5 Employer Branding Ideas That Are Low-Cost but High-Impact

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published in October 2020 and has been updated in part.

An investment in your organization’s employer brand is always a smart move for tomorrow, whether or not you’re actively hiring today. 

Key Takeaways

• Your employer branding efforts don’t have to cost an arm and a leg to be impactful — especially if you know your competition.  
• Focus on telling stories that are human and culture-focused, as opposed to hard-selling the tangible benefits, and consider crowdsourcing that content from employees.   
• Educate and empower your employees at every level, both on how to showcase your employer brand and on why it matters. 

It’s not easy to quantify the impact of storytelling — a truth employer branding professionals know all too well. And it can be especially challenging during times of economic uncertainty when HR budgets are already limited. 

But whether or not your business is actively hiring, investing in your employer reputation is always a strong strategic move that can set you up for attracting top talent in the long run. 

Powerful storytelling hits harder when we're facing adversity; it offers hope and opportunity.

Taylor Meadows, Head Strategist of Employer Brand and Employee Voice at Glassdoor

“Powerful storytelling hits harder when we're facing adversity; it offers hope and opportunity,” says Taylor Meadows, Head Strategist of Employer Brand and Employee Voice at Glassdoor. “Position yourself as an employer of choice when others are quiet. I would take immediate advantage of reduced noise in the talent market." 

The best part? You don’t need a million-dollar budget to make it happen. We’ve put together some low-cost, high-impact approaches from experts in the field to help you create more powerful employer brand content.

Think Like a Journalist

Many employers want to showcase the fun perks that make their company a great place to work. But this can distract from what’s really at the heart of your company culture: the people. 

Emily Firth, an employer brand and employee engagement consultant, says to focus less on the “stuff” and more on stories of real employees doing real things. This also provides a good opportunity to showcase the reality of organizational changes in a post-pandemic world where remote and hybrid workplaces have become more commonplace. 

“Take your phone [and] film people in your organization talking passionately about the things that reflect your culture that aren't necessarily about the day-to-day work,” Firth explains. In addition to being cost-free, this strategy has the benefit of bringing public relations and human resources departments together, she adds.

“I always encourage employer brand managers to think more like journalists,” Firth says. By telling “a human story about how you treat people at your company … you get more freedom [than with] traditional marketing because you're not hard-selling the product. You're trying to create an emotional connection.”

Think creatively about groups across your organization with stories you can share. Potential is everywhere — from traditional storytellers in corporate marketing and employee resource groups to your IT and operations teams.

Be Competitive

You’ll always be competing for people’s attention. In a world where the average American spends upward of 11 hours a day consuming content and media, how do you cut through other brands’ noise? 

Don’t be intimidated by flashy, big-budget employer branding campaigns from corporate powerhouses. Instead, draw inspiration from their tales and apply those approaches to your own company’s stories about what makes it a great employer. 

In fact, competitor data can be useful in thinking through how best to convey your employer brand. “You don’t have to compete with Google if they’re not your competition,” says recruiting strategist and author Jack Whatley. “All you have to do is be a little bit better than the next person.” 

When targeting potential talent, you can also stay competitive by leveraging the same insights and research that your marketing teams use to develop content for clients, Firth says: “What [your] customers are interested in talking about is also very relevant to what [your] employees and talent are talking about.”

READ: Looking to gain a competitive edge? Get valuable insights from Indeed research on what women need to feel supported and thrive at work.

Crowdsource Employer Brand Content from Employees

Employer brand content development doesn’t have to fall solely on the shoulders of employer brand marketers. Think of creative ways employees can share content about their personal work experiences with their own networks. 

For example, a memorable hashtag for a company-wide mental health day can encourage employees to post about what they’re doing on their days off — and illustrate your company’s commitment to worker wellbeing in an era when workers are clearer than ever about their workplace values.

“Our employees are eager to talk ... about what we're doing, and talk about our culture; they just need some guidance,” says Rian Finnegan, an employer branding strategist (formerly Instacart’s Senior Manager of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing). 

Internal communication tools, such as weekly newsletters or a company intranet platform, can provide employees with guidance around what, when and where to post employer brand content. Incentivizing content creation with swag, a competition or some form of recognition can also encourage participation. Or consider formalizing your crowdsourcing strategy by creating an internal brand ambassador program that workers can join. 

And if you haven’t already, establish a close relationship with your leadership team. This keeps you in the know on company-wide happenings — and opens opportunities for employee content creation — while reinforcing how valuable your hard work is in building your brand’s reputation as an employer.

DOWNLOAD: Discover new strategies to support worker wellbeing and stand out as an employer of choice with our work wellbeing playbook.   

Educate and Empower the Recruiting Team

Insight into the initiatives and narratives leadership wants to promote is important.

Just as important as your company-wide communications are your conversations with talent attraction and recruiting teams. They’re the direct points of contact with potential talent, so having insight into the top-priority initiatives and narratives leadership wants to promote —  along with what is (and isn’t) okay to say — is key.

Empowering your recruiters to become recruitment marketers can be as simple as educating them on the correlation between sharing employer brand content and successfully attracting quality candidates, says Chrissy Thornhill, Director of Global Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing at MetLife (and formerly a global employer brand manager at Salesforce).

Thornhill suggests hosting quarterly sessions to teach your recruiting team about finding and sharing content and to “show the ... brand awareness that they're able to create compared to what our social channel can create.”

LISTEN: Thornhill explains how she empowers her recruiting team in the full podcast episode below.

Make The Business Case for Employer Branding

That close working relationship with leadership is also invaluable when it comes time to demonstrate brand marketing’s ROI. 

Feeling confident in your work amid budget cuts and layoffs can be tough, but “there is a lot of evidence now that you can use to reinforce the position,” Firth says.

In today’s reality, news coverage around a company’s treatment of employees is hugely influential in customer perception, thus impacting shareholder value and a business’s bottom line. Firth reminds us to connect those dots: 

“This impacts our internal engagement; people are feeling lost and scared and confused, and you need support with that. Our PR team [is] struggling with these negative headlines. Our people team is overloaded trying to deal with all these situations.”

Firth also comments that leadership is likely to be “more interested in what you're doing because it's not [just] an HR thing.” It’s more directly and obviously aligned to business goals: “You are invaluable — you just have to put your hand up, build a case, make allies and be brave about saying, ‘This is something I can help with.’” 

READ: Find out where your organization stands on its employer brand journey. 

What You Do Now Will Set You Up for Success Later

In spite of uncertain economic conditions, employer branding professionals are uniquely positioned to demonstrate their organization’s commitment to bringing in and retaining top talent. 

“In challenging times when qualified job seekers are feeling vulnerable or disheartened, that is the moment to show up for them by investing in your employer brand,” Meadows says. 

And by elevating your employer brand, you’re not only serving your employees and business today but positioning your organization to attract high-performing talent going forward.