Repaired and Expanded Brand Awareness While Building Omni-Channel Marketing
Outsourced CMO Leverages Specialized Mold Inspection Company Expertise to Secure Industry Position and Grow Business Opportunities
Outsourced CMO Leverages Specialized Mold Inspection Company Expertise to Secure Industry Position and Grow Business Opportunities
Paul Sterling
Chief Technical Officer
Mold Inspection Sciences and Mold Inspection Sciences Texas
Mold Inspection Sciences Texas (MISTX) was founded in 2007 by CEO Michael Bains with one simple goal in mind: Provide affordable, professional, and high-quality mold inspection and testing services to people across Texas suffering from the nuisance of mold. Since founded, MISTX has successfully performed and solved thousands of investigations, providing safer and healthier conditions in which a wide variety of clients can thrive.
Mold Inspection Sciences, and sister company Mold Inspection Sciences Texas, are powerhouses in their industry with a unique company culture that invests in their employees and thrives on proven high-quality workmanship that sets a standard.
Still, they needed help honing their presence and securing their position in the market to establish them as the clear choice. These two companies had different identities, services, processes, and systems, yet worked off the same business model. The issue here was they weren’t leveraging the best aspects of each other or collaborating for maximum impact. They needed to work as one to devise best practices for scaling together.
The MISTX logo wasn’t as professional or attractive as the one MIS had, and their brand was basically nonexistent. To solve this issue, I proposed and executed a logo that would bring the two companies together, creating a stronger presence while working to bring the brand to life across all customer—internal and external—engagements. Because Texans are extremely supportive of Texas brands, we worked to incorporate an extra focus for this in our marketing communications tactics.
After fixing the Texas branding for cohesiveness, I harnessed their strong technical and scientific expertise to fix elements across all touchpoints, implementing one overarching strategy for both companies—the ultimate cost-effective solution. I then leveraged their brand and industry leadership for visibility, attracting more audience, new services, product launches, and increased business opportunities.
The MISTX team was missing sales opportunities from a lack of empathy and overall customer experience when managing leads. We needed to button things up and get the crew on board with putting the customer at the center of our strategy while using data as the focal point of our customer operations to drive a better experience.
Not only did I train the team throughout the customer’s journey, I worked to design a new hiring system for MISTX as an additional strategy and marketing tool.
These approaches helped to drive lead-to-client conversions.
Once we started working with the team, it was abundantly clear that everything we thought we knew as consumers about mold and indoor air quality was mostly myth or misconception. It was a no brainer to build an engine for engagement by delivering a strategic and targeted message at every turn. The vehicles of choice included a blog, e-mail marketing, social media, lead magnets, a podcast show, public relations, news, videos, and paid traffic.
Right as Q2Mark was coming on board, Mold Inspection Sciences Texas was coming off of an expert appearance on the Dr. Phil Show, and they hadn’t fully leveraged the opportunity post taping. I proposed several ideas that included repurposing the episode as a new blog post for MISTX, email marketing communications, and a social media campaign.
The public relations efforts didn’t stop there. I curated press releases surrounding timely company news, and highlighted the business’s successes, such as: partnering with a global infrared thermal camera manufacturer for greater services, being recognized by Angie’s List for their consistently high levels of customer service, and staff promotions.
Generally, consumers hesitate when it comes to fixing a mold problem because of two things: First, cost; second, they don’t fully understand the right way to solve the problem. As mentioned before, it was clear the MISTX team had strong technical and scientific expertise. Still, it wasn’t at the consumer’s fingertips, and there was a huge opportunity to educate people on how to get started and solve their mold issues the smart way.
The tactic here was to create tools that highlighted informational content about how to find sources of mold, moisture, and indoor air quality issues that clients and potential clients could look to. Mold Inspection Sciences Texas loved this idea, and after developing these pieces, they were used across different mediums to help drive leads back to MISTX to schedule inspections.
With a huge opportunity to educate their audiences, I pitched the idea of developing attractive characters for their brand then using that character as the face, voice, and leader in photos and videos as well as in a podcast. The MISTX team loved the idea, and I started vetting our attractive character, who happened to be one of their field consultants. I provided training, tools, and tactics helping field consultant Craig Cooper transform into The Secret Life of Mold podcast host along with Mold Inspection Sciences Texas’ COO, Mike Marshall.
As PR outreach and presence began to make an impact, the Dr. Phil Show reached out to Mold Inspection Sciences Texas again, this time to help investigate and solve a severe issue that was impacting one of Dr. Phil’s biggest fans.
I received a call on a Thursday with an opportunity for a mold inspector to be on location for a shoot the two days later. This was a $365,000 free media opportunity hitting a daytime CBS audience of 5.2 million TV viewers plus an online and social media reach. On the day of taping, field consultant Ben arrived at the guest’s home during a severe rainstorm with equipment and marketing plans in hand.
This was a completely new experience for our inspector, so I stepped in to help prepare and led the public relations efforts. I met with the producers to discuss the taping of the episode and then prepped our inspector and team on the next steps. I also offered the Dr. Phil team full marketing and communications support, providing graphics, talking points, and shot lists. I obtained photography of our inspector for pre-promotional use, and I also requested footage from the taping with the rights for promotional opportunities post-airing, which is surprisingly often missed by guest experts.
The appearance also included an interview with inspector Ben, via Skype, to discuss findings and lab reports. This was yet another new experience, so I trained him on hair and make-up, what to wear, speaking techniques, and rehearsal strategies. In addition, the Q2Mark team helped to script the discussion for Dr. Phil and his team.
Further demonstrating our commitment to this opportunity, Dr. Phil and his team invited me to attend the show. From the moment I stepped in the studio, I was able to see firsthand just how much the Dr. Phil team cares about their guests. They made sure the woman impacted by mold had the resources needed to recover and return to a healthy state once again.
After the taping, it was time to work on preparing for the launch. The photos and shots that were captured during the taping process were used to announce the upcoming show date, and I worked to develop a 30-second commercial to be distributed on CBS during the April 1st airing of the show.
I pitched the concepts and once approved my Q2Mark team and I wrote the script. hired voiceover talent, edited the commercial, managed the media buy, and the submission of the creative.
April 1st was an exciting day for everyone involved, and the marketing tactics from this appearance didn’t stop there. Post-show promotions, blog publications, social media, email marketing, and training for the customer service team were all launched. Ultimately, I leveraged the Dr. Phil Show expert appearance as a tactic to help further position MIS and MISTX, proving that these fully integrated efforts yield more significant results time and time again.
The state of Texas has had strong regulations in place for the mold industry since 2004, but when the discussion started about deregulation, Mold Inspection Sciences Texas immediately got involved. Within a day, we were helping them fight this. I jumped in, providing recommendations on what to do and help train the MISTX team on how to prepare for House and Senate hearings that were set to be taking place in a couple of days. A lobbyist told MISTX the four bills being presented couldn’t be stopped; however, this wasn’t true. Our tactics proved to put enough data and information in front of the committees to halt the administration. This was just the first step of many to come.
I also helped guide the formulation of a new industry organization, now known as Texas Mold Assessors and Remediators Association (TMARA). This association focuses on building and supporting the mold industry in Texas through connection, collaboration, legislation, and action among industry professionals. Q2Mark developed this brand as well as its current branding tools. I’ve also consulted with the organization on structuring their membership, driving donations, support, public relations, and marketing tactics – for their professional community, to educate consumers, provide the facts to the media, and secure support from legislative interests.
A culture focused on teamwork is especially important to Mold Inspection Sciences Texas. As such, I helped develop their annual company retreats to help inspire even more results. Tactics included developing the presentations and hiring a videographer/photographer to capture the events. The footage was then used to develop team with videos where each member shares why they are proud to be a part of Mold Inspection Sciences Texas and love what they do. For the second event, I developed a full set of branded items to foster more loyalty and team pride.
In addition to vetting and honing the new voice of Mold Inspection Sciences Texas through an attractive character, I also worked to direct and develop both video and photoshoots. This included all of the team members to help clients and potential customers get a sense of who Mold Inspection Sciences Texas is as a company.
With today’s consumers always connected and regularly consuming information through a variety of mediums, it was a no brainer to propose a podcast for Mold Inspection Sciences Texas. Now that they had a recognizable voice, it was time to share their stories and case studies in a way that really captured the attention of their audience. As a consumer myself, when it comes to the topic of mold and indoor air quality, I’m always learning something new when producing these episodes. There truly is a secret life when it comes to mold, and this type of personal, mobile media drives engagement for a topic that people typically would only deal with when they had to.
While B2C was our priority when developing and executing strategy for this client, there was also a commercial program they had, but they weren’t leveraging it to build affiliate and B2B opportunities. I proposed revamping their Premier Service Provider program and developing and executing a full-funnel specific to their commercial audiences.
This included fixing and updating the existing brochure, outreach via phone and email communications, an email series, a new landing page, PowerPoint presentations for meetings with potential partners, The Secret Life of Mold Podcast guest appearances, social connections, obtaining and providing blogs, email, and social media content to share mutually via each other’s communications outlets. I also helped define standards for this program and recommendations on how to qualify a potential partner and monitor their success.
It’s also important to note that networking and event sponsorships can be large investments of time and budgets. To maximize opportunities and ROI, I vetted potential membership programs and requested more benefits. I developed processes for the sales team to provide content (new or repurposed existing material) to the organizations they were involved with. I also pitched speaking engagements, among other marketing tactics.
way products, services, and operations were delivered. Mold Inspection Sciences Texas had a unique opportunity because people might not realize that their home environment could already be impacting their health, making them even more susceptible to the virus.
In addition, they wanted to be able to talk to more people while being more economical about their advertising. I recommended shifting their sales strategies to leverage free platforms like Facebook Live and live streaming on YouTube with pre- and post-show marketing tactics for greater reach, exposure, and results.
The client agreed, and within two days we had a planning meeting, developed and launched pre-show promos, and went live.
Internally, we harnessed their team, providing instructions and training on how to help get the word out and raise more awareness about the live event.
Michael Bains
President
Mold Inspection Sciences and Mold Inspection Sciences Texas
Mike Marshall
Chief Operating Officer
Mold Inspection Sciences Texas
Q2Mark has a proven track record with a highly efficient team of experts. We are here, on the virtual ground – as we’ve done for 16 years – working with businesses and clients around the U.S. to protect their opportunities even throughout today’s challenging times.
In working with Mold Inspection Sciences Texas, Q2Mark brought creative marketing communications and consulting services that have driven their brand and performance, cementing them as the choice for mold and indoor air quality solutions. In 2019, Mold Inspection Sciences Texas obtained over 7,000 new leads.
Mold Inspection Sciences Texas meets its customers with a realigned team moving under one approach. A new internal infrastructure that focuses on buttoning up all touchpoints, including hiring, interviewing, and streamlining employee development.
We also helped launch a testimonial system to further build trust and social proof among clients. The results are pretty exciting. Their natural promoter score went from 38 to 68 in just three months, with the benchmark for the industry being only 58.
With the development of TMARA and team training for government hearings, Mold Inspection Sciences Texas has a newfound position in the fight against deregulation. They have been able to work directly with Texas state representatives and officials to help maintain the industry’s commitment to consumer protection through legislation.
With the shift in business and sales strategy during the COVID-19 crisis, we were able to help Mold Inspection Sciences Texas remain visible, vocal, and address consumer concerns about optimal health and wellness while, at the same time, helping them have a discussion about how a home services business can still operate with a no-touch and paperless platform.
Mold Inspection Sciences Texas is still the solution to help people solve their mold and indoor air quality issues without having to worry about contamination.
Their live event reached nearly 3,000 people, had over 270 engagements, was shared nearly 30 times, and had over 1,000 views.
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