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Five Ways You’re Killing Your Employer Brand At Job Fairs

by on March 12, 2012 in Marketing

Last week, I attended the Tech Career Expo which was held in conjunction with SxSW 2012. I persevered the driving rain, crowds of festival-goers, as well as sparse and horrendously overpriced parking options to check out what was billed as “not your normal career fair.” In the end, I was sadly disappointed to find that it actually was just. like. every. job. fair. ever. As much as I enjoy a good brew, the fact beer was served did not create a revolutionary new experience.

Before I start, let me say I fully empathize with the trials and tribulations of being a trade show exhibitor. I’m all too familiar with being on my feet for hours rattling off the same 30 second “Who We Are” pitch to countless booth visitors. I know how hard it is to maintain the same upbeat nature of the first day on days two and three (and sometimes four). But any organization should know the same rules which we marketers use for creating business with prospective customers very much apply to attracting possible job applicants. It should come as no surprise that the differences between marketing brand and employer brand are wafer-thin.

So if you’re attending or in charge of sending representatives to the next job fair to promote your employer brand, I hope you’ll find these observations from a marketing trade show veteran useful.

1. You’re damn happy and appreciative to be there.
Whatever you’re actually feeling about being there, the prospect doesn’t care. All they care about is your complete and undivided attention. If you and your booth staff are bitching about having to be on your feet all day and looking like you’d rather be anywhere but at that very spot, imagine how a potential job seeker must feel. And yes, I did have someone do this to me. I can guarantee it did nothing to endear me to him, his company, or his company’s product.

2. You know your company and what it does by heart.
Unless your company is named Dell, Apple, or Google, it’s extremely likely potential applicants will want to know more about your business. It might even be their first question. So have the 30 second pitch down cold. Know the basics: your industry, your target customers, what your product or service does, and your competition. And if this sounds like common sense, let me say that reps from at least three booths at the Expo would have gotten a failing grade here.

3. You can speak eloquently about your open positions and employment needs.
Please don’t just go through the motions…you might as well not have a booth at all. When I asked the question, “What types of positions are you trying to fill?”, I had more than one booth rep shove a piece of paper toward me and respond, “They’re all here.” Sorry, but that’s not the question I asked. I’m certainly capable of taking collateral and reading it. What I want to hear is some insight into your company and what skills/backgrounds/expertise you need to move your business forward. Sorry? Your booth reps don’t have that kind of information? Then educate them or leave them at home.

4. You can help the prospect understand how great it is to work at your company.
Yes, I know how much you like working at the company. While your perspective is important to hear, I also know you’re getting paid to say how much you like working at the company. Instead, do this: help me understand why I might love to work there. Paint the picture, not from your perspective, but from my own. Take a couple of minutes to ask me what I do, what my strengths are, where I want to go in my career…then help me see exactly why I would want to take my talents to your organization.

5. Finally, you’re a brand representative so act accordingly.
I may never, ever work for your organization. I may not possess the type of skills you need now or in the future. I may not quite fit with your culture. But that still doesn’t mean I’m a throwaway contact. Each potential job application you come into contact with at a job fair may end up being the individual who chooses your company to do business with in their next gig. Or refers an important key client in the direction of your company. Taking the short-view of any candidate’s viability obscures the hard truth that we live in a hyperconnected world.

Photo credit: KUT

Marketers Are Hypocrites

by on January 9, 2012 in Marketing

Yep, big fat, stinking hypocrites. Why? Because we perpetrate the same marketing bullshit that annoys us to no end on our own prospects and customers. Think I’m joking? How many times have you secretly – or publicly – wished a company would treat you like an actual human being in their messaging? Wished they would actually send you information that recognized your own special snowflake qualities?

Now, turn it around: when was the last time you actually tried to give the same level of appreciation with your own prospects and customers? Do you see each name and recognize it belongs to an individual?

Before you answer, honestly consider about how you think about that house file in your CRM. Think about how you organize your reports. Think about how you’re rewarded in your job. Think about what really matters in your success.

None of this is intended to point fingers (hell, I know I would already have three fingers pointing right back at me). Instead, my intent is to stir some awareness that things need to change. And that change should start with the language, syntax, imagery we use in marketing. As my esteemed friend and fellow marketer, Russ Somers, notes in his Human Marketing Manifesto (and also the genesis of this post):

I am not traffic. I am not driven by your marketing to your site like a lemming is driven by instinct to a cliff’s edge. I am a person who had a need to know something…Where am I in your funnel? What a stupid question. Who the hell wants to be in a funnel?

I don’t have any definitive answers…at least not yet. But it seems to me that if marketing as a discipline is to evolve toward where the world is going, we better get ourselves together and plot a new direction. Else, we don’t need to wait for the comet to wipe out our profession, we’ll have done all the damage ourselves.

Clean Beds And A Lesson In Pricing

by on November 29, 2011 in Marketing

It’s tough not to get hung up on cost isn’t it? In particular, we marketers can get caught up in what our competition is selling their wares for and get a twinge of anxiety. Are we selling for the right price? What if someone else has found out how to do the same thing cheaper?

All this ignores what’s really important, however. And that’s the distinct difference between cost and value. To illustrate, here’s what happened to our family over the Thanksgiving holiday. We decided to make the 1000+ mile road trip from Austin to Virginia. The driving was great (we left Austin the weekend prior to Thanksgiving and started our return on Black Friday – thanks folks for shopping instead of driving). What was not so great were the cheap accommodations we went with along the way.

See, we didn’t intentionally choose cheap motels, but went with them because these are the ones that openly label themselves as “pet friendly”. The trip to Virginia, we went with a La Quinta which was serviceable. Not terribly clean but not terribly dirty either. The particular Red Roof Inn we went with on the way back to Austin was far less than okay (which is being rather charitable). Even though we had a nonsmoking room, the sheets reeked of nicotine. We were tired and accepted it, thinking its just for one night. At 3am, my oldest daughter woke us up and complained that her bed was giving her asthma problems and she was having trouble breathing. Well heck, if I’m awake at 3am I might as well pack us up and finish the drive…and that’s what we did.

My purpose to this story isn’t to pile on either La Quinta or Red Roof Inn. I’ve stayed in some nice ones. And I’m fully aware we should have changed rooms and mentioned it to the front desk. That’s on us. My purpose is to show that having the lowest price isn’t always the main selling point. Think we got any value out of that cheap room when we only stayed until 3am? Nope. I would have paid double to have a good night sleep.

So instead of engaging in that race to the bottom which is inevitable in any pricing war, think about value and what your target customers value in your product or service. Message to what problems you solve and how that value makes you the clear choice. It’s very likely that clean sheets and a soft pillow will beat out a cheap price to a weary traveler.

photo credit: Chrispitality via Flickr

Relationship Marketing Is A Steaming Pile Of…

by on September 16, 2011 in Marketing

I’ve had it. I’ve more than had it…I’m at a place where if I hear another marketing wizard continue to use the words ‘relationship’ or ‘social’ in front of the word ‘marketing’, I’m going to come after them with a pitchfork or whatever sharp pointy object that’s close at hand.

Why? Because if you still believe marketing is separated from building relationships or being social (whatever that hell really means anyway), then you really don’t understand marketing. Please, do us all a favor? Just call it marketing. Stop trying to fleece the ignorant and misinformed. And then try something novel: do the work that marketing does without going into the need of throwing out empty platitudes and worthless buzzwords.

And sales? You’re not off the hook, either. If anything, sales has been and always shall be about relationships. So don’t call it ‘relationship sales’ or ‘social selling’. These are just bullshit words that make you look either ignorant or sleazy.

Got examples of this crap in action today? Let’s share…comments welcomes below.

Does Your Website Have The 5 Abilities? Now With More Meat

by on September 6, 2011 in Marketing

Note: A couple of months ago, I wrote this post for PR Soup. Ever since then, I wanted to add some examples to illustrate my points. So here it is…I’ve taken my Soup post and added some more meat to it. Enjoy!

Since my company is currently undertaking a website redesign project, I’ve been thinking a lot about websites lately – in particular, what makes them successful as a marketing tool. In a quest to learn what other companies have done, I’ve visited dozens upon dozens of business sites for clues to their potential success. And I’ve seen quite a few that I would categorize as the web equivalent of the black pit of despair. What I think I’ve discovered is…

It takes five -abilities to make your site a successful marketing and business development machine.

Justifiability: What do you do and why do I need it?
Your site has to make a convincing and fast value proposition to a potential customer. That means you can’t pummel them with countless feature sets, services, and all the things that YOU think make you great. Know why? Because it’s not about you…it’s about the customer. So you better be able to succinctly describe what your business does and why it matters to them.

Who gets it right: Infochimps

What Infochimps does is simple: they provide an ever-expanding selection of datasets in which businesses can build apps and analytics. It’s right there on their front page. And their data search bar sits prominently just below the header. You can’t miss it or the value you might get from working with this company.

Capability: How will you solve my problem?

While it’s not necessary to go in-depth into how your business works, it is necessary to show you understand your customer’s challenges and then offer how you can uniquely resolve them. Conduct some market studies and learn your core customer’s pain points. Then use their language (not your own cryptic in-house terminology) to demonstrate how you can make their lives easier.

Who gets it right: Silverpop

Marketing automation platforms are a fairly new and fast-growing industry segment so there’s lots of competition out there. I really love how the folks at Silverpop drive home the value of their solution by focusing on how they solve common marketing challenges. Who doesn’t need to increase ROI or conversions? The answers are right there.

Easability: Is it easy to work with you? Is it easy to buy from you?
No matter how incredibly wonderful and life-changing a product or service might be, no one – REPEAT, NO ONE – wants to buy it if it only leads to a painful experience. Your site needs to not only be easy to use and navigate, it needs to mirror just how easy it is to work with you.

Who gets it right: Uservoice

There are plenty of quality services out there with easy to use, freemium models. I just happen to adore how Uservoice does it. I needed to find a quick, yet dependable solution for collecting feature requests for my company. Within 5 minutes I was signed up and didn’t need to give any credit card info to do it. That’s truly making it easy for me to get to know your service.

Credability: Can I trust you?

We all know that trust is a cornerstone of business. Prospects want to know that your company isn’t some fly-by-night operation that’s not going to deliver on promises. It’s why so many sites have those areas on their home page showing logos from companies they serve. That immediately implies credibility by getting us to think, “Well if [Company X] trusts them, I can too.”

Who gets it right: Radian6 and Spiceworks

It’s pretty standard issue for companies to show the logos of their best customers. What I like about these two companies is they go beyond this to build greater levels of immediate trust. When Radian6 tells me that half of all Fortune 100 companies use them, that gets my attention. And when Spiceworks shows me how many IT pros and companies are using their services right now, that instills a sense of comfort in users. When this happens, taking the next step toward a sales contact just got a lot easier.

Dependability: Will you be there when I need you?
Just like credibility, prospects want to know that once they make the decision to work with you they’re not going to regret it. They want to know that you’re there when something doesn’t work. They want to know that you’re listening when they have an idea or suggestion. They want to know you’re going to be a partner in their success.

Who gets it right: Solarwinds

Because of their business model, Solarwinds is all about offering great support in several different methods. Their thwack user community is strong with most issues handled peer-to-peer. They also have a multitude of videos, docs, and other support resources in addition to actual live customer support. You know when you work with Solarwinds, someone has your back. And that’s a very good thing if your business is dealing with skeptical and anxious IT pros.

Take a look at your site and ask whether it meets these five criteria. If not, what can you do right now to change that? I guarantee it will be worth your time and effort.