Continuing our Simply Hired Publisher Spotlight series where we interview a Simply Hired Publisher to learn his or her tips and tricks for success, we caught up with Maynard Anderson, the Marketing Director of VetFriends.com. Maynard shared with us some great marketing and promotional ideas--both to drive traffic to the Vetfriends site and job board, as well as how to entice employers to post jobs.
1. Tell us a little about your site/company/product.
VetFriends.com (www.vetfriends.com) is the largest web site reconnecting U.S. military veterans with over 1,200,000 members nationwide. Founded in 2000 by a proud U.S. veteran, VetFriends continues its mission to reunite, honor and support all U.S. veterans and military personnel. Some of the main features/tools at VetFriends are: Veteran people search; search over 10,000 Military Units; Veteran Business Directory; Veteran job boards; information on how to receive your own or a family member's military records and medals; reunion postings; message boards; military discounts and more. VetFriends.com also offers a variety of authentic veteran-submitted content from reunion stories, military photos, military jokes, lingo and cadences. VetFriends.com additionally runs the largest online store of U.S. military veteran pride items and collectibles, helping veterans to show their pride of service.
2. Why did you decide to sign up with Job-a-matic/Simply Hired's API/Simply Hired's publisher tools?
VetFriends.com launched a nationwide online database of open job positions to help veterans in search of employment and career opportunities. U.S. veteran and military men and women are the foundation of what has made America the symbol of freedom and opportunity that it is today. Companies nationwide can now give back and post their job openings for the VetFriends military veteran community of over 1 Million veterans to apply to. The job board is one of many tools and directories that VetFriends offers to help veterans nationwide.
2a. Why did you pick Simply Hired over other options?
VetFriends.com decided on Simply Hired because of the ease of implementation to our site; the user friendly control panel with reporting and statistics; along with the vast amount of jobs that were shown and could be offered to our veteran members through their directory. In addition, the pricing platform is both reasonable and competitive, and gives us the freedom to create discount codes and special job packages to offer.
3. What have you found to be the biggest benefit of Job-a-matic?
With the help of Job-a-matic, the Military and Veteran Job Network at VetFriends enables visitors to search by location, job keyword and specific company through 5 million job postings to find and apply to open positions. This addition to VetFriends.com provides an easy way for veteran and military heroes, along with their family and friends to search and apply to recent job openings both locally and nationwide. New jobs are updated daily in the Job-a-matic network, and we can present them to members through a variety of unique marketing tools, specifically the local job post feeds, which add a touch of personalization.
4. Do you have any customizations to your board? If so, please describe.
Customizations include adding our header and design feel, along with a targeted link taking visitors to a customized veteran & military specific information page at: http://www.vetfriends.com/jobpagevetfriends.cfm
5. What is the biggest benefit of Job-a-matic for your audience?
The Job-a-matic network provides a quick and easy way for our veterans to search a vast database of jobs by specific search criteria. The listings are up to date, and can be easily promoted through feeds. Furthermore, the network provides an ideal platform for companies to give back and thank U.S. military veterans by posting their employment opportunities in the network.
6. How do you promote your Job-a-matic board?
We promote through a variety of platforms, some of which are: targeted focus emails to our subscriber base, strategically placed banner feeds throughout our site matching user IP address to location; SEO and online press release distributions, along with package and discount code offerings. We also emphasize to all companies that military veterans are ideal employees to have working for your business for a number of reasons:
- When you hire a veteran you are eligible to receive a tax creditfrom the U.S. Government.
- Veterans are fantastic hires because they work well in teams, have leadership qualities, learn quickly and know technology.
- Veterans have passed at least one extensive background check.
7. What kind of promotion do you give job listings posted to your board?
VetFriends.com has an email subscriber list of 140,000 veterans, and averages ~600,000 page views per month. All job posts through the VetFriends.com board at http://vetfriends.jobamatic.com/a/jobs/find-jobs are strategically placed in our devoted member emails; are promoted throughout our web site; and we offer competitive pricing along with codes and discounts.
8. To what do you owe the success of your job board?
To our valued U.S. Veteran and Military members, along with all our service men and women nationwide. In addition, we thank Job-a-matic for providing the platform, tools and resources helping us to promote new jobs to our veterans, their families and friends.
Special bonds are formed between U.S. military personnel who have and are serving side by side in the U.S. Armed Forces. These friendships can withstand the test of time, serving side by side with their brothers & sisters in arms. With this in mind, VetFriends would like to take a moment to thank and reflect on the sacrifices and bravery of all who have served their country in times of need. Thank you U.S. veteran and military heroes of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard – We salute you.
9. If you could pass along a single piece of advice to a new Job-a-matic user, what would it be?
Promote, promote…promote! Constantly display your Job-a-matic banners and/or links throughout your site and e-newsletters to help awareness and to bring in new visitors. Also, do not be afraid to offer great package discounts and competitive offers for your board.
10. What do you do with the income generated from your Job-a-matic board?
Funds generated by the job board go towards the continued mission of VetFriends.com – to reunite, honor and support all U.S. veterans and military personnel. Additionally, funds help with the advertising of the job board to reach out to veterans and companies nationwide who support and would like to thank our veteran heroes. VetFriends.com encourages all companies and all Americans to honor and support U.S. veterans and active military of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard -- Heroes of our nation.
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