Recently, the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA) held a one-day summit on, “Reaching Your Audience in a Three-Screen World”.  SFIMA brought in top speakers representing the three screens - mobile, TV and Internet - and asked them to give advice on best utilizing each medium to reach a desired audience.

Jeff Michaud, 3Ci’s VP of Marketing, was asked to speak about mobile. Jeff’s presentation covered best practices for implementing a highly effective, integrated mobile strategy.

Lisa McCarthy, Director of Marketing and PR from SFN Group co-presented with Jeff. SFN Group is the fifth largest employer in the North America employing over 170,000 people annually. They provide recruiting, staffing and workforce solutions to many of the largest companies in the U.S. and Canada.

SFN Group is on the bleeding edge of mobile integration in the staffing industry. Utilizing 3Ci’s mobile platform, SFN Group has deployed mobile across their business with great success both improving operational efficiencies and providing a better, more effective communication channel with their consumers.

In this clip Jeff describes what 3Ci does and why our clients choose us. Check it out!

Short messaging service (SMS, also referred to as text messaging) is proving to be the most cost efficient and productive way to reach the candidate base of recruiting and staffing companies when it is a race to fill their requirements (REQS).

It’s important to remember that text messaging programs are not about sending “mass” text messages (especially within the recruiting industry), but rather targeted messages to candidates who are “opted-in” and want relevant job alerts sent to their mobile phone. After all, one of the core benefits of text messaging is that most people have a cell phone and carry it with them all the time. So when recruiters or staffing companies send a text to candidates or consultants / contractors, a quick response is highly likely.

Compare the response time of SMS with email. Not everyone checks email frequently, and not everyone has email capability on their mobile phone. Another consideration is the fact that with email the message can be filtered as “spam” and wind up in the junk mail folder or trash folder. This doesn’t happen with text messages.

Mobile messaging is a true mix of art and science to ensure brand compliance, carrier compliance, and that a staffing companies’ mobile programs are effective.

By integrating SMS into a current customer relationship management (CRM) / applicant tracking system (ATS), staffing companies can control and track the messaging, as with their other recruiting activities. Metrics can be measured and so can the two-way messages between the candidates / consultants and the staffing firms.

To have a truly effective mobile program, it is vital to look at how mobile can create efficiencies, solve business challenges, and help staffing companies communicate with their consultants / contractors and candidates.

The numerous options in mobile marketing have confused marketing offices. From native handset applications to MMS and SMS, each technology has its ups and downs.
Because they occur on the handset and can leverage other applications or hardware features (e.g. GPS), native applications offer the most flexibility for user interaction. But, native applications, are subject to one-time installs, and users rarely remember to update their software.
The next bet for content delivery is MMS, and while that is a great medium, the technology isn’t ubiquitous across the major carriers. SMS, the plain text sibling of MMS, is ubiquitous but many marketers shy away because of the misconception that SMS lacks the full package.
Digging a bit further, marketers will jump back to WAP only to find that it too struggles to provide ubiquitous experience end-users. This is partially a result of the lack of standardized browsers, and that Verizon Wireless blocks WAP content downloads to their handsets.
So, after all this research, somehow, handset applications come away with the biggest appeal. They’re fast, they leverage the handset’s features, and they can handle all the fun content without battling a messaging platform. Which leaves me asking… how good was this research?! Yes, a handset application can do all that and the end-users – who actually download it - would love it, but why eliminate such a large audience with all the red tape?
Don’t get me wrong, mobile applications are cool - I had a few before I jumped to the iPhone – but the mobile phone is about speed and convenience. The traditional method of finding and downloading an application has too many hurdles – the iPhone AppStore will change this.

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