Do You Know Your Employer Brand Audience?

Your employer brand is bigger than you think. The people touching your employer brand reach far and wide. These people are your audience. Anytime you create content you should be thinking about your audience. 

Marketers create content to attract and retain customers and that content is not whimsically created. They create very specific content for very specific types of customers. Take Netflix for example. They are creating content that attracts and retains you as a customer. By now I am sure you know that marketing teams are testing different images, changing text, even changing colors to figure out what combination converts the most leads into customers. But did you know that companies are even testing within the customer experience? Within the Netflix platform, two different types of customers will see different preview tiles for the same show. They use the vast amounts of data to decide which preview tile to display. For example, Stranger Things - if I'm super into rom-coms and you love thrillers, then I might see this image of Hopper and Joyce and you might see this image of Eleven. They are speaking directly to your preferences and compelling you to click.

What does Netflix have to do with your employer brand? Well nothing really, but hopefully you understand that you should be segmenting your audience and showing them content that is important to them. You might not have the massive amounts of data that Netflix has, but you certainly can compel a candidate to apply to your company with the right piece of content. Creating content that compels a candidate (or even more amazingly a passive candidate) to apply to one of your jobs is getting more difficult because there is so much more noise. 

You may think job seekers are your biggest audience and only focus on them, but there are other people in your audience that can actually impact your recruitment strategy and influence those job seekers. You need to understand who your “customers” are, you need to understand your audience. I’ve broken this down into 4 groups; Potential Candidates, Candidates, Current Employees, Former Employees. 

1. Potential Candidates: These are people at the very top of your hiring funnel. Some of them may not even know who you are or what you do. You want to think very broadly about this audience. Having landing pages for specific roles with detailed information and stories about what it means to be on that team is a great start.
   
   
2. Actual Candidates: Hiring is a process and sometimes it’s a long process so you should have content touchpoints that you can deploy to keep candidates engaged. These could be more in-depth interviews with people on your team and even materials that outline your benefits plan or interview process.
   
   
3. Current Employees: Retaining employees is the new recruiting. Every day recruiters just like you are trying to steal away your best candidates. This is important to recognize because Gallup found that only 33% of American workers are engaged at work. Content can re-engage them and remind them why they wanted to work for you in the first place.
   
   
4. Former Employees: Not long ago I did a video on Boomerang candidates. Whether you like it or not your former employees are brand ambassadors and they are out there talking to people on your behalf. Don’t forget about them. They won’t forget how you treated them on the way in and on the way out. Connect this group of people and push them feel good “remember when” content.
   
   

Content is at the center of your employer brand. There was a time where your culture video was endearing and I am sure effective, but now that highly-produced and scripted culture video could be doing more harm than good. Your current and former employees might not think it is reflective of what it’s like to work there and your potential candidates might be turned off by its rigidness. Understanding there are different audiences for your employer brand is the first step in creating content that will resonate with them. After all, content is a way you can differentiate your company from your competition. Especially when 69% of candidates feel an employer's brand is a deciding factor when considering a job offer. And for those of you not creating content, that also says something about your company.

Your employer brand is bigger than you think. From passing a stranger with your logo on their shirt to a current employee speaking on a panel, your employer brand reaches further than you can imagine. Before spending time and money on content it’s crucial to understand your audience. If you need help creating content for your audience or want to discuss your employer brand strategy send me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn.