Marketing with Stories Blog
End-to-End Client Story Management Takes Work Off Marketing Director’s Plate
Client success stories were always a part of the work I did in my role as Courtney’s outsourced content marketing strategist and writer. From rewriting existing stories so they followed a clearer narrative form to providing end-to-end management of new stories, Courtney trusted me to interact with her clients in a professional way, ask the right questions, and turn their experiences into marketing assets her team could use to build credibility and nurture trust.
Operations Manager Delegates Client Success Stories to Trusted Consultant
I started working with Chris Freeman at XPERTECHS in 2019 when the company wanted to move from cookie-cutter agency work to a custom inbound marketing approach. Since then, I've served as the company’s content marketing strategist and partner, working closely with Chris on marketing strategy and handling all content execution. From the beginning, client success stories have been central to that strategy.
Employee Experience Stories Make It Easy for Marketing to Support Recruiting
I had been working with Courtney Casey at Accent Computer Solutions for about a year when we started publishing team member spotlights in 2019. It began with a question: What can marketing do to support the company's recruiting efforts? My answer was to create content based on employee experience that would attract and engage job candidates. The stories revealed what it's like to work at the company, shifting recruiting from "We're hiring!" to messages that answered candidates' questions, built trust, and created a consistent employer brand.
Employee Interviews Shift Company from 'We're Hiring' to Consistent Employer Brand
We had been working together for a couple of years when I introduced Chris Freeman at XPERTECHS to employee experience interviews as a recruitment marketing tactic. As someone involved in recruiting and hiring, Chris was open to trying a marketing approach to attract and engage potential job candidates. I explained that these interviews uncover employer value and create engagement in a way that job postings alone can't. Chris was all in.
How I Developed a Small Business Approach to Recruitment Marketing
I’ve been on a learning journey with recruitment marketing for many years. It started when one of the companies I was working for asked me to do something to help them get the word out about their open jobs. Back then, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as recruitment marketing, but I was sure that I could use my marketing skills to do something.
What Do Buyer Personas Have to Do with Recruitment Marketing?
I once read that the biggest compliment you can give a teacher is to create something new with what they taught you, and that’s what I did with Adele Revella’s Buyer Persona framework. I learned Revella’s process for talking to buyers to find out about their decision-making process from reading her book and taking her Buyer Persona Masterclass. I synthesized what I learned into the framework that I use to talk to employees and find out what they value.
My They Ask, You Answer Connection to Recruitment Marketing
As I was writing my online course - Better Message. Better Talent Pool. - I became aware that there were three main influences that have guided my approach to recruitment marketing. One of them was “They Ask, You Answer” by Marcus Sheridan. In his book “They Ask, You Answer,” Sheridan tells the story of how he brought his swimming pool business from the brink of collapse to thriving success by using his blog to answer all of the questions that prospective buyers might have.
My StoryBrand Connection to Recruitment Marketing
As I was creating my online course – Better Message. Better Talent Pool. – I had to think hard about the process that I was using to interview employees and turn what they say into compelling recruiting messages. The challenging part was taking what I did intuitively and distilling the process so I could teach other people how to do the same thing.
Marketing Consultant Gives XPERTECHS Product Manager Freedom to Focus
When Chris Freeman, a marketing professional at managed IT company XPERTECHS in Ellicott City, MD, moved into the role of product manager, he felt pulled in too many directions. As a product manager, Chris was tasked with developing new IT service product offerings, but he still had to maintain all of his marketing responsibilities. The result was that daily marketing tasks started to fall through the cracks, and Chris knew that he didn’t have the bandwidth to get everything done.
Introducing Sarah Olson, Brand Storyteller
Sarah Olson joins her mom, Lori Creighton, as a writer at Homestead Media, helping companies communicate their reputation as a good employer through employee experience storytelling. Her role at Homestead Media provides a way for Sarah to keep her professional experience fresh while she cares for her two young sons. It’s a great situation that helps her to put her family first, and stay close to her mom, Lori, owner of Homestead Media.
Consulting Services Make It Easier to Be a Marketing Department of One
Courtney Casey is the Director of Marketing for Accent Computer Solutions, now VC3 after being acquired in 2022. Being responsible for marketing in an extremely competitive industry means that Courtney has a very comprehensive marketing strategy and is active in multiple channels, from content development, advertising and email marketing to customer communications, sales enablement and networking.
Lori Creighton Certified in Recruitment Marketing
Lori Creighton has earned Recruitment Marketing Certification through the Smashfly* Transform Academy. The certification is recognized by SHRM (Society for Human Resource Professionals) and the HR Certification Institute as eligible for continuing education credits for HR professionals. Recruitment marketing is the use of marketing tactics to achieve recruiting goals. It’s considered an emerging discipline within the field of HR but it requires a very different skillset.