Pioneer has recently taken a step forward in our business development by unveiling the Pioneer Pest Mosquito Mauler (P2M2). This vehicle has been carefully selected and designed to be both functional and visible in the community. The vehicle wrap was expertly provided by Craftsmen Industries, a company that provides professional custom vehicle designs and solutions.  Craftsmen thought our use of QR Codes in mobile marketing was so unique, that they featured it on The Craftsmen Industries Blog.

What are QR Codes you ask?…

One aspect of the P2M2 that we are particularly excited about is the use of Quick Response (QR) Codes on all sides of our vehicle. These little codes look “space age”, but are a very practical tool in mobile marketing. The QR Code allows any person using a smart phone to photograph the code using any available QR Reader Apps. Doing so takes the user directly to a special page here on the Pioneer site where we can hold contests, provide specials, show a video, or do pretty much anything we please.

If you do not have a QR Code Reader on your device, we recommend the following:

iPhone – QR App for iPhone
Android – Shop Savvy Barcode Reader

As a small company, one of our unique challenges is to ensure we are working smart to get the most bang for our marketing dollar. Keeping our costs low in this area allows us to compete favorably against some of our larger competitors from a price standpoint, but also gives us a unique opportunity to really engage our customers in a fun way.

As general public awareness for QR Codes gains momentum, we expect many new customers to contact us via these markings on our truck.  At very least, people might take note of the fact that we are doing something unique and fun and perhaps ask us about it.  We shall see.

Location services such as Facebook Places, Yelp, Foursquare and Gowalla are a crazy hot topic right now. These programs can be a fantastic driver for word of mouth, and a lot of fun too. Many respected local social media experts and other pundits have enthusiastically encouraged businesses to use these as a tool in their marketing arsenal.

As a small, local pest control business in St Louis, it would be foolish of us to not try ways to use these services and become an active participant. This applies especially in a market like St Louis, where folks are SO local centric and prone to take note of providers that serve the areas around them.

The chief challenge for a mobile, service based company though, is that there are no well known games or great channels for people to really voluntarily  “shout your name” to others without being prompted.   I don’t really expect someone to get on Twitter or Facebook or some other channel and declare “@PioneerSTL is here and they are doing a bang up job solving my pest issue”. That does not seem realistic, although it would be completely awesome.

Maybe the customer would write a review of us on Google or Yelp or someplace. Perhaps a really good friend would post something on their Facebook page, but very few people have figured out how to really broadcast these types of endorsements.

The fact of the matter is, that there are a lot of “gurus” dispensing free advice on all sorts of digital business development, but very few have meaningful suggestions for businesses that serve customers at their site. I guess at this point, the best and most notable service that has come close to the mark is Facebook, with its “like” feature, but it really does not really allow for check ins or shouts out or facilitating meaningful conversation.

Any experts want to share their own thoughts on this topic?
Any Foursquare users want to share your thoughts on my homemade “STL independent business” badge? (shown above).

This Saturday, we have the privilege of participating in a great golf event, established to honor a very remarkable person.

Marikle,  a charitable foundation for sick children in St. Louis , is one of those things that is right with this world.  To get an understanding of how this charity evolved, read the heartwarming truth of how this cause started  here.

If you have landed on this page, and have the means to support this cause, please consider it.  This little girl, and her friends and family, put a lot of energy into trying to help people who are dealing with their own battles.  They receive great support, but could always use more support for their truly important work.

If you are a golfer, there is still a little time to register a team!  You can take our word for it, it is epic fun.  If you cannot do it this year, please try to keep it on your radar and make plans to participate in next year’s 5th Annual Marikle Golf Tournament.

This year’s Greentree Parade was a wonderful success for us here at Pioneer. We developed a good tagline for the 2010 parade, for which the theme was “Dancing Through The Decades”.  In response, our float in the parade was anchored with banners on each side reading “We Give Bugs The Jitters” (get it?… dancing… jitterbugs).  Additionally, our parade entry featured MistAway misting nozzles installed in a fence line, just like we install them in people’s homes.  Here is a picture of our float.

You can't see the mist in the picture, but it's there!

This was the 50th Anniversary of the Greentree Festival, and the parade featured an extra special guest attraction (besides us). This year, the Budweiser Clydesdales were featured in parade. It is always a wonderful treat to see the Clydesdales up close.  Check them out in front of the Kirkwood Train Station below.

It was a wonderful day in Kirkwood, and it is always great to see so many familiar friends and faces along the parade route! If you received one of our fly swatters, count yourself among the lucky ones. The crowd was so huge this year, that we ran out of fly swatters about 3/4 of the way through the parade.

Here are some additional pictures that we took from the morning…

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Kirkwood’s 50th Annual Greentree Festival Parade is upon us once again! The parade will be held this Saturday, and predictably Pioneer is still “finalizing” our float plans. One thing we know for sure is… WE WILL HAVE FLY SWATTERS TO HAND OUT to help with fly control in Kirkwood!  We will look forward to seeing you along the parade route.

If you missed us last year, here are some photo’s of our inaugural Greentree Festival Parade entry and some other fun floats from last year.

This year’s festival theme is “Dancing Through the Decades”, and this is the 50th Anniversary of the festival.

See how the trees have dancing people in them? Pretty clever eh?

Not everyone knows that this wonderful festival was actually started because of a terrible pest.  Isn’t that ironic?

Yes, the first Greentree Festival was held as a tree replacement fundraiser, because in the late 1950′s Kirkwood’s treasured trees were invaded, diseased and destroyed by the dreaded Elm Bark Beetle.  In fact, this year’s parade Grand Marshall is  Angie Munson, the person that led the first Greentree planning committee.  According to reports, you could buy inexpensive replacement trees at the original festival, many of which still stand in the community today. Legend has it that many of the trees were sold for only $1!

Unfortunately, a great many of those trees sold were the pesky Liquidambar styraciflua, or Sweet Gum tree.  But that’s another story for another day…

So, as you visit the festival this weekend and chow down on your kettle korn, Nipher fries & Shish-ka-bobs, you may want to give some thought to the pest that made all of this possible.  While it tragically destroyed a lot of trees in the late 1950′s, it also helped spawn one of the most wonderful traditions in all of Kirkwood… The Greentree Festival.

And now you know… the rest of the story.

Yesterday, we  received a notice about the KenDucky Derby race that will be happening Friday, August 27th at Kirkwood Pool’s Lazy River at 7:30.  Funds raised will help the Kirkwood Historical Society pay for much needed repairs and restoration projects at Mudd’s Grove.

Pioneer Pest Management & Mosquito Misting definitely plans to enter some ducks in this fun event.  We encourage anyone else who can to do the same. It sounds like fun for the whole family. Costs are $10 for one duck or $25 for three ducks.  Plus, there are some pretty good “bills” (get it?) involved for the winners:

First Place:  $300

Second Place:  $150

Third Place:  $50

"...and down the stretch they come in the derby!"

According to the notice we recieved, there will be complimentary wine, cheese & refreshements. Ducks can be purchased at the gate on the evening of the race, or at any of the following locations:

ONE 19 NORTH TAPAS WINE BAR
119 North Kirkwood Road
Kirkwood, MO 63122
314-821-4119
www.one19north.com

HIGHLANDS RESTAURANT & BREWING CO.
105 East Jefferson
Kirkwood, MO 63122
314-966-2739
http://www.highlandsbrewing.com/

FRONTENAC BANK
301 North Kirkwood Road
Kirkwood, MO 63122
314-569-5340
Available at the drive thru:
8am to 6pm: Mon thru Fri
9am to Noon: Sat 
http://www.frontenacbank.com/

We have been test floating our ducks with great success.

In fact, we are ducks # 245, #246 and #247.  So if you see our ducks, please feel free to give them an extra little gust of helping wind!

St. Louis summers can bring brutal heat and humidity.  While many residents like to spend time outdoors, the summer conditions can wreak havoc on older decks and patios.

In recent years, deck material technology has advanced dramatically.  Modern materials are far more durable and stand up to St. Louis weather conditions better than anything available to homeowners in the past.  Additionally, these structures can be built to be far more aesthetically pleasing, with enhanced railing options and a lot more creativity used in design and building than has been historically available.

One thing that homeowners often do not plan for while investing in creating the ideal outdoor living environment is outodoor insect control.  When conditions are right to enjoy time outdoors, those times can sometimes be cut short by the invasion of insects as dusk sets in.  That is why we encourage people that are building new outdoor decks and patios to pre-install MistAway Misting Systems at the time of constructing thier new decks.  When installed at the same time as design and construction, these systems can be set up so they will be invisible to guests, and blend into the environment.

If you are looking to build a new deck, Pioneer strongly recommnends local St. Louis custom deck builder, California Custom Decks.  This family owned and operated businesses has been designing and building high quality decks, sunrooms, pergolas & gazebos in the St. Louis area since 1990.

Fiberon deck built by California Custom Decks

The people at California Custom Decks have high integrity and long track record of highly satisfied customers (some of which are also Pioneer customers). California Custom Decks specializes in presenting St. Louis homeowners with a lot of great options from material manufacturers such as Azek,  Fiberon, TigerDeck, Timberteck Decking, and Trex .  We encourage you to use the contact information at the bottom of this post to get in touch with California Custom Decks.

As you consider your options in building a deck,  it would also be a wise investment to consider how to deal with the uninvited flying guests.  Inquire with your deck builder about pre-installation options available from Pioneer.

We receive inquiries frequently from larger properties looking for mosquito control.   Often, the challenge for these homeowners and neighborhoods is that they are surrounded by woods on at least one side of the property and there in no control applied to the wooded area. In these areas,  the municipalities and other government services that are typically available to help with mosquitoes are not comprehensive enough to cover the area the property owner needs.

If your property needs a sign like this, it's time to contact Pioneer.

To treat these areas effectively, often the mosquito control needs to go deeper into the woods to provide mosquito treatment for wooded areas . Other effective treatment can be to treat with an ATV that has a mosquito fogging rig attached to it, similar to the one featured in the video below.

For larger properties, Pioneer works with the homeowner to devise an on-going plan to treat the areas and reduce the population. If you have acreage, and a mosquito problem, you might want to “blaze a trail” to your phone and give us a call . We’ll come take a look and work with you to get the problem under control.

Thursday evening the Social Media Club of St Louis (SMCSTL) put on a “State of Twitter in St Louis” event at the fantastic Hatch Global Research facility in Maplewood. The keynote presentation was delivered by Jason Fiehler, President of Infuz, which powers the STLtweets.com site.  STLtweets is a twitter mashup which amalgamates St Louis related Twitter personalities and the tweets they put out. The STLtweets concept is a great idea, and is flawlessly executed by the Infuz team.

In an effort to gain a better understanding of how St. Louis tweets, STLtweets conducted a survey of Twitter users, the results of which they shared at last night’s event.  The results of this survey and the work that STLtweets is doing is truly fascinating.  The presentation, as delivered by Fiehler and his associate Marc Brooks, was very well done. This information will surely be of keen interest to any marketer or casual observer wishing to understand the St. Louis twitter community more clearly.

We recorded the presentation so that we could attempt to watch it again and glean more insight from it. As a service to the community, we have shared the video below.

STLTWEETS-SMCSTL PRESENTATION from PioneerSTL on Vimeo.

As a small business, we truly believe in the connecting power of social media.  We intend to use it more aggressively in the future for better relationship building with our customers and the community at large.  Please forgive the quality of the video production.  You will quickly discover by watching the video that our talents are in pest control, not in video production

Please follow us for earth shattering information on Pest Control in St. Louis and other riveting and entertaining information…

We just wanted to give a quick shout out to Russ Henneberry’s blog.  Russ is a small business leader and advisor in St. Louis and performs a valuable service by sharing good guidance online about how small businesses like ours can use social media.  We appreciate the resources that local St. Louis bloggers and business people like Russ  make available to keep us informed.

Plus, his post today features a picture of one of our favorite things… a dead fly.

We track as many St. Louis bloggers as we can in an effort to try to stay informed of what is happening locally.  One great resource to find local bloggers, is Greg Bussman’s St. Louis Social Media & Tech Report blogroll. Greg does a great job on this site keeping up with people locally and reporting on what is happening in the social media world in St. Louis. While we rarely have time to participate in any of the events, it is good to know that there is a vibrant social media community in St. Louis.