You’re likely familiar with branding strategies that promote your products, services, or corporate brand to potential customers. Think of your company’s brand as your reputation. The way people think of your company, products, services, and leadership all impact your consumer brand.
Another important branding strategy is employer branding. Much like consumer branding, the goal of this strategy is retention. Consumer branding helps retain customers, while employer branding engages your quality employees.
Keep reading to learn what employer branding strategy is, see real company examples, branding statistics, and more.
How to Create An Employer Branding Strategy That Works
What is Employer Branding?
Your employer brand is based on the perception of past, present, and future employees.
Actively maintaining your employer brand is referred to as employer branding. Employer branding can include numerous different strategies and initiatives.
An employer who focuses on providing top-quality employee experience may benefit from happier and more successful employees. Plus, the more satisfied an employee is, the more likely they will become a brand ambassador for their employer.
By and large, the most appropriate strategy should capitalize on your company’s relationship with its employees. How can you highlight that relationship to show candidates why they should work for you?
A great way to start crafting a branding strategy is by defining your employee value proposition and candidate experience.
Employer Branding Statistics
Below, we’ve compiled a list of noteworthy employer branding statistics to help you understand branding’s importance.
General Trends in Employer Branding
- A CareerArc study showed that 96% of companies found employer branding important, but less than half—44%—actively engage their brand.
- A company with a bad reputation costs a company at least 10% more per hire.
- According to a Gartner report, the three main attributes that attract talent are compensation, work-life balance, and stability at work.
- Candidates shared that three significant reasons they left a job were related to compensation, future career opportunities, or people management.
How Companies Connect With Candidates
- Candidates are more likely to check a company’s employer brand before applying for a job.
- The source candidates trust the most for employer brand information are current employees.
- Candidates place social media at the top of their job search resources. Meanwhile, 91% of employers now use social media throughout the hiring process.
- The second most common reason that employers use social media when recruiting is to increase employer brand recognition.
Generational Divide in What Candidates Desire
- Millennial job seekers find employee value propositions that feature sustainability initiatives and flexible work policies attractive.
- Gen Z job seekers are inquisitive, which is they tend to ask for job expectations and company information upfront.
- Older generations, like Gen X, want the chance to grow their career. Thus, career growth opportunities, such as training and development, are appealing.
Employer Branding Strategy Elements: What is Your Strategy Made Of?
Identifying Your Employee Value Proposition
Employer branding and a company’s value to employees go hand in hand.
Think of your employee value proposition as the foundation for your branding strategy. To create a consistent strategy, you need to know what you promote to potential employees.
To get started, let’s define employee value proposition.
An employee value proposition is a set of rewards or benefits an employee accepts in exchange for their workplace performance.
When specifying your employee value proposition, consider your company’s mission, vision, and workplace culture. What does your company value the most in these areas?
Try to think outside the box; while compensation benefits are a given, more candidates desire meaningful roles over higher paychecks.
The best approach to take when highlighting employee benefits is to capitalize on what you do best.
Discovering Your Candidate Experience
Another essential factor to cover in your branding strategy is the candidate experience.
The experience a candidate has when interacting with your brand isn’t limited to your interview process. With websites like Glassdoor within easy access, a candidate has likely checked your company’s reviews before applying. Candidates might even form opinions about potential employers due to past experiences as a customer.
How can you learn more about your candidate experience? By directly asking your candidates!
Put together a candidate experience survey and send it to past candidates to gain their perspective.
Through this survey, you gain insights from their unique perspective. You might even notice trends appear in this feedback, showing you where improvements can begin.
Other resources that illustrate great candidate experience are candidate experience awards programs. The Candidate Experience Awards is a great place to find examples of companies with excellent candidate feedback.
Employer Branding Examples To Inspire You
It can seem challenging at times to create a unique branding strategy.
How can you ensure your strategy is as successful as possible? Take a look at what companies in your industry are doing.
There’s no harm in gaining inspiration from competitors! Learning why another company’s strategy is successful can help inspire your success.
Plus, looking at employer branding themes in the industry can help you stand out to candidates.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of leading employer branding strategy examples.
Freedom Financial
The first company on our list of employer branding examples is Freedom Financial.
Freedom Financial is passionate about serving its evolving customer base. To do so, Freedom Financial created a comprehensive branding strategy to attract top talent.
Freedom Financial’s employer brand is built around its “heart and $” culture and values. The company encourages employees to lead with their heart because it believes the dollar will follow.
Throughout the recruitment process, Freedom Financial focuses heavily on candidate experience. From the moment a candidate applies, the hiring team at Freedom gives them fair consideration.
Regardless of whether you hire a candidate, this personalized experience results in a genuine brand ambassador.
GoDaddy
As the world’s largest domain registrar, GoDaddy understands just how important it is to make brand information accessible.
Keeping this in mind, GoDaddy’s brand strategy shares an authentic view of the employee experience.
By sharing first-person experiences of employees, GoDaddy’s branding strategy illustrates a great example of marketing its employee value proposition.
Candidates who research GoDaddy learn about the company’s culture, which embraces each employee’s true self. That culture doesn’t forget to have fun either, which is clear through branding efforts like the following video ad.
This ad demonstrates the care that GoDaddy has for its customers. With the unique focus this ad has, it also gives authentic meaning to jobs with GoDaddy.
Farmers Insurance
When planning its employer branding strategy, Farmers Insurance recognized that the insurance industry had many years of history. Because of this longevity, candidates and customers may have biases on how flexible Farmers culture is.
Aiming to dispel these stereotypes, Farmers’ employer brand showcases its flexibility and openness to change.
This illustrative brand strategy also represents how Farmers stands out as an employer.
To maintain beneficial candidate communication, Farmers’ hiring team paints a clear picture of its employee value proposition. In doing so, qualified candidates better understand how they can fit into the Farmers team.
Employer Branding Best Practices
Planning a branding strategy is complex. You might have fantastic ideas for your strategy, but without the right structure, they won’t succeed.
What are employer branding best practices you should follow to ensure your strategy is successful?
Keep reading to identify various key points to prioritize when creating your strategy.
Identify Your Branding Goals
Identifying your branding goals may seem obvious, but it is an important first step!
What is the main goal or set of goals your strategy should champion for your company?
Sample goals for a branding strategy include:
- Increase positive brand awareness in your target candidate market.
- Improve the candidate experience that you provide through better communication.
- Find the right talent without worrying about a lengthy recruitment process.
- Lower costs for recruiting by narrowing down your candidate pool.
Using your goals as guidelines, you can ensure the rest of your strategy stays aligned with them.
Adapt to Your Ideal Candidate
A crucial part of any recruiting process is to define your ideal candidate. You can also use this candidate profile in your branding strategy.
When looking for ways to improve candidate experience, for example, you can look to your candidate profile. What does this profile say about what the candidate looks for in a job?
If you have a branding strategy, consider how your target candidate has changed over time. Is the strategy you made five years ago still applicable to the ideal candidate you imagine today?
Elevate Your Brand Through a Recruitment Marketing Strategy
An important best practice for creating a branding strategy is to understand how each moving park works.
The moving parts include your candidate experience, employee value proposition, and other factors.
While examined individually, each factor will rely on the other parts of your strategy to elevate your brand’s success.
Your employer branding processes are part of another, larger process known as recruitment marketing.
Once your strategy is ready for public consumption, you must find the best channels for sharing it.
Recruitment marketing strategies focus on promoting what you created in your employer brand strategy. This promotion can be through various channels, such as video advertising, newsletters, and social media activity.
Find an Experience Employer Branding Firm to Partner With
The best thing you can do when planning a branding strategy is to consult with an expert.
There are expert firms like BestCompaniesAZ that focus on employer branding. BestCompaniesAZ has over 18 years of experience as a PR, marketing, and employer branding firm that builds and promotes strong brands.
Specializing in the creation and promotion of employer branding strategies, BestCompaniesAZ has worked with numerous companies of all shapes and sizes.
Knowing that the best employer branding strategies are unique, BestCompaniesAZ takes a different approach to branding than most firms.
Branding services that BestCompaniesAZ offers include:
- Creation of a custom company profile on the BestCompaniesAZ website. These profiles feature company values, community involvement, and current job openings.
- Featuring your company and brand in monthly best lists that help you stand out amongst your competitors.
- Social media services that feature 3rd party advertising and endorsements to drive traffic to your careers page.
- A comprehensive examination of your company culture, community involvement, and employee engagement to help you apply to applicable award programs. Additionally, our team will help you throughout the application process! Whether you need writing help or want a fresh set of eyes, the team is dedicated to your success.
In the end, BestCompaniesAZ aids you in creating a strategy that nurtures an admirable culture that employees are excited to join.
Are you looking for the appropriate employer brand partner to help you succeed?
Contact BestCompaniesAZ to create an employer brand that you and your employees will love!
