Narrowcasting: From Marketing to Recruiting

Marketing is going through a bit of a Renaissance period right now and, as I’ve pointed out before, where marketing goes, recruiting soon follows. The same tactics that allow a marketer to reach tons of consumers at once were soon adopted in the form of recruitment marketing and employer branding. Now, as marketing moves closer to a targeted, more narrowly-focused, consumer attraction strategy, it stands to reason that recruiters may soon be reaping the benefits of tailoring their messaging to a select few.

Narrowcasting, as CMO of Avaya Mark Wilson explains, is the act of creating intimate conversations with small audiences. These audiences are selected by using very specific parameters, which are set based on company data, purchasing statistics and demo- and psycho-graphics. So why will this work for talent acquisition?

Because we have the data: Many recruiting organizations have the data on their best (and worst) hires sitting in their HRIS at this very moment. Using that data, even if incomplete, to create an educated guess at a narrowcasting profile, can jump start a narrowcasting strategy.

We’re already familiar with the concept of talent communities:  Sure, many recruiters think they aren’t useful, but the numbers continue to show about 5-10 percent of internal employees and external applicants participate in forums, discussions, internal social networks and the like. This gives you a built-in audience on which to test narrowcasting strategies.

Social lends itself nicely to narrowcasting: Social allows you to have a conversation with a few people or with many people. The advent of mobile makes it easy to keep that conversation going and touch people/customers/applicants/employees throughout their day. Focusing on a specific group of people and tailoring communications to their needs and desires that reach them wherever and WHEN ever they are is much simpler with social.

We are more B2B than B2C: Narrowcasting may work with a focus group for Coca-Cola but it’s far more effective with B2B companies. Why? Because the dollar amounts tend to be bigger, the sales cycle longer, the purchasing approval has to go through more people. Sound familiar? It’s like the arduous but rewarding cycle of talent acquisition. It’s almost like it’s never done. B2B works very well with narrowcasting because they know their audience inside and out. I’d posit that recruiters who understand their local market and organization have that same knowledge.

So what does a good narrowcasting strategy have?

A profile of its ideal candidate- If you work for a large organization or team, you may want to build a cultural profile before a skills profile to ensure that you can distribute across both manufacturing and sales (for example).

A clear idea of the ‘sales cycle’- For recruiters, this is your time to fill (successfully) metric. Use this to gauge whether your narrowcasting strategy is improving your process or screwing it up.

A straightforward message with a clear CTA- “We want to work with people like you because we are ______ and you are _______.  Apply Now!” Okay so that’s a little heavy handed, but you see where I’m going. This is our goal, this is why it’s our goal, this is why we’ve approached you and this is what we want you to do about it. Make sure your message (even in microform) revolves around this central theme. Many time campaigns get caught up in creating content and forget what they want their “consumers” to DO.

A list of channels that your consumer will see- Replace consumer with candidate and there you go. Do they listen to Sirius XM? Are they on Twitter more than Facebook? Do they visit the gym down the street from your major competitor? Do they listen to podcasts? Are they searching job boards? Figure out what your candidate does all day, then get there.