Since September 2021, Hiland locations at 17 plants and 62 branches in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas had more than 100 job openings. The pandemic sparked “The Great Resignation,” the workforce was aging out, and the lack of candidates was beginning to affect operations.
The CHALLENGE
Many locations lacked a full-time recruiter and Hiland Dairy was struggling to hire and maintain employees in many positions, particularly truck drivers to deliver the products. In many of Hiland’s plants, employees were working overtime to meet distribution needs. No longer a human resource matter, recruitment became a company-wide issue that needed a marketing campaign to attract candidates.
The RESULTS
objectives and planning
An integrated marketing campaign was developed that would build the talent pipeline, support the recruiting teams at each Hiland location and provide easy access for candidates to the online application. Envoy developed a marketing guide to assist the employees at each branch in implementing local recruiting efforts. The initial creative focused on the benefits of working at Hiland, drawing attention to Hiland’s open positions, and encouraging qualified applicants. The targeted geo-area included Hiland’s facilities in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
execution
Manufacturing ranked last in career choices for workers aged 19-33. Millennials and Gen Z’s greatest concerns, cost of living and financial security, have redefined their working patterns. Hiland’s goal was to demonstrate a workplace that offers great benefits and pay. To attract candidates, Hiland launched an integrated campaign that featured a detailed landing page showing the benefits of working at Hiland (with a video), currently available positions, and links for applicants. An initial four-week campaign was planned with cross-platform digital display ads, radio, paid social media ads, video, and digital ads. Organic posts were scheduled on Hiland’s social channels. Internal digital display screens featured referral programs and open positions. A brochure was created for HR associates for support at job fairs and other recruitment efforts. Hiland recruitment efforts are ongoing, and to date, seven media flights are complete. More than 100 ads have been served for open positions.
The first creative phase focused on showing Hiland employees at work and the great pay and benefits with a link to open positions on the company website. Messaging “At Hiland Dairy, you’re not just an employee; you’re part of our Midwest family. We seek hard-working, experienced professionals to join our farmer-owned, award-winning company in manufacturing, production, distribution, sales, and clerical support.” Subsequent phases of ads were delivered on Facebook, with each ad copy and design tailored to a position.
This second campaign creative focuses on a “Day in the Life” vlog-style videos with an actual driver on the job. We were able to ride along and capture video and audio that show authenticity and an employee that enjoys his job. We intend to build a library of videos to showcase on the employment landing page and use in video ads.
the results
The campaign has been a huge success and assisted in filling 77% of the open positions during the initial campaign. Not typically a marketing initiative for Hiland Dairy, hiring has become a business goal that marketing will continue to support.
Paid media ran 9/27/21-11/28/21, delivering over 4.9 million impressions and over 37,480 clicks. The employment landing page had over 85,000 pageviews through June 2022. Additional targeting layers were used for display ads, including job descriptions/interests. Reddit allowed us to target by geographical region within topics relevant to our target audience. Facebook ads performed exceedingly well. The average CTR across all industries for FB ads is 0.90%. Our CTR was 4.46% – nearly 5x higher than average.
Campaign 2 ran 1/28/22-7.18.22
Paid Facebook ads delivered a reach of 1,296,383 and 4,633,278 impressions. The ads had 40,446 link clicks, 1,980 shares and 2,629 post reactions.
In total, marketing efforts served over 9.5 million impressions.
