When you’re a smaller organization, every employee counts. The quality of your hires reflect the quality of your organization. High-powered individuals make for a red-hot organization. As you build out your recruitment strategy, keep in mind these pitfalls and the best way to avoid them.

Go big or go home. You spend all day writing up a beautifully-worded job description, and the following week you receive only 4 resumes. Boo. Creating an attractive workplace starts at home. If you haven’t already, sit down and define the value you provide to employees in the form of an Employer Value Statement, or EVP. Using that as a tool, get the word out through print and online that you’re looking for the next great employee at a great place to work.

Stay ahead of the technology. New technology based around the Internet allows virtual interviews, electronic portfolios, pre-qualifiers even before potential hires arrive at the office. Technology and digital interview tactics allow you create a “short list” of candidates that reduce overhead and narrow down on quality candidates.

Retention, retention, retention. Employee satisfaction extends beyond wages and bonuses. The culture you create at the workplace and affects both retention and productivity for the years your employees call your office home. Work in the concept of flexibility. Find creative ways to reward (and not punish) hard work and keep your base engaged. Good luck!

Signing off for now,
Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com

Mobile marketing is huge. In fact, if you’ve picked up a cell phone in the last 24 hours, then you’re a potential segment to be tapped. Studies such as a survey by M-Metrics suggest that SMS response rates are in excess of 15%. That means when customers are texting, if clients are talking, there’s an opportunity to gain new business.

Unlike traditional mediums, the most important thing to remember about mobile marketing is this: it’s not a single market channel. There’s a whole micro-universe of utilities and mediums tied in with the mobile world. Here are a few methods to plug into this opportunity-to-be.

Apps. Once only a niche market for Tetris-heads to get their fix, gaming on mobile communication devices has gone mainstream. With the advent of the iPhone, and now the hot-off-the-shelves iPad, the casual consumer has opened up to mobile gaming. Advertising opportunities within these markets include specialty games themed off a company itself (Pizza Hut’s “Pizza Builder”), or advertisements placed cleverly within the virtual world (games like MapleStory and derivatives).

SMS. The goal here is to gain customers by sending out a bulk text messages to consumers. The challenge, of course, is advertising responsibly. The best way to achieve a nice response rate is messaging only to customers who express an interest in your organization, or who indicate a wish to be alerted with job openings, contests, or any special promotions you offer.

Youtube. Whether you’ve developed a catchy commercial or something bizarre enough to spread like wildfire, a mobile medium could work wonders. Thanks to generous storage capacities on new mobile phone devices, videos can be sent and stored entirely on individual devices—meaning there’s plenty of room to spread the next big viral wonder.