Kannon’s client is one of the largest daily newspapers in the country, with a weekday circulation of over 700,000 and over 950,000 on Sundays. The newspaper is an operating division of the parent company, a diversified media company whose principal operations include newspaper and magazine publishing, television broadcasting, cable television systems, electronic information services, test preparation and educational and career services.
The Recruitment Advertising and Marketing management at the client’s newspaper division wanted to build an actionable segmentation to better understand, manage and track the migration of employers from print to online advertising. The objectives of the project were to describe media usage and preferences among recruiters; delineate buying decisions made by employers purchasing employment advertising; and provide insight into the migration of employers and employees to online advertising.
About 330 recruitment professionals were interviewed via telephone over a fouDaily Metro Newspaper, circulation over 950,000r-week period. Respondents represented a mix of very large and mid-size employers, and the majority of respondents was responsible for the recruitment of both hourly/non-exempt and exempt positions. About one-quarter of respondents were non-advertisers of either the client’s newspaper or the jobs section of the newspaper’s branded website.
Using information gathered during the interview phase, a “needs-based” cluster analysis was conducted on multiple dimensions of employer needs which ultimately identified five unique recruitment segments. The segments were then profiled based on key independent variables, as well as firmagraphics, to identify drivers of shifts in spending. Recruitment spending estimates over the next year were compared with past twelve month ratios to understand shifts in spending from newspapers to other media, particularly online.
Based on Kannon’s findings, the client’s Recruitment Advertising and Marketing management re-aligned their sales organization to meet targeted opportunities across industries. Three years later, the Recruitment segmentation study was updated. New findings suggested that further re-alignment was necessary to at least match competitive sales coverage.
The newspaper’s Vice President of Marketing commented about the study: “Kannon’s work is analytically strong and insightful. As proof of this, we worked with them again on updating the original study. Kannon’s findings on free listing websites prompted discussions on experimenting with our own free site, which was consistent with our strategy to build an online marketplace of job listings in the local market.”