In Wisconsin - WEDC

Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation expanded its mission into the area of talent attraction and retention to better fulfill these objectives in Wisconsin. This dramatic shift in marketing toward very different personas with diverse content requirements and interactive tools demanded a complete reevaluation of brand standards, mood, voice, and device focus. Additionally, WEDC was being represented online by an aging website that had become bloated with content and represented a less-than-modern approach in many ways: it lacked adaptation to the growing use of mobile devices,; streamlined, goal-oriented user flows; integration with extended marketing services; and content and conversion strategies to address the aforementioned talent audience.

Breaking the single In Wisconsin website into two separate entities was the clearest path to successfully optimizing each of the two primary personas: business attraction and talent attraction. This process involved a full and detailed content and tool inventory on the original single site and robust development of additional features for the new talent persona. My team ideated and developed additions such as an interactive region selector map, job search tool, home finder, state rankings feature, cost of living comparison map, and many more interactive tools that we led traffic to via extensive media campaigns.

The In Wisconsin talent attraction website has won multiple awards, and the campaign has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, to name a few. The site was the first of its kind in this arena, offering a robust amount of information and resources to potential talent candidates--in fact, so much so that within the past few years since the initial millennial campaign launch, a number of Midwestern states have copied the campaign approach and escalated their marketing efforts.

With an average of 88,630 users visiting the site per month, the site is still growing and now includes a foreign direct investment section with six different language translations, a veteran attraction section with an MOS code job finder, and an alumni retention video library. All form data on the site feeds into Marketo for our marketing automation campaigns, and events, success stories, and investment portfolio content pull directly from WEDC’s Salesforce CRM.

Needless to say, the In Wisconsin website is a massive online resource with over 500 pages that routinely need content updates, and the site itself is maintained on a daily basis with regular QA, CMS and plugin updates, bug fixes, recurring SEO updates, and monthly compliance checks. My team’s job is not only to keep the site healthy and functional since all marketing efforts lead to it, but also keep it up to date with accessibility, privacy, and UX standards.