Betting on Brand Ads
Employment sites – job boards as well as social media sites acting as job boards – have made their bones with online classified advertising. Despite the growing availability of alternatives (from old fashioned career fairs operated online to black belt Boolean searching), survey after survey confirms that the job posting remains the single best way to attract and recruit talent.
The heavy weight champion of the online classifieds category – or what advertisers call direct response ads – is, of course, Google. In 2014, it racked up $45 billion in search ads which often contain less content than what was typically found in a print classified circa 1989.
As impressive as that result is, however, we should note that direct response ads represent just a sliver of the $550 billion global advertising market (eMarketer). Where’s the rest of the money going? To brand ads – ads like the ones you see on television and in print publications.
Brand ads don’t rely on information to convey their message; they use emotion. And images. Done well, they create an immersive experience that is memorable, compelling and – most important – alluring. And, they’re now beginning to arrive on the Web, at places like Facebook, Snapchat and Pinterest.
The digital employment solutions industry has long offered brand ads to employers, but these messages have almost always been nothing more than a direct response ad wrapped in a banner. They have all of the emotional appeal of a brick.
So, now is the time for our industry to target that larger segment of the global advertising market by offering our customers brand ads that act like brand magnets. We need to get past the simple HTML of static, text based ads and acquire the expertise to offer dynamic content and images that will set our customers apart in the minds of top talent.
Clearly, that’s easier said than done. As a minimum, it will require an ongoing educational program directed at our customers, most of whom lack the sophistication of brand marketers among their consumer product colleagues. In addition, we will have to define and develop new metrics to help our customers gauge the performance of their brand ads on our sites and mobile platforms.
But, why go to all that trouble? As our experience with job postings has demonstrated, it won’t be easy. Despite countless efforts to reinvent or at least improve those ads, they are still largely old fashioned job listings repurposed online. Still in all, there are at least two good reasons to make the effort.
” First, while it might be possible to stick with job postings alone and still have a viable business, at least for awhile, they will eventually become even more of a commodity than they are already. That not only depresses your margins, it all but eliminates your ability to exit the business with a significant financial settlement.
” Second, and perhaps even more important, why would we want to give up tapping into a market that is at least five hundred times larger than the traditional recruitment advertising market? Why wouldn’t we do as other online advertising channels are now starting to do and offer ads that provide an emotional experience so powerful, it engages even the most passive of consumers … or what we call top talent?
Food for thought.
Be the Mover & Shaker You Are
The IAEWS Spring Congress will be one of the largest gatherings of the movers and shakers in the digital employment solutions industry. That means you should be there!
The conference will be held on April 25-26, 2015 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, California USA.
Who will you meet and interact with? The agenda alone includes the following:
- Terry Baker, President RealMatch
- Carl Braun, CEO Cross-Post.com
- Ethan Bloomfield, Founder VitalFew
- Vic Buzachero, Corporate Senior Vice President, Scripps Health
- Tom Chevalier, VP appcast.io
- Neil Costa, CEO HireClix
- Philip Dana, Director of Talent Acquisition Intuit
- Tom Darrow, Search Consultant to Mercedes-Benz
- Jeff Dickey-Chasins, Job Board Doctor
- Don Firth, CEO TopUSAJobs.com
- Laura Fitzsimmons, CEO DocCafe.com
- Travis Gardiner, Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants
- Chris Hoyt, Director Global Talent Engagement & Marketing Pepsi
- John Ikenberry, President HigherEdJobs.com
- Tony Lee, CAO Adicio
- Kevin McCarthy, TMP
- Alex Murphy, SVP Beyond.com
- Tom Ricca-McCarthy, CEO Madgex
- Joe Shaker, Jr., EVP Shaker Recruitment Advertising
- Rathin Sinha, CEO AmericasJobExchange.com
- Cindy Songne, Findly
- Brandon Spencer, CKR Interactive
- Peter Weddle, IAEWS Executive Director
- Naj Wright, HR Director Astro Pak
And add to that list, all of the CEOs and their direct reports who will be attending from job boards, social media sites, mobile app developers, cloud-based solution providers, aggregators, job ad distribution companies, association career centers and recruitment advertising agencies..
So, don’t be conspicuous by your absence. Click here and register today.
Private Research Bulletin
It’s tough to keep track of what’s happening in the online employment services industry. Companies are being bought and sold, new technology and services are being introduced, partnerships and alliances are being formed, and alternative business models and strategies are being tested and promoted. All of the time.
Staying on top of it all is critical to bottom line success. But who has the time to collect and read what’s published at the multiple channels that report on such matters? And equally as important, who wants to read everything when only a subset of the information is likely to impact your business?
WEDDLE’s Research Bulletin – a private, monthly e-report – solves these problems. It uses a wide range of sources – both inside and outside the industry – to capture the latest news relevant to online employment and then curates that information to deliver what’s most important with commentary about why and what it could mean.
The WEDDLE’s Research Bulletin is a for-fee publication that gives you your own in-house research and analysis arm. It focuses exclusively on the online employment services industry and delivers exactly what you need to know in just four easy-to-digest pages.
For more information about the Bulletin and its cost, please contact Peter Weddle at peter@weddles.com.
Get the Recognition You Deserve!
The Recruiting Service Innovation Awards area all new and all about you!
That’s right, the ReSIs have expanded the competition to recognize:
- Talent acquisition providers (e.g., job boards, social media sites, mobile apps, cloud-based solutions)
- Talent acquisition partners (e.g., platform providers, content developers, ad distributors)
and
as well as
- the individuals who work for those organizations (your CEO, product development czar, star customer service rep)
- the products and services they provide to their customers (e.g., Best Enterprise Solution, Best SMB solution, Best Niche Employment Site).
and
In short, we’ll now be celebrating both the Innovators and the Innovations in the online employment services industry.
The ReSIs competition is open to all employment-related organizations worldwide. For more information on the ReSIs themselves and the nominating process, please click here.
Industry Books You Shouldn’t Miss
WEDDLE’s Bookstoreis the best source of books and other tools developed expressly for the digital talent acquisition industry. Here are some of the titles your peers have recently purchased:
The New Golden Rules of Job Board Success: Four Principles for Optimizing Operational & Bottom Line Performance in the 21st Century. The title says it all.
The Accidental Houseguest, a novel written by a job board owner who launches his tale at WarmBodyJobs.com, “where second best is just too good.”
The Talent Sourcing & Recruitment Handbook, a Cybersleuth’s secrets to finding those with the rarest and most in-demand skills in the workforce.
Next Practices: Being Better Than Best in Online Recruitment, outside-the-box techniques for job postings, social recruiting and more.