In light of a tanking stock value, stuff like this could be seen as a desperate attempt at milking clients for all they’re worth, but it’s more likely a legit attempt at creating greater value and generating revenue for the kids in Sunnyvale.
In as many days, I’ve received two ‘targeted’ e-mails like the one below from HotJobs. I’ve been a registered user since they became a Yahoo! property, and these are the first messages I’ve received like this:
I put the word targeted in quotes, because if this is Yahoo!’s idea of a targeted message, they have some improvement ahead of them. Yes, I do live in Ohio (Progressive Insurance is based in Cleveland). I am not, however, an IT professional - at least not the uber-geek openings featured - and I don’t live in or have a desire to move to Colorado (although I really enjoy Vail).
In general, I’m not being critical of this move. E-mail is still the No. 1 (search is No. 2) activity on the Web and has significant value to smart marketers. Strategies like this also enable HotJobs to differentiate themselves from competitors and add value to their offering. As Yahoo! continues to plug-in their knowledge of user behavior via things like the Yahoo! Toolbar, I expect things like this to become more frequent, more targeted and more valuable.
In fact, in addition to e-mail, you should start seeing greater integration of all job content creeping its way into things like Yahoo! Finance, e-mail, instant messenger and across all Y! properties. Something Monster, Craigslist, SimplyHired, Jobster, CareerBuilder, the world’s newspapers and the like will find an impossibility to replicate in their current state.
Google and MSN, however, can … and the smart money says they will.
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Keep abreast of all the recruiting and HR blogs at ERE.net.
July 19th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Hi Joel:
In defense of Yahoo - this product is called a HotJobs Direct. They have had it for well over a year now. The targeting criteria are actually up to the client. Even if their rep (or agency for that matter) counseled Progressive to target their IT audience as much possible - the client may have decided to just target Ohio. So far you can target by state and industry with HJ Direct.
CB & Monster have similar products. CB’s is called a Stand Alone email and Monster’s is called Targetmail. These 2 products allow you to target down quite a bit - to specific cities, keywords or even diversity.
The main advantage of the HJ Direct is that the email database that is being used is that of *ALL Yahoo! Registered users* (not just HotJobs). Among the jobs boards - I would say that HotJobs has a distinct advantage here. (Similarly with HJ adding in the ability to make recruitment banner buys across the various Yahoo! properties).