Several months into its first digital labor recruitment campaign, Henderson Economic Development officials say nearly one million people have viewed some aspect of the effort.
The campaign, called “Henderson, Your New Hometown,” is focused on attracting new people interested in working in logistics, healthcare and manufacturing and bringing them here, said Whitney Risley, the director of existing industry and workforce development for the organization.
HED hired Marketing Alliance, of Celebration, Fla., to coordinate the campaign, which started making social media posts in November. Marketing Alliance will continue to disseminate targeted social media posts until late August, said Kate McIndoo, the director of communications and marketing for HED.
Facebook reach was at 900,000 views in early April, Risley said. HED expected that number to reach one million during the month. McIndoo said LinkedIn posts have also been effective, but not at the level of Facebook.
Risley said the focus of the campaign, currently targeted in Nashville, Atlanta and Chicago among other areas, is to sway the minds of professionals to leave the big city for a better way of life in Henderson—relatively high wages in those job sectors, a low cost of living, opportunities to do high-tech work and a hometown feel more amenable to raising a family, to name a few.
Marketing Alliance can set parameters in different social media outlets that allow the messaging to reach the demographic audience HED wants to attract.
McIndoo said the campaign will ramp up messaging to areas that include college campuses in May, right around commencement, in hopes that recent graduates will see posts and videos of the campaign.
This campaign, and its goals, was a no-brainer to pursue for the HED team. Risley said that even before Pratt Industries decided to build a new plant on the 425-bypass and bring 320 jobs to town, the Henderson area needed to bring more people into the workforce. Now that Pratt, as well as Columbia and Sitex, have announced big job additions, the need to target—and land—potential employees is even greater.
Evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign will be tricky, said McIndoo. People can watch the videos and scroll through websites all they want, but determining if new employees relocate because of the campaign is difficult to quantify. HED will work in concert with human resource professionals in the area to try to gather that data.
The campaign cost $60,000, much of it covered by the City of Henderson, with HED paying the remainder, Risley said.
