Creating a Marketing Strategy for Your Career Center: Part 4 - Key Integrations

After reading part three of this series, Crafting Relevant Messaging, some might be wondering how you’re supposed to know the specific wants, needs and pain points of your audience to include in your marketing messaging. You don’t have to be a mind reader to figure this out - technology is on your side and will be a helpful tool when creating specific marketing materials.

‍Part 4 of this series from our webinar, Drive Member Engagement & Revenue by Marketing Your Career Center (post COVID-19), details three key integrations that will help your association create a picture-perfect marketing strategy that drives engagement and improves non-dues revenue.

Association Management System (AMS)

Integrating your career center with your association management system (AMS) is the number one integration suggested to run a successful marketing campaign. These two systems “talk” to each other by sending data from your career center back to your AMS so you can use that information to create targeted marketing messaging. You have access to a lot of valuable data that you can take advantage of like:

1. Who is using your career center - members, non-members, employers - and how often they are logging in
2. What jobs users are applying to and interested in - title, level, etc.
3. Who has signed up for job alerts, resume reviews, and other career resources
4. Who has registered for your events
5. What career center member benefits to advertise to non-members to drive membership

Knowing this information helps you determine what kinds of messaging to send to each target audience that will drive engagement on your career center. When you market valuable content, job seeker and employer registrations will pour in - creating higher engagement rates.

Learning Management System (LMS)

Your learning management system is an excellent opportunity for your association to increase non-dues revenue when integrated with your career center. When you know the kinds of jobs, job level and qualifications your members (and non-members) need to advance in their careers, you gain insight into what types of events, training, courses and certifications to offer. You can then create marketing materials to promote these career advancement opportunities that will ultimately increase your non-dues revenue through registrations. You can use your LMS as an opportunity to drive membership through marketing initiatives, as well.

For example, once non-members have a taste of the courses and certifications you offer, market member-exclusive training courses and events to them so they see the other benefits that are available when they join your association. Connect this back to your career center by including job opportunities available when the training courses are completed that they can apply to.

Event Planning Software

Using the same information and data taken from your job board, you can create and plan engaging, high ROI events that will improve non-dues revenue and engagement on your career center. Deciding what type of event to host is a critical step in event planning since you want to make sure your attendees will see them valuable and register for more in the future. You can use the data from your career center to determine which event will have the best turn out and generate the most revenue. Knowing who is using your career center helps you determine the type and topic of your event, as well as what marketing messaging to use to get their attention.

If the majority are members, focus on career advancement opportunities for them like networking events or educational webinars for their field of work. Incorporate messaging in your marketing materials that demonstrates the value of the events and how they will benefit from attending. This can also be used simultaneously to market to non-members in order to drive membership. Once they see an exclusive and beneficial member-only event, it can persuade them to join your association to access those types of benefits. Again, you can tie this back to your career center to show the types of jobs they can apply to when attending networking events.

Wrap Up

After reading all four parts of Creating a Marketing Strategy for Your Career Center, Part 1: Understanding Your Plan, Part 2: Engagement Metrics, Part 3: Crafting Relevant Messaging, and Part 4: Key Integrations, you now have all the pieces you need to to create a marketing strategy for your career center that will drive engagement and non-dues revenue - ultimately improving your brand awareness in the industry you serve.