The fall of 2010 found the Access advertising and public relations team on a cross-country bus tour directing a strategic media relations campaign for American General Life and Accident Insurance Company’s first AGLA Hiring Drive (sponsored by CareerBuilder) — a 15-city, 10-day mobile job fair to kick off the company’s multi-year initiative to hire more than 4,000 new sales agents nationwide.
Access identified four key target audiences: the job-seeking community (including entry-level, career change, and qualified unemployed); reporters and business editors in AGLA Hiring Drive cities; national and major market (top 25) media; and the AGLA sales team, whom Access sought to energize through the AGLA Hiring Drive. The objectives of the public relations campaign were not to guarantee a specific number of hires, but instead to aim for a measurable number of potential employee leads and raise awareness of the campaign, as well as raise brand awareness for AGLA’s corporate identity.
Execution:
The crux of the campaign was strategic, targeted media relations — the success of which hinged on identifying the most appropriate media outlets in each city, their respective contacts, and a timely, relevant news angle. Access researched and developed targeted media lists for each Hiring Drive market, which included major dailies, and focused on editors and reporters with employment/recruiting, economic development, business, and consumer interest beats.
To launch the campaign and AGLA’s long-term hiring goals, Access drafted and distributed a news release through PRNewswire to news desks across the country.
Access developed an aggressive timeline for media pitching, including a city-by-city, day-by-day distribution schedule for news releases, advisories, emails, and phone follow-ups. The firm provided the timeline to the AGLA manager in each hiring drive city to prepare them for potential media interest, as each manager would serve as a spokesperson for his or her market.
Staff in Roanoke supported the on-site team, who traveled with the bus for its entire tour in order to manage media on-site, pitch upcoming markets, and revise story angles based on new/timely information. A press kit, developed to provide to media at each hiring drive event, included a localized news release about the AGLA Hiring Drive, a biography for each spokesperson, employee testimonials, a fact sheet about AGLA, and a CD of relevant images including logos and headshots.
Creating a brand for the AGLA Hiring Drive was a crucial step toward the success of the campaign. AGLA’s recruiting partner, CareerBuilder, agreed to co-sponsor the hiring drive.
Social media and interactive were also major tools Access used to promote campaign objectives, news, and updates. A stand-alone website — hiringheroes.com — was designed to ensure all leads and referrals were captured with daily reports, and crucial data could be gathered from Google Analytics. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube channels were created and branded while the content was developed for rapid distribution, pre-event, during event, and post event. Blog posts were added to the website, and localized videos were created for YouTube while being promoted on Facebook and Twitter — all done real-time. Craigslist and Google ad words were targeted on major cities to help publicize the campaign. AGLA Hiring Drive bags, hats, T-shirts, footballs, and even an iPad were handed out at every hiring drive stop to lucky winners and applicants.
How Access Created Traction:
Public relations efforts for the campaign far exceeded expectations, securing more than 116 news items for an estimated total audience reach of more than 21.2 million, and an estimated advertising value of more than $30,399. Significant media coverage included a feature article on industry hiring trends by FINS (a career site owned by The Wall Street Journal) as well as coverage by The Baltimore Sun, Nashville Business Journal, The Tampa Tribune, Fort-Worth Star Telegram, Birmingham News, and the Lexington Herald-Leader, as well as network affiliate broadcast coverage in nearly every market visited. The AGLA Hiring Drive campaign logo was also displayed in Times Square.
During the one-month period from Sept. 7 to Oct. 7, 2010, the hiringheroes.com website had 18,456 visits from 15,370 unique visitors, with nearly 40 percent coming from direct traffic (meaning they saw or heard about our URL and directly typed it in). There was a direct correlation between the location of website visitors and cities visited by the Hiring Drive tour bus. Social media efforts resulted in an 80 percent increase in active Facebook users and a 17 percent increase in “likes” to the page, which was the third-highest referring source to hiringheroes.com. During the Hiring Drive week, Access exceeded its initial goals for the Hiring Drive by 37 percent. AGLA received 1,370 online information requests, 195 friend referrals, and 700 completed applications. AGLA reported a 52 percent increase in applications.