobile as a part of their overall marketing strategy for just that reason. It can be used in such a wide variety of ways, and most of them are cost-effective solutions.
As a field, mobile technology has evolved rapidly — faster than most businesses realize. Chances are, if you have a website that isn’t mobile-optimized, or if you don’t offer some form of communication support by a mobile application, you are missing out on potential opportunities for new business.
2. What do you consider to be the best mobile tools for small- to mid-sized pest management companies to use on a daily basis?
Realistically, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of mobile tools I recommend for small business owners. Expensify, Robin, Google Drive, Trello, Chromecast, and every social media channel are a few off the top of my head.
3. What are three obstacles business owners can overcome with mobile technology?
- Lack of online engagement with your audience. Mobile applications have made it so much easier to remain in constant connection with your existing customers and sales prospects to spread news and messages. Are your marketing and engagement efforts not generating enough interest from prospects? That’s another challenge that goes hand-in-hand with a lack of engagement, and mobile technology can help combat that.
- Declining online sales. There are tons of mobile platforms that support e-commerce for small businesses. Examples of mobile commerce include mobile ticketing, quoting, vouchers, coupons, ordering, collecting payment and banking.
- Decreasing productivity. This is quite possibly the most important challenge small business owners face and using mobile is a viable solution because it allows you to speed up your operations and R&D process, while increasing the number of service offerings you can provide to your customers.
4. What are three opportunities mobile technology offers?
- Engagement. Staying connected with your audience has never been easier, given all the different channels for doing so. I recommend daily social posting and blogging so the mobile audience can always find you and stay up to date with the latest happenings in your business.
- Prospecting. Mobile technology makes it much easier to find prospects who are in need of your services.
- Profit. This is what it all comes down to: Will making the investment into mobile marketing yield a return? If done correctly, the answer is yes. Mobile technology has opened many additional sources for possible revenue streams, such as storefronts, e-commerce and apps. It also has created many ways businesses can control costs more effectively, from a marketing and organization perspective — all of which would contribute to improving your bottom line.
5. Where can one turn to get up to speed on mobile technology?
If you did a quick Google search for “mobile technology” right now, you’d find about 1 billion search results. For the absolute best, most up-to-date and relevant information for small business owners regarding mobile technology, I’d recommend these sources as a starting point:
- interlinkONE.com
- Gizmag.com
- Mashable.com
- DigitalTrends.com
- QReateAndTrack.com
- MarketingLand.com
- Business2Community.com
- GrowSocially.com
- TheStreet.com
- SmallBizTrends.com
- Fortune.com
You can reach Managing Editor Diane Sofranec at dsofranec@northcoastmedia.net or 216-706-3793.
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