WEDC’s Talent Attraction Website
In Wisconsin
Product Overview
Originally 1 website dedicated to both business and talent attraction.
New duo-website includes online resources for:
Real estate search (commercial and residential)
Job search
Community search and overview
Veteran support programs and benefits
Community events
State funds and grants for businesses
Cost of living comparison calculator
InWisconsin.com is the official website of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) and aims to foster economic growth, support existing businesses, and attract new companies and talent to the state. Key goals include promoting job creation, supporting entrepreneurs, facilitating site selection, promoting the "Think-Make-Happen" brand, and assisting with international trade and workforce development.
441
Companies Assisted
E&I programs were granted to 441 companies through WEDC
886
Businesses Supported
13 projects received $750,000 in
funding to support businesses, entrepreneurs, & innovators
$27.3 B
Total Exports
Despite the pandemic in 2020, Wisconsin reported billions in total exports
$240 M
Direct Assistance
WEDC dristributed over $240 million to more than 55,000 small businesses in 2020
Role
Senior Product Designer
Responsibilities
IA strategy, UX, UI, and maintenance design
Surfaces
Fully responsive
Duration
Feb 2018 - Nov 2021
The Challenge
01
What & Why: WEDC needed a specialized digital strategy for talent attraction and retention because its original mission has expanded to drive holistic economic growth in the state.
Economic Holistic Growth: To transform the state's digital presence into a comprehensive economic engine that attracts not just capital, but the human talent necessary for long-term regional prosperity.
02
What & Why: Distinct user personas need specialized content pathways and custom interactive tools because their goals, motivations, and decision-making requirements are fundamentally different.
User-Centric Inclusion: Establish a frictionless digital environment that respects and fulfills the distinct needs of both corporate investors and individual job-seekers through highly personalized experiences.
03
What & Why: The organization needed a comprehensive realignment of its brand standards, voice, and device strategy because its current digital identity no longer supports the scope of its newly expanded mission.
Brand Modernization: Project a unified and authoritative identity that reflects a broader, more inclusive mission, ensuring the brand voice resonates with a diverse, modern audience.
04
What & Why: Users needed a streamlined and modernized digital platform because the existing aging website had become bloated and relied on an outdated approach that hindered usability.
Operational Excellence: Replace legacy complexity with a high-performance platform that eliminates information fatigue and restores professional trust through clarity and speed.
05
What & Why: Mobile-first users needed a fully responsive and adaptive digital experience due to modern search behaviors and the increasing volume of mobile traffic requiring seamless accessibility across all devices.
Ubiquitous Accessibility: Meet the modern workforce where they live by prioritizing a mobile-first experience that ensures critical opportunities are accessible anytime, on any device.
06
What & Why: Site visitors needed streamlined, goal-oriented user flows because the current lack of navigational structure created friction and prevented them from efficiently reaching their intended objectives.
Intentional Navigation: Maximize user success by engineering goal-oriented pathways that guide visitors seamlessly from initial curiosity to high-value action.
07
What & Why: The marketing and communications teams needed a website that seamlessly integrated with extended marketing services because disconnected systems prevented them from effectively tracking user behavior, nurturing leads, and measuring the ROI of their talent attraction campaigns.
Ecosystem Connectivity: Amplify the impact of every marketing initiative by creating a synchronized technical infrastructure where data and services work in harmony to drive results.
08
What & Why: Prospective talent needed targeted content and specialized conversion pathways because they required high-utility, life-changing information to transition from initial interest to a definitive commitment to relocate or work in Wisconsin.
Talent Conversion: Bridge the gap between interest and relocation by delivering the specific emotional and logistical insights that empower prospective residents to commit to a new future.
01Solution
Bifurcating the single "In Wisconsin" website into two distinct, specialized entities.
Results
This allowed for the successful optimization of content and user experience for the two primary personas: business attraction and talent attraction. The new talent attraction website, InWisconsin.com, generated over 156,000 unique visitors in its first two months.
02Solution
My team researched and defined user personas for each of the two sites, WEDC and In Wisconsin, to determine their specific goals, needs, frustrations, and the “Aha!” moments that solidify their decision to relocate to Wisconsin.
Results
As a result, we identified the key conversion points and features needed to make the site a success and to attract qualified individuals and businesses to Wisconsin.
03Solution
My team conducted a comprehensive inventory of all content and tools from the original site to determine what to keep, what to remove, and which new features were needed to support the new duo-website approach and the distinct personas. Based on the user persona studies and this feature inventory, I built two distinct sitemaps that accommodate each site’s primary goal.
Results
This rigorous analysis ensured a clear understanding of existing assets and paved the way for the development of the new talent-focused features and site structure.
04Solution
Ideating and developing a robust suite of interactive tools, including a region selector map, job search tool, home finder, state rankings feature, and cost of living comparison map.
Results
These specific additions provided the high-value functionality required to meet the needs and expectations of the talent persona. The Find a Home and Find a Career tools alone generated a combined conversion rate of nearly 50%.
View examples below!
05Solution
Implementing extensive media campaigns to promote the new site and its features.
Results
This strategic outreach successfully directed high volumes of traffic to the newly developed interactive tools. Post-campaign research showed a 15% increase from 2018 to 2019 in the number of millennials who were willing to move to Wisconsin for a job.
Wireframes
In Wisconsin home page
Southeast region of Wisconsin landing page.
Careers search landing page for users exploring work opportunities in Wisconsin.
Promotional winter season in Wisconsin landing page.
How Wisconsin ranks by category vs other states in the US.
Veteran attraction landing page with state comparison and job finder features.
Certified Sites page for business users to search for properties.
Mockups
Home Page
Explore Wisconsin Regions Listing
Southeast Region Detail
Winter Detail - Wisconsin Season Overview and Activities
Career Search
Real Estate (Home) Search
Wisconsin Rankings in U.S.
Veteran Support and Benefits
Corporate Success Stories Listing
The Pay Dirt
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, it continues to grow and now includes a foreign direct investment section with six 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, events, success stories, and investment portfolio content, which are pulled 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 daily with regular QA, CMS, and plugin updates, bug fixes, recurring SEO updates, and monthly compliance checks. My team’s job was not only to keep the site healthy and functional since all marketing efforts lead to it, but also to keep it up to date with accessibility, privacy, and UX standards.
