Northwestern Mutual – Social Marketing

When social media marketing rings false with the target audience, it can have a profound negative impact on your brand. That was the challenge facing Northwestern Mutual as they reached out through social media channels to recruit and connect with young professionals – without misrepresenting their long-established traditional brand identity. Adopting a humorous tone, we developed a fun “Dress to Impress” Facebook application that successfully began a dialogue to inspire young professionals to pursue a career at Northwestern Mutual.

Case Study

Discover

Northwestern Mutual needed to increase the efficiency of their internship recruitment programs by clearly differentiating their unique offerings and demonstrating the career value they provide to interns.

Formulate

Improve Northwestern Mutual’s ability to reach college students, particularly those that do not attend campus job fairs or have time for exploratory interviews. Provide a mechanism to pre-qualify students and easily submit applications online. Efficiently track all lead activity and direct leads to recruiters for follow up interviews.

Execute

A custom “Dressed to Impress” Facebook application and dedicated NMinternship.com web site were developed which appealed to Internet-savvy college students. The Facebook app generated viral buzz and drove the target audience to the highly interactive site which included multimedia testimonials, career success stories, an online tour and a pre-qualifying career fit quiz. Our integrated campaign also included pay-per-click keywords and online banner advertising.

The web site user experience motivated students to objectively evaluate their career suitability before submitting a resume online. To expedite and complete the process, applicant information was automatically entered into NM’s proprietary recruitment management system and routed to local market recruiters. Password protected site analytics accurately tracked visitor traffic and activities.

Measure

63% of all site visitors, 5,276 students, submitted their resume online to apply for 1,000 internship positions. Because of search engine optimization and the richness of its content, NMinternship.com produced 20% more contracted applicants than Monster.com, HotJobs.com and Careerbuilder.com combined.