Challenge
While many companies understand the importance of a marketing budget, there are some organizations that have allocated limited funds in this area. Perhaps they have relied on word-of-mouth or the occasional press release to generate interest in their products and services - while these tactics may work for a time, there will come a point when the organization will need to reach out to a broader customer base to ensure continued growth.

While this is can be an issue in the private sector, it is a particular concern for the public sector as the organization's funding is often tied to the number of clients served as well as the number and variety of services provided.

Under the auspices of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), work2future operates One-Stop Career Centers in the areas of San Jose, Campbell and South County and provides job search, education and training services to job seekers as well as workforce development services to area employers. While work2future offered numerous services, increased awareness of their offering was sorely needed; additionally, job seekers and employers who were already familiar with the organization often chose not to access available services. Work2future approached the contract education division of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District – Institute for Business Performance (IBP) for assistance with these challenges. In turn, IBP then asked NIA Creative for strategic consulting, tactical recommendations.

Recommendations
NIA Creative reviewed the marketing and outreach efforts that had been previously attempted by work2future, and discovered that the majority of materials were outdated, and looked like they had been created by government agencies rather than a contemporary workforce solutions organization. Additionally, we felt that there were many misconceptions about the types of job seekers helped by the organization – these misconceptions were giving some job seekers the feeling that “work2future isn’t for me – it is for someone else.” Employers often shared these misconceptions, resulting in interest from retail/hospitality employers but less interest from employers representing other industries. We recommended that all marketing and outreach efforts focus on dispelling these misconceptions via success stories that would reflect the diversity of job seekers as well as a broad range of industries.

Solution
NIA Creative developed several innovative outreach pieces for work2future. Projects included:

- A job seeker resource kit featuring a promotional CD-ROM that included two informational videos as well as an outreach brochure
- A career exploration CD featuring success story testimonial videos as well as detailed information about in-demand careers
- Life-sized success story banners featuring work2future clients representing each of the major industry/career clusters
- A rapid response kit featuring a new CD-ROM targeting recently dislocated workers, a new trifold brochure and wallet card

Results
All materials were overwhelmingly successful. Work2future was able to attract many more job seekers as well as employers – and these new customers represent a broader range of industries enabling work2future to be able to support more jobs, more businesses and more talent throughout Silicon Valley. This year, we plan to develop and produce a new website for work2future – a website that will offer online tools and resources so that an even greater population of clients can be served.

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