Video’s Undeniable Role in Talent Attraction Marketing

At a time in history when air travel has been at an all-time low and sheltering in place at an all-time high, people are online and consuming more content than ever. Video in particular has served as an invaluable tool in place marketing. How else can you show talent or site selectors a new place from afar?

Social media has become an increasingly popular tool to help people search for jobs and learn about a new location before making the move. When asked to rank their most-used social media platforms for learning about a new location, talent ranked YouTube as the third most important— only two percent behind Instagram and 18 percent behind Facebook. (Talent Wars 2020) This fact underscores the importance of video in talent attraction marketing, enabling talent to “experience” a place without being there in person. 

It’s also worth noting that YouTube is the second most popular search engine, second only to Google. According to the SearchEngineJournal, there are more than two billion logged-in users on YouTube per month. 

This is one of the many reasons DCI recommends and executes strategies incorporating video for a wide range of communities (with varying goals) all over the world.

The following examples showcase how video can strengthen a campaign, giving talent an even better understanding of their potential future home. 

A Taste of Greensboro-High Point’s Housing Market 

We know from DCI’s national talent research, Talent Wars, that the top three factors that talent prioritizes when considering relocating for a new job are (in order): cost of living, housing cost and housing availability. Greensboro-High Point, a mid-sized community in Guilford County, North Carolina, is positioned quite competitively on all three factors. 

When embarking on a talent attraction program with Greensboro-High Point, we knew that we wanted to show talent the types of homes in Greensboro-High Point, while giving a true sense of the neighborhood flavor and welcoming community. 

We executed and launched a video series of local home “tours” that would live on their website and YouTube channel to do just that.

Watching these videos, it doesn’t take long to realize that they’re more than just home tours. With video, we were able to show talent the details you wouldn’t necessarily write in your website copy— details that can ultimately win someone over like square footage, the greenery and mature trees in a neighborhood, or how highly locals speak of their city. These are the details that allow talent to picture themselves there. 

Within two weeks of posting these videos on YouTube, they were viewed more than 560 times collectively (and that is without any paid or digital advertising). 

Getting to Know Great Falls, Montana 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, talent’s top preference when forming impressions of communities is to experience the place first-hand. Internet research, on the other hand, is a relatively close second. (Talent Wars 2020) While watching a video doesn’t really count as a first-hand experience, it’s a strategic alternative when trying to simulate a first-hand experience, whether that looks like a day-in-the-life vlog or virtual site tour. 

Our Great Falls, Montana client also incorporated video work in their talent attraction and business investment initiatives to give viewers a better understanding of what Great Falls is really like.

You’ll notice that this video has no voiceover or single host that the viewer follows; instead, the video takes you on what feels like a day-in-the-life-type tour of the city. Viewers are given a glimpse into the various community members in Great Falls and the positive, yet typical activities they enjoy: popping into the local coffee shop, playing in the snow, walking in the park and bowling to name a few.  

This accomplished our goal to bring some of these elements from the website to life and help talent imagine what life could look like for themselves, should they move to Great Falls.

The beauty of including video work in your marketing strategy is its versatility.

Resident testimonials and success stories, career-focused videos highlighting hiring employers, action-packed shots showing off the outdoor recreation, virtual tours of building sites and real estate… the content options for talent attraction videos are endless. The common denominator regardless of the subject matter? If done well, your video will be compelling and easily digestible for your audience. 

Video opens the door to an entirely new game of storytelling. What’s the first thing you’d want to show — not tell — talent through video?