Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

Last December I attended a seminar about the various ways radio advertising can be used to accomplish goals other than simple product and service marketing.

One of the speakers spoke about using radio to recruit new employees rather than the newspaper or a recruitment service – especially when you are hiring for key positions.

Why Use Radio to Recruit Employees?

For one thing, it can be less expensive than the newspaper and is definitely less expensive than a recruiting service.

Schrock is hiring a Web Development Director, and it would have cost us over $900 to place a classified ad in the Lincoln Journal Star for that position.

A recruiter would have charged a percentage of the employees annual salary – typically 10% – which would have been up to $4,000 for this position.

Second, using radio allows us to do more than just look for an employee with an ad. It also tells all of the station’s listeners that we are hiring, we pay well, and that working at Schrock is a great experience.

While we are reaching out to potential employees, we are also increasing our brand awareness.

Here is the ad we ran for our Web Development Director position.

What Kind of Employees Do You Find With Radio?

The biggest reason to use radio for recruitment is so simple most HR managers miss it.

When you post an ad on Craigslist, in the classifieds, or on Monster you are advertising to the available pool of unemployed workers – or at best un-loyal workers who are always shopping around.

When you think about it, the people you want to reach are the ones that employers have held on to. These key people have the best skill sets, the highest degree of training, and are competent at what they do.

When you hire from the pool of employed people rather than the pool of unemployed people you get fewer applicants, but the applicants you do get are of a much higher caliber.

So How Much Does a Recruitment Ad Cost?

We ran an ad about 60 times on one local station for about $800. We had one very qualified applicant, currently employed with a competitor, on the first day the ad ran. The ad is still running, so I will post about how it comes out.

There are a lot of ways to measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. You can look at market share gained, revenue generated, or response rates. But sometimes the true measure of an ad’s effectiveness is not in these numbers.

A truly brilliant marketing campaign makes your competitors whine. It makes then call their lawyers. It makes them grasp at any straw to make the bleeding stop.

There is truth to the saying “thou dost protest too much.” If you get your competitor to respond in a direct way to an indirect advertisement you know you are doing something right.

If Your Competitors Squawk, Keep Doing It

If something in your advertising – a word, phrase or concept – draws the ire of a competitor there is usually something about what you are doing that they are afraid of.

Take this recent example:

Microsoft recently launched a series of TV ads called Laptop Hunters.

We maintained our advertisement in the web design section of the phone book, maintained our advertisement in the computer repair section, and added a small top-of-mind awareness ad on the cover of the smaller companion phone book.