How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair

Transcription

1 How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair An IMASTE White Paper Leveraging the know-how of your job board to create new revenue streams through virtual and mobile fairs How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 1

2 How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair Executive Summary The popularity of virtual and mobile events is on the rise, a trend which is going to con9nue in the future. For job boards, this represents an a=rac9ve new business opportunity: a new service to offer their clients in the form of a mobile career fair. Through proper organiza9on and a well though- out sales and marke9ng strategy, job boards can use online fairs as a new source of revenue to add to their exis9ng business model. In this Imaste white paper, we will discuss the benefits of mobile career fairs and give you some valuable insights based on our experience with over two hundred virtual events on how to use them to generate profits. New Opportunities in a Recovering Market With the global economy now growing again, new business opportuni9es are emerging in the human resource service industry and par9cularly in the area of recruitment. As companies are looking to hire qualified professionals, they have an increasing need to efficiently seek out and hire the best talent available in the market. According to a survey by Robert Walters, more than half of the companies ques9oned had experienced difficul9es finding qualified candidates to fill certain posi9ons ('Recrui9ng Professionals in a Candidate Short Market'). In such a candidate- short market, the companies that are most successful at finding and recrui9ng the best talent will gain an advantage over compe9tors in their industry. In order to be the best at recrui9ng talent, they need to receive the best informa9on, and they need to receive it in an organized, efficient way. This presents HR companies and job boards with a great opportunity to help their clients by filling this need and helping them find the required talent. In this white paper, we will show you how organizing a virtual job fair can be an effec3ve way for an HR service such as a job board to be;er meet its customers needs and create a new source of revenue at the same 3me. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 2

3 Rise of Virtual Job Fairs In the last years we have seen a growing trend in the use of online platorms for organizing virtual events such as job fairs. Given the advantages in some areas of virtual events over tradi9onal ones (in terms of cost or gathering of user behaviour sta9s9cs, for example), it is easy to understand their increasing popularity. However, we are s9ll far from realizing the full poten9al of what virtual job fairs have to offer, both in terms of user experience as well as a source of revenue fair organizers. As men9oned, virtual job fairs have certain advantages over tradi9onal events, making them a=rac9ve from an organizer s perspec9ve. Reduced organizational costs: not only are the setup costs for the fair greatly reduced, the savings for exhibitors and visitors in terms of travel, accommoda9on, and lost work hours is significant Capacity for global reach: one of the major advantages of virtual events for is how the distance barrier for poten9al a=endees to a tradi9onal job fair is completely eliminated. This allows companies to expand their reach to a much wider pool of qualified candidates. Virtual events can reach up to 40,000 unique visitors per day, up to 2,400 simultaneous visitors, and with an average of 11,000 CVs collected Measureable Return on Investment: thanks to highly detailed user sta9s9cs than we can extract from a virtual event such as 9me spent at each stand, downloads, webcast a=endance, or the number of CVs gathered at a stand, the ROI of a virtual event can be calculated and analysed with much greater ease than a tradi9onal event. The advantages of virtual fairs over tradi9onal events translate into added value for exhibitors, who are willing to pay a fee in exchange for these services. Job boards, with their experience with tradi9onal fairs and their established rela9onship with companies, can capitalise on the added value created by organising a virtual event and turn it into a new and complementary source of revenue. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 3

4 Mobile vs Virtual The way people connect to virtual events is also changing. Based on sta9s9cs from more than two hundred online events organized by Imaste, we have seen an increasing trend in the use of mobile devices by event users. In fact, 60% of a=endees to virtual events now connect with a tablet or smartphone. During non- office hours (before 8AM and acer 8PM), that percentage goes up to 90%. To reflect this change, we are now moving away from the concept of virtual events and more towards the idea of mobile events. The idea of a mobile job fair, then, is an interac3ve website designed with mobile device users in mind and whose purpose is to collect leads and generate big data from a targeted audience. The Costs of Organizing a Mobile Job Fair We can divide the cost structure of a mobile event into four areas: marke9ng, sales, supply chain and socware. Depending on what costs can be internalized by the event organizer, the profitability of a mobile job fair will be greater. For instance, job boards have a sales team which can also be used to sell an online event. With the appropriate training and marke9ng tools, you can leverage the pre- exis9ng rela9onship with your clients and offer them a new digital product. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 4

5 In terms of marke9ng, the possibility of communica9ng to a large database of exis9ng users on your job board database is can drama9cally cut the costs compared to a newcomer to the industry, who would have to invest in a costly adver9sing campaign. Socware PlaTorm The socware is the main cost that needs to be outsourced to a socware provider. This will be the platorm that you will use to organize and present your event. The cost of the platorm depends on a variety of components such as the number of booths and of live days, customisa9on and database integra9on. Marke9ng Marke9ng will be essen9al for a=rac9ng a maximum number of a=endees to your mobile job fair. Mobile events lend themselves well to online marke9ng and social media, so if you already have a strong online presence this is an advantage. The following are some of the most common and effec9ve online marke9ng ac9ons you can use to promote your event: Set up pages on social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twi=er Create interac9ve banners Use the power of newsle=ers and mass ing to your database of contacts How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 5

6 Your socware supplier should be able to provide you with tools such as newsle=ers, visuals, mock- ups and interac9ve banners to support your marke9ng efforts. Sales Your sales team is one of the keys to success when you organize a mobile job fair. The sales budget will depend on your current situa9on. If you already have a sales team, then it will be cheaper for you than to hire new sales reps. However, this part should s9ll make up around 30% of your total project budget. Having the right sales reps on your side will help you to sell a maximum number of booths and adver9sing spaces. The sales team can be encouraged to sell this new product through incen9ves and commissions, especially helpful when organising your first few events. Support You will have to be available to help exhibitors during the event and assign a project manager who will be the main point of contact with the socware supplier. As there is no physical supply chain cost (prin9ng costs, materials costs, merchandising, etc.) this cost is en9rely dedicated to the helpdesk. The main cost for you will be the 9me of your team gathering all the info and providing support to exhibitors with their stands. Be in contact with your platorm supplier on this issue to receive technical training and support for the platorm. SOFTWARE MARKETING SALES SUPPORT 10% 30% 30% 30% How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 6

7 Potential Sources of Revenue for Mobile Job Fairs The ul9mate goal of organizing a mobile job fair is, of course, to generate revenue. The dynamic is essen9ally the same as for a tradi9onal event, and we can iden9fy three sources of revenue for your event. 1) Booths Just as for a physical event, visitors will find exhibitors at booths and will interact with them, download their materials, apply to their job openings and ul9mately, present their CVs. The main goal of your mobile event will be to find candidates for companies who are looking to acquire new talent. The higher the quality of candidates and the be=er the results in recrui9ng talent as perceived by companies, the more exhibitors will be willing to pay to take part in your fair. Ul9mately, access to this wealth of job seeker data by greatly improving a company s ability to iden9fy and hire the best talent is the most valuable asset created by the mobile fair, which also makes it your strongest selling point in terms of a=rac9ng the best possible exhibitors and charging higher prices. 2) Adver9sing space Sell adver9sing space in another source of revenue for your mobile career fair. This space can be simple posters and pictures, or they can be branded 3D elements such as moving buses, boats, flags, and even blimps that are placed in strategic places around the fair to a=ract the a=en9on of exhibitors and visitors. In each hall, there are a number of different spaces that can be marketed to companies, allowing them to upload posters and pictures to adver9se their ac9vi9es. 3) Post- fair Access to CVs As the organizer of the fair, you will have accumulated an impressive database of CVs and candidate profiles by the end of the fair. As the exclusive owner, you can sell this data to exhibitors who did not have access to the full database during the fair or even outside recruiters who took no part in the event. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 7

8 Planning Your Sales Strategy As with any product or service, in order to successfully market your mobile career fair you need a proper sales strategy. Ensuring that the following five points have been covered is the key to senng up an effec9ve sales strategy for your online event. 1) Offer different categories of booths One essen9al element to a successful sales strategy is to offer different categories of booths to poten9al exhibitors, based on booth price and features. Of course it will be up to you to choose your defini9ve strategy, but we can give you some advice on how to segment the booth categories for different types of exhibitors. For example, we can set up three different types of exhibitor (which we will call Bronze, Silver and Gold), and offer the following op9ons to each: The average price per booth may range between $ 2,000 and $ 10,000, depending on the number of CVs that exhibitors can expect to receive from the fair, the visibility of their booth and brand, and the market they operate in. Based on these three factors, we can calculate a reasonable market price for the different categories of booths as follows: Price per CV in your country: A Average CPC for one visit to the homepage of a client: B (A x CVs + B x Visits ) / 5 For instance, for a country in which the cost per CV is $6 (Southern Europe), and the CPC is $4 for an average campaign on Google Adwords, if we set up a mobile job fair in which we offer exhibitors the following: Bronze: 300 CVs, 1,000 visits Silver: 1,000 CVs, 3,000 visits Gold: 3,000 CVs, 5,000 visits (access to ALL CVs collected at the mobile fair) We can set the price as follows: How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 8

9 Bronze: ($6 x $4 x 1,000 ) / 5 = $ 1,160 Silver: ($6 x 1,000 + $4 x 3,000 ) / 5 = $ 3,600 Gold: ($6 x 3,000 + $4 x 5,000 ) / 5 = $ 7,600 As you can see, we can a=ract different types of exhibitors by offering a low- budget alterna9ve on one hand for a=rac9ng a large number of exhibitors, and also a high- price op9on for exclusive clients with more resources. BRONZE SILVER GOLD ACCESS TO VISITOR INFORMATION Just data submissions Just data submissions All registrants VISIBILITY Bronze stands area at show floor Direct link to booth from exterior with logo, as well as silver area Direct link to booth from exterior with logo, as well as gold area Written chat, video chat, meetings, Social Media, INTERACTIVITY All bronze features plus downloads, webcasts, image gallery, All silver features plus videos, customizations,.. REPORTING Main figures, access to data submissions through content manager All fair registrants data 2) Provide Product Placement Opportuni9es for Sponsors At a mobile event the product placement possibili9es are similar to physical events. Clients can sponsor welcome banners, a mee9ng space, the auditorium or anything else you want to offer them. We can also provide direct links to their website or to their booth if the sponsor is also an exhibitor. We can create sponsored webcasts, which are a great way to link the mobile event and a keynote speaker with one of the sponsors. The platorm allows exhibitors to broadcast their brand, and also, a typical tac9c used in webcasts is to dedicate the last two minutes of the webcast to a message from the sponsor. The leads collected from each webcast can also be provided to the sponsor. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 9

10 Selling adver9sement space at the mobile event to sponsors who are not exhibi9ng is another way to generate revenue for a mobile fair. For instance, for a week- long mobile event with 100,000 unique visitors, there are endless possibili9es for brands to adver9se their products. A good mobile events platorm will be able to make this less intrusive for the user and more effec9ve for the sponsor. 3) Offer a Showroom or VIP Booth. Depending on your socware provider, you may have the opportunity to offer an exclusive area to one of your exhibitors. A showroom or VIP booth is a special space available for one exhibitor at the event. It gives the exhibitor their own mobile mul9- room exhibi9on space with great visibility from the show floor and in which they can display all of their relevant content in a visually impressive and interac9ve space. In this unique space the VIP exhibitor will clearly stand out among the rest. By using an events platorm with this feature, you will be able to even further segment your clients by crea9ng a VIP category along with the extra revenue generated by the unique features that go along with this category. 4) Mo9vate and Train your Salesforce Clearly, the revenue generated by your event will depend on the number and type of booths sold. And as we know, the number of booths sold will depend on your salesforce. In order to have the most efficient salesforce you will have to implement a strategy in order to mo9vate your salesforce. For example, you can implement an incen9ve plan for each booth and sponsor space sold, with a higher bonus for the sales reps who sell the VIP booth or showroom. Sales reps should also be properly trained on the platorm and its features in order to make an informed sales pitch and convince poten9al exhibitors. 5) Create Great Marke9ng Materials In order to sell the platorm, you will have to help your customers visualise the concept of a digital event. Genng poten9al exhibitors to understand the idea of a mobile event and how it will help them to hire the best talent is the key to making a successful sale. When choosing your mobile event platorm provider, be sure to take a close look at the marke9ng tools they offer in order to help you to sell your mobile event, such as mock ups of the platorm s look and feel, informa9onal newsle=ers, and demonstra9on videos for you show the platorm to your client. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 10

11 Building Partnerships In order to organize a successful mobile career fair, your communica9on has to be online and interac9ve. One crea9ve way of doing so is by nego9a9ng partnership agreements with different organisa9ons that can help you to build an effec9ve adver9sing campaign for your event. The idea is to exchange services with them instead of money. This means that you can offer them a way to par9cipate in the mobile job fair in exchange for promo9ng the fair on the sites they manage or collaborate with. These agreements are an excellent way to drive new traffic to your digital fair at a reduced price. In this sec9on, we will give you some advice about how to set up those partnerships. 1) Marke9ng Agencies Media agencies are the best partners you can have to adver9se your mobile career fair. By offering free adver9sing space they can communicate with a poten9ally massive audience just by one tweet for example or by publishing on social networks. The success of the communica9on depends on the image that the agency has on social networks such as Tweeter or Facebook. They can also discuss the event on their own website, newsle=er and all of their communica9on tools. 2) Press Online newspapers are having more and more success due to the popularity of smartphones and tablets. Indeed, you can now read all your newspapers by downloading a simple applica9on or by visi9ng their website. Partnerships with online newspapers is another great way to adver9se your mobile job fair. You can offer free adver9sing space or even a booth (if they are currently recrui9ng) in exchange for free publicity about the event. The larger the audience of the newspaper you are able to a=ract, the more it will generate traffic to your fair. 3) Blogs Successful bloggers are followed by a large audience, and their ar9cles contain high- quality content. Generally bloggers have a speciality and write only about a par9cular subject. It can be an industry, an ac9vity, or an area of exper9se. You should have a look at the most popular bloggers in the recruitment and HR fields and send them informa9on about the mobile fair. If they ask you to communicate about their blog during the fair, you can offer How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 11

12 them adver9sing space or a direct link to their blog at the info stand for example. Bloggers can also be approached about acquiring paid traffic from their site about your event. 4) Influencers Every industry has its experts and influencers who provide solu9ons and advice to other industry professionals. The Human Resource Director of a large company or a professor of human resource management from a well- known university can be a poten9al influencer, due to their vast experience and exper9se in the field. One way to build a partnership with such influencers is by offering them the possibility to speak about a subject that is related to career development or job hun9ng, such as personal branding or advice on CV and cover le=er wri9ng. Good guest speakers who are authori9es in their industry can draw traffic to a mobile fair through the interest created by their webcast. Beyond the Event - Adapting your Business Plan to Other Industries Once you have begun to successfully organize mopbile job fairs, your clients are going to ask you to replicate the experience for them. There is a significant opportunity in dedicated mobile job fairs for companies for: - New Hires Mobile Job Fair - Internal mobility Mobile Job Fair - Reloca9on and interna9onal mobility How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 12

13 This is a growing trend, and corpora9ons are looking for successful cases to use as an example. A mobile event is really an online community created around an interac9ve website by users with a common interest. The crea9on of these communi9es of job seekers is a need of human resources departments, and it is service that a job board in coopera9on with mobile events provider can supply. In addi9on to business opportuni9es related to recruitment events, there are other fields of applica9on that may be useful for different branches of your business. The business model discussed in this white paper can be used by other industries such as event organizers, universi9es, business or engineering schools, agencies from the adver9sing, tourism, and real estate industries, as well as any other company interested in the benefits of a mobile event. Try approaching clients in these industries as a way to generate addi9onal revenue streams for your organisa9on. Essential Aspects of a Mobile Career Fair Platform If you decide to go forward with organizing a mobile career fair, then you must begin to address the issue of what platorm to user. As the vehicle on which your mobile fair will be delivered to users, the success of your event will be greatly affected by the platorm you choose. Be sure to check the following elements closely when evalua9ng the quality of a mobile events platorm. Branded, flexible platorm All elements of the platorm (exterior, booths, menus, etc.) should have the capacity to be fully branded with the logos and corporate colours of your company as the event organizer as well as the exhibitors. Technical support: Your platorm supplier should provide you with adequate documenta9on for you and your team to learn and understand the platorm, training op9ons, and responsive technical support both during event setup as well as live on- call support for live event days Sales support: The platorm developer should also be able to provide you with sales and marke9ng materials to support your sales campaign with poten9al exhibitors brochures, mock- ups, demos, etc. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 13

14 Real- 9me User Sta9s9cs and Monitoring track user interac9on and conversion at your booth in real 9me, to obtain instantaneous ROI figures Mul9- device access with no downloads: the platorm should be accessible directly through a web browser, with no downloads necessary, and responsive to all types of mobile devices. Sa9sfying User Experience the platorm should have a sleek, modern, mobile- responsive design and intui9ve user interface High level of func9onality: the platorm should include a variety of interac9ve features to enhance user engagement. Mobile chat and video interview capability and a candidate matching system for finng candidate profiles to exhibitors needs and offers are essen9al features that make a mobile fair more interac9ve, engaging and ul9mately more effec9ve. Data integra9on the platorm should have the capacity to integrate user informa9on gathered through the mobile event with your company s job pos9ngs and candidate database. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 14

15 ABOUT IMASTE Imaste is a mobile and virtual events software developer with experience in more than two hundred virtual job fairs worldwide. Our platform is used by over two thousand exhibitors and more than one million users, creating online communities in twenty countries. The Imaste White Paper series is based on this experience and best practices that we have observed, which we are now happy to share with you. We work closely with virtual job fairs organizers (Job Boards, universities, associations) to support their sales and marketing strategies. If you are planning a virtual career fair and want a free consultation, contact us at info@imaste-ips.com. How to Generate Revenue with a Mobile Job Fair 15