GREATER DES MOINES PARTNERSHIP

Transcription

1 GREATER DES MOINES PARTNERSHIP Program Synopses: CarpeDM Seize Des Moines DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT REGIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT WORKFORCE & EDUCATION 1

2 1. PROGRAM/INITIATIVE NAME CarpeDM Seize Des Moines 2. THE IMPACT AREA ADDRESSED Building a Better Equipped Workforce - Community Marketing Initiative Promoting Talent Attraction and Retention 3. PROGRAM/INITIATIVE SUMMARY CarpeDM Seize Des Moines is an initiative designed to showcase Greater Des Moines as an attractive place for talented workers to live and work. What makes the campaign unique from other communities is its ability to actively engage our citizens in sharing pride in their community and helping potential residents realize the benefits of moving to the region. The Partnership carried out this initiative in the following ways: launching a website, that allows users to post information about their community and make personal connections via the site; re-launching an online Career Center that contains thousands of job postings and hundreds of resumes of job-seekers; promoting the hashtag #SeizeDesMoines on social media; and launching a Social Ambassador program of proud area residents to spread good news about the region to a nationwide audience via social media. 4. NEEDS IDENTIFICATION The campaign has two target audiences. The first is people who are interested in building a career and life in Greater Des Moines. The second is people who identify themselves as community ambassadors and want to personally champion our region s attraction and retention efforts. The need this initiative meets is to grow the pool of talented workers in Greater Des Moines. This directly relates to the Partnership s mission to drive economic growth and promote Greater Des Moines as the best place to build a business, a career, and a future. The Partnership identified this need due to substantial growth in Central Iowa s economy resulting in an increased demand for highly-skilled talent. The Partnership increasingly hears that this is the number one issue our member businesses face. As Central Iowa continues to attract new businesses and grow its existing businesses, demand for talent is outpacing the region s natural population growth. The Partnership has addressed this skilled worker shortage successfully with many programs, and CarpeDM is the latest initiative designed to address it. 5. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES The goal of the program is to show Central Iowa residents and potential residents all that the community has to offer by leveraging the pride and knowledge of people who identify themselves as community champions, which will ultimately grow and maintain the talent pool in Greater Des Moines. The Partnership intends to achieve its goals with a variety of methods, including the launch of the CarpeDM website, the re-launch of its online Career Center, promotion of the #SeizeDesMoines hashtag, and the launch of a Social Ambassador program. More information on the specific methodology can be found in Section 6. The measurable objectives are as follows: Gain a large number of visitors using the CarpeDM website, supported by a stable group of contributors Provide a steady stream of job postings and resume postings on the Career Center Build the #SeizeDesMoines hashtag to have a strong regional presences and wide use 2

3 and draw attention from a national audience Sign up 100 people to be Social Ambassadors to share Greater Des Moines successes on social media, and send the Ambassadors 24 s throughout the year prompting them to share significant Greater Des Moines accomplishments. 6. METHODOLOGY The campaign is unique in its ability to allow all residents of Central Iowa to engage in recruiting talent by becoming community champions, ambassadors, and connectors. The organic nature of the site and social media campaign engages local residents in the attraction/retention process. Community members own the initiative and tell the Greater Des Moines story through their contributions to the site and their willingness to be ambassadors and resources to users looking to connect to opportunities in Central Iowa, whether it be jobs, activities, or any number of areas. The specific methods used were as follows: The Partnership launched the CarpeDM web portal (pictured) to allow community champions to post information about Greater Des Moines as it relates to many different areas, such as the job environment, education, housing, and transportation. Through that website, new residents or potential residents can browse and get an idea of what Greater Des Moines could offer them. The portal is designed to provide a single point of reference for people who are interested in Central Iowa careers. The Partnership re-launched and revamped its online Career Center, which exists to connect businesses that are looking for talented workers with people who are looking for jobs. Companies and organizations can post their job openings on the site, and job-seekers can post their resumes for potential employers to read. The Partnership created the hashtag called #SeizeDesMoines for use on social media websites. This is an effort to give our residents a consistent brand to share about our region. In turn, potential residents can get a feel of what is happening in Greater Des Moines by searching and following the hashtag. The Partnership created its #SeizeDesMoines Share Des Moines Social Ambassador program. Through this program, residents can sign up to become Social Ambassadors. Social Ambassadors receive an from the Partnership when there is positive news to share about the region, and are encouraged to share that news with their social networks using the hashtag #SeizeDesMoines. *A budget of the program is included at the bottom of this document. Note that expenses are paid for out of the Partnership s budget. STICK IT! To your friends, your computer, or your ipad and download free music anywhere. #1 Wealthiest City in America TODAY Show, 2014 Strongest Local Economy POLICOM Corporation, 2014 #2 Best Cities for Jobs Forbes, 2015 America s Top 5 Under-The-Radar Tech Hubs The SpareFoot Blog, 2014 seizedesmoines.com/musicmix 7. COMMUNICATIONS The Partnership communicated and promoted each of its objectives in the following ways: The Partnership promted the site by printing and handing out stickers and buttons (both pictured) at various events. The Partnership placed advertisements in the Des Moines Register and ran advertisements through its own social media powered by the Greater Des Moines Partnership 3

4 channels to promote the CarpeDM website. Partnership employees also encouraged members of its boards and councils to use the site, and have promoted it at various community presentations made by staff. Similarly, the Partnership placed advertisements for its revamped Career Center in the Des Moines Register and on social media, and has shared it at many community meetings both internal to the organization s boards and committees and with outside groups. To build the #SeizeDesMoines hashtag, the Partnership has used the hashtag routinely on its own social media channels, and Partnership employees also often use the hashtag. The Partnership ran an Instagram campaign choosing a photo of the day among photos that used the hashtag. At the Partnership s Annual Dinner, its CEO encouraged the more than 1,000 attendees to use the hashtag throughout the evening. Tweets at the Annual Dinner were projected for attendees to see (pictured). To build up the number of Social Ambassadors, the Partnership s CEO unveiled the program at the group s Annual Dinner. The Partnership has also engaged its boards and councils to sign up to be Ambassadors. 8. EVALUATION The initiative has been a success and the Partnership continues to build on the program s objectives. Specifically: CarpeDM (launched January 2014) has recorded 48,500 total user sessions. Of the visitors who have come to the site, 66,8 percent are new users and 33.2 percent are returning visitors. Visitors represent all 50 states, 101 countries, and 2,521 cities. The site has 578 contributors that share information about the region for the world to see. The Partnership sees these as hugely positive numbers that show the eagerness of area residents to share information about Greater Des Moines. The Career Center (pictured, launched September 2014) has had 493 jobs input on the system from area employers, and has scraped another 10,000 from Indeed.com in order to give a full look at hiring in Greater Des Moines. A total of 969 job seekers have registered on the site. The Career Center is fulfilling its role as a place for job seekers and area employers can connect. The #SeizeDesMoines hashtag (created in June 2014) has been used more than 3,400 times on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in just more than a year, and use of the hashtag continues to pick up steam. Anecdotally, it has become a well-known hashtag among our target audience of community champions. A sign of the success is that the hashtag was trending nationally on Twitter during the Partnership s Annual Dinner. One local news organization the next day published an article listing the top Tweets using that hashtag during the dinner. 4

5 The Social Ambassador program (launched January 2015) has gained more than 150 members so far, quickly exceeding the initial goal of 100 members. To date, the Partnership has sent out six s to Social Ambassadors prompting them to share news, and 6,837 people have clicked on links related to the news that Ambassadors have shared. Partnership employees often hear positive feedback regarding the program from members of the Partnership s boards and commissions. In recent years, Central Iowa has been successful in reversing the trend of out migration of its year-old population, and is now experiencing net in-migration. The latest census data shows that the region has not only been successful in attracting workers in that age range, but also in retaining workers in the year-old age range. Through the CarpeDM Seize Des Moines initiative, the Partnership continues to foster an environment of pride among Greater Des Moines residents who realize that our region is a great place to live and work. It is our belief that by fostering this environment, we will be able to retain our current pool of talented workers and build on that pool by placing Greater Des Moines squarely on the radar of talented people who are looking or may look to relocate to a new city. Carpe DM Seize Des Moines Budget Expenses: Web Development Promotion CarpeDM $27,142 Career Center $19, Buttons for Music Mix $18,000 Stickers for Music Mix $6,000 Paid social media placements $14,650 $84,881 5