VIQTORY Announces Partnership With University of Utah

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 6th, 2020: VIQTORY is proud to announce a new partnership with the University of Utah. This partnership will grow the University of Utah’s reach within the military community through a highly targeted, cross-platform digital advertising campaign with the G.I. Jobs brand promoting education opportunities at the David Eccles School of Business.

“We chose to partner with VIQTORY because we know they are experts in the military community and respected by our audience,” said Truman Smith, Marketing Coordinator, MBA Programs and Executive Education at the Eccles School of Business.

“Our educational offerings are some of the best in the country. We believe there is no better way to introduce our top-of-the-line product to the military community than by partnering with top-of-the-line experts: VIQTORY. We are excited about our partnership, and we look forward to developing a strong presence within the military.”

“We are very proud to present these higher learning opportunities to the military community on behalf of the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business,” says 20 year Army Veteran Darryl Williams, Director of Sales and Marketing at VIQTORY.

Utah joins dozens of other top notch universities who have chosen to recruit student veterans through VIQTORY.

About VIQTORY: Founded by three Navy veterans in 2001, VIQTORY is the premiere military marketing agency that connects the military community with the companies that want to hire them, the schools that want to educate them and the brands that want to reach them. Using data-driven strategies, smart technologies, and first party data gleaned through our own trusted media brands, VIQTORY is the fusion of both a media company and an ad agency.

About University of Utah Eccles School of Business: The Eccles School is synonymous with ‘doing.’ The Eccles experience provides a world-class business education with a unique, entrepreneurial focus on real-world scenarios where students put what they learn into practice long before graduation.

Founded in 1917 on a rich tradition of business success and leadership, the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah offers an experiential learning environment for students. It is home to 12 institutes and centers that deliver academic research and support an ecosystem of entrepreneurship, technology and innovation. The University of Utah in Salt Lake City is nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, just 30 minutes from seven ski resorts and less than five hours from five national parks.

Contact: David Dobson, 412-269-1663 x150, david.dobson@viqtory.com

Employee Spotlight – Kyle Golik

At VIQTORY, we put a high value on company culture, and that starts with our employees. Get to know our team in this month’s Employee Spotlight. 20 Questions With Kyle Golik, Web Operations.

How long have you worked at VIQTORY?

Since February 2016.

What is your job title?

Good question. WebOps IT Specialist? To be honest I don’t pay attention to titles and just focus on the job at hand.

Briefly describe your primary responsibilities within that role. (What does a typical day look like?)

Checking backups, making sure operations are all up, assisting team members with any IT needs, and working on my daily projects.

What is it you enjoy most about your job?

No two days are the same. I could one day be buried in CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, another day working on Networking equipment, another day doing data cleansing, and another day assisting development.

What is your favorite memory from working at VIQTORY?

When we as an organization celebrated HONR on the NYSE in NYC and got to go to the NYSE and be on the floor.

Where are you from?

Tarentum, Pa – it is known as T-Town.

Where did you go to school and what was your major?

I went to Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pa and got my Major in IT Management with a minor in Business Accounting and Administration.

What was your first job?

My first job was as a dishwasher at Tarentum Station restaurant. The story goes my Dad, as summer approached my sophomore year of high school, was giving me this attitude of you are not going to spend the summer laying around and geeking on the computer. So I applied at the Tarentum Station and they called out of the blue, so I ran down because I was excited to have progress and I got the job. So after Chef Tom (whom I am still friends with to this day) told John the owner that he hired me, they noticed me jumping for joy outside. He would ask me later why I did this and I said simply to get my Dad off my back. Little did I know I would get a second Father and lifetime friend out of it.

How do you spend your time outside of the office?

I enjoy going to concerts, cooking, and riding quads. I am part of a sportsman club so I have gotten into skeet shooting and archery. I am a freemason so I enjoy that brotherhood and spend time at Masonic Villages helping and volunteering. Also love the computer… so geeking out on the internet.

What are your favorite sports teams?

New York Yankees, Giants, Knicks, Rangers, Penn State Nittany Lions, and Barcelona FC. Also team Joey Chestnut and the Nature Boy Ric Flair!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!

Who are your 3 favorite bands/artists?

Man this is hard – Led Zeppelin and The Band are easily Top 2. #3 is between Pearl Jam and Miles Davis, depending on the day.

What is your favorite food?

Chicago Style Italian Beef. I love the Italian Combo, which is Italian Beef and Italian Sausage.

If you could have dinner with 3 people from history who would they be?

This is always tough – Linus Pauling, Alan Turing, and Wilder Penfield.

What is the last book you read?

I usually read multiple books at once on my iPad. The last book I completed was Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail ‘72, by Hunter S. Thompson. Currently I am reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan, Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant (RIP), and Seafire by John Gardner.

What is your favorite place to travel?

This is really tough, I absolutely love doing Niagara Falls/Toronto annually. My favorite combo trip was when my wife, brother, and sister in law went to Washington D.C., London, UK, and Dublin, Ireland all in one trip. I must say that my favorite place I have ever been to is Barcelona, Spain and I would move there tomorrow no questions asked.

Do you have any pets?

I have a pure Shih Tzu named Chai Bear who is 10. He answers to Woo Bear, Ghee, and Choo Choo.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?

Anytime I have seen Pearl Jam live has been special – October 2013 in Pittsburgh is probably my favorite and the best.

If you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life what would it be?

This is hard man – the 1990 Paul Verhoeven classic Total Recall with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, and Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris gets the nod today. The other is the 1986 classic Top Gun.

Tea or coffee?

I love tea but man a good coffee roast is like none other. Coffee by a hair.

What ranks first on your, “Bucket List?”

Venture into outer space and potentially try to colonize Mars.

Non-Traditional Student Recruitment Campaigns

Non-Traditional Student Recruitment Webinar

On-Demand Webinar: Sharing Success in Military Veteran Student Recruitment

Did you miss our panel discussion on best practices in military student recruitment, case studies of our partner schools, and integrated student recruitment marketing campaigns?

Don’t worry. We recorded it and you can access it here 👇

Based on the tremendous feedback, we wanted to make sure you had the chance to catch the discussion.

Student recruitment is the lifeblood of any college, university, trade school, community college, or global online program. Join us as we share examples of some of the best military student recruitment campaigns we’ve been involved in, and how your school can replicate success stories like 👇

Delivering online programs to adult students has been a part of the Ball State Online mission for decades, and the veteran audience is an extremely important part of that equation. We rely heavily on the talent and expertise from VIQTORY to guide strategy and implement tactics that show return on our investment. As marketing director of a small (but mighty) marketing team, it’s important to me that we use our limited time and energy wisely. The team at VIQTORY helps make that happen. And, we see results because of it.

Craig Meinhart, Director of Marketing and Communications, OSL

Reaching Military Spouses Eligible for the MyCAA Scholarship

Are you effectively marketing your institution’s participation in the Military Spouse Education & Training Opportunities program’s My Career Advancement Account (MyCAA) Scholarship?

What is MyCAA?

The My Career Advancement Account Scholarship, or MyCAA, is one of many resources the Department of Defense offers to help military spouses cultivate rewarding careers. Administered through the Spouse Education and Career Opportunities program, MyCAA provides up to $4,000 of financial assistance for military spouses who are pursuing advanced training in portable career fields.

Military Spouses Have Lots of Options

Military spouses have lots of options on how they want to apply their MyCAA scholarship money. But are they aware that your organization participates?

MyCAA scholarship money can go toward licensing, certification, or an associate degree in a portable career field. Military spouses can choose from more than 170 approved career tracks at 2,500+ institutions, or they can talk to a SECO career coach to get another program approved.

There are plenty of options available to the military spouse community – everything from nursing and K-12 teaching to photography, web development, and medical billing. Whether looking to spin their current career into something portable or begin a new pursuit, they can use MyCAA funds to support their goals. The question is, are they finding your organization?

They Have On-Call Support from the DoD

Military life means frequent moves, and the Department of Defense is committed to helping military spouses find fulfilling work that moves with them. The Department of Defense employs SECO career coaches to help military spouses plan a career path and secure MyCAA funding. They can also help write resumes, sharpen interview skills, or launch a business. They can call a SECO career coach for military-grade support that follows them everywhere their family is stationed. This is a big investment from the Department of Defense to help military families. It’s important to make military spouses are aware of your organization’s participation.

They Have to Act While Eligible

Military spouse eligibility is limited. If they’re eligible now, don’t wait to reach them. Eligible spouses are married to active duty service members, or reservists and National Guard on Title 10 orders; ranks E-1 to E-5, W-1 to W-2 and O-1 to O-2.

“I appreciate the college opportunity offered to me as a spouse of an enlisted soldier and I wish more spouses knew about and took advantage of the MyCAA program.” – Jenn Richardson, Army Spouse

Promote Your Military Tuition Assistance Programs

Our Military Spouse network gives you access to hundreds of thousands of spouses and military families. We can help promote your participation in the Spouse Education & Training Opportunities program’s MyCAA Scholarship to an unrivaled reach of over 22 million veterans, active duty, military spouses, and military families.

Accelerate your military spouse student applications with high performing, personalized, cross-channel campaigns. We’ll scale our programmatic marketing solutions to include targeting specific to the degree programs you’re seeking to enroll students in.

How To Reach More Military Spouses

Military Spouse magazine is a monthly full-color magazine and online community that addresses the unique needs and interests of the almost one million military spouses. Articles cover topics spanning education, deployment issues, consumer products, moving duty stations, career tips, celebrity interviews, relationship building, budgeting and family planning.

VIQTORY Announces Navy Mutual Aid Association Partnership

Navy-Mutual-Military--Consumer-Marketing

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 30, 2020: VIQTORY is proud to announce a new partnership with Navy Mutual Aid Association (“Navy Mutual”). This partnership will aim to grow Navy Mutual’s reach within the military community through a highly targeted, cross-platform digital advertising and educational campaign with the G.I. Jobs and Military Spouse brands.

“As an organization established to be there for our service members and their families in their time of need, we appreciate the vital role any spouse or caregiver plays to protect and maintain the home front,” commented Navy Mutual’s Chief Strategy Officer, RDML Brian Luther, USN, Ret.

“At the end of the day, we all leave behind a legacy, and it is our mission to ensure that military families are equipped with timely and accurate information in order to achieve financial security and make the best decisions for their loved ones. Partnering with VIQTORY helps us reach a critical audience of the military community.”

“Preparing for life after service can be a daunting task, one that many don’t give attention to until after service,” said VIQTORY CEO and Navy Veteran, Chris Hale

“Our partnership with Navy Mutual will assist in changing that. By promoting Navy Mutual’s message of educating service members, veterans and their family members on financial preparedness, we enable greater civilian success for the military community.”

About Navy Mutual Aid Association: Navy Mutual Aid Association, a nonprofit founded in 1879, is the country’s oldest federally recognized Veterans Service Organization, and provides life insurance and annuity products to military members and their families. Navy Mutual also assists service members and their survivors in understanding federal benefits to which they are legally entitled, and provides education on matters of financial security which are specifically tailored to the military member and family.

Contact: David Dobson, 412-269-1663 x150, david.dobson@viqtory.com

Ambitious VET Podcast with Darryl Williams

89: Career Development, Recruiting, and Advancing in Life is a Game of Chess Not Checkers with Darryl Williams

Jun 26, 2020

With the world being slowed down economically and some of the biggest industries being hit hard, thus limiting resources and opportunities for us to advance and grow-as Ambitious VETs- it’s still not an excuse to sit on the couch and wait for things to change. Are you ready to hear a message from a retired Army 1stSgt who has been there and knows what it is like to have to reinvent yourself time after time to stay relevant within the marketplace to produce value? Don’t miss this episode as we dive into topics like- talent acquisition with veterans and mil-spouses, recruiting for business and institutions, LinkedIn personal branding, and much more!

Once the interview begins:

0:00- 7:38 Min: How trying to identity parallels between the military and the civilian culture is not the answer- and THE ONE THING that should be the focus for having a successful career path post military.

7:38- 11:33 Min: Darryl’s personal philosophy on how to create open communication loops within your roles in life and how to fuel your continuous improvement mindset everyday.

11:33- 19:52 Min: Going from diamond and parade rest to no one cares and having to suck up pride to reinvent himself.

19:52- 24:30 Min: What you are exposing when you aren’t willing to learn how to brand yourself and properly leverage LinkedIn as a career or life advancement tool.

24:30- 30:58 Min: What industries were hit hard because of the crisis, what are some emerging booming industries, and what are some business models you can take advantage of so you are not put in a furlough position again.

30:58- 36:40 Min: How G.I. Jobs and Mil-Spouse are providing innovative solutions to connect veterans and mil-spouses to opportunities that fulfill them.

36:40- END: Darryl’s three #GoldenGrenades:
1) Find your purpose- find out what you need to be doing tomorrow.
2) Complacency kills- don’t get comfortable- the world will move without you.
3) Less than 1% of population volunteered to serve- don’t forget who you are.

Learn more about Darryl, Viqtory, G.I. Jobs, Military Spouse, and everything else he and the team are doing here:

LinkedIn
Viqtory Website
G.I. Jobs Website
Military Spouse Website
Hot Jobs GI Jobs Website

Originally published on the Ambitious VET podcast.

Generating Quality Candidates From the Military Community

Employee recruitment is the lifeblood of any company.

Join us as our experts review how your company can use a highly targeted approach to generate quality candidates from the military community to fill your talent pipeline.

Our experts will discuss best practices in Military and Veteran Recruitment, how we engage the Military community, and some Advanced Targeting in Veteran Recruitment Marketing Campaigns.

Get Instant Access to the Playback

3 Tips For A Stronger Talent Pipeline

A reliable talent pipeline is the lifeblood of a company’s long-term sustainability. A healthy talent pipeline can reduce time-to-hire, cost-to-hire, and can reduce your number of, “bad hires.” Here are three of our top tips and practices to help ensure that your pipeline doesn’t dry up.

1. Building Your Employer Brand

Your employer brand shows what kind of work environment your company provides and what kind of work your company does. In fact, it’s one of our top recruitment marketing trends for 2020.

It should be meticulously designed to attract only people who will be a fit within your company’s culture and who align with your mission.

The current individuals who are looking for employment want to work with companies that mirror their own values. In addition, over 72% of job-seekers spend at least an hour researching a company before they apply for a position. This means that candidates are doing their homework and makes it imperative to not only build a strong employer brand but to make the information easily accessible online.

This will not only help to fill your pipeline with the quality candidates you are looking for, but it will help your company stand out from the competition.

2. Craft New Hire Personas

Candidate Personas, much like Buyer Personas for marketers, allow recruiters to reach their prospective audience. Specifically, candidate personas give recruiters a chance to craft more detailed job descriptions and pinpoint which channels to use to reach candidates. This persona is created not only by identifying skills, qualifications, and education levels, but also by identifying personality traits, characteristics, and career goals of the ideal hire for your organization.

This ensures that they are both qualified, and a strong cultural fit for your company. Attracting the right people helps to increase your retention-rate while lowering the time it takes to fill open positions as well as the cost. You can then personalize your recruiting content and materials to find the perfect fit for your organization while saving yourself both time and money.

Measure Your Pipeline’s Success

Your talent pipeline is useless unless you can measure how successful its results are. Talent pipeline metrics help you measure the effectiveness of your sourcing strategies in finding and engaging passive candidates to fill future open positions. These metrics will allow you to track your source of hire which is important when mapping your recruiting strategies.

It will help you identify which channels are yielding the strongest results and which channels are the weaker links which will allow you to allocate resources accordingly. These metrics will also help you track the percentage of candidates that move forward in the interview process, your offer acceptance rate, and time-to-hire.

This will be an asset to your company when it comes to identifying what is working, and what needs to be restructured. Talent pipeline metrics can be a powerful tool, but it is only effective when you are using good clean data, and when you are being consistent in your practices.

Webinar: Generating Quality Candidates From The Military Community

Join us as we discuss:

What is First Party Data and How Do We Use It to Target a Specific Audience
Best Practices in Military Veteran Recruitment
Advanced Targeting in Veteran Recruitment Marketing Campaigns

Generating Franchise Buyers from a Closed Military Network

How franchises can generate franchise buyers through VIQTORY’s powerful, closed military network.

Join our experts as they review these valuable methods that will help you streamline your franchise marketing to reach more prospective buyers.

In this webinar you will learn why the military community as franchise owners, the power of first-party data,
integrated marketing campaigns, AND MORE.

Get instant access to the franchise marketing webinar recording below 👇

4 More Advanced Targeting Techniques Every Marketer Should Use

Addressable Geo-Fencing

While the name Addressable Geo-Fencing is fairly straight-forward, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes than the title suggests. We have the capacity to upload lists of up to 1 million addresses per marketing campaign into our DSP, or Demand Side Platform, which will convert into “Geo-Fences” around those locations. These lists can be made up of our own first-party-data, or we can choose from 12 standard demographic categories as well as more than 130 interest-based categories to form a custom list tailored specifically to you with 1,500 variables. This tactic allows us to target every individual who is within the geo-fenced address and target their devices separately with mobile and video ads as well as OTT/CTV ads. This means that you can be targeting desktops/laptops, smartphones, and even TVs. This is an extremely precise and powerful method of targeting. Blend it with our other tactics to help serve your ads to the exact demographics you are looking for on the devices they use most.

Contextual Targeting

There are two types of Contextual Targeting that we utilize here at VIQTORY, the first being Keyword Targeting. We are able to deliver ads to our audience based on the keywords and the context of what they are reading online. This is done by the use of web-crawlers. Essentially, these web-crawlers are gathering data from users based on what content they are consuming on the internet. They can see the exact wording of every single article an individual is viewing. Using this information, we can match these users with ads based on what they have been reading. Because we know what they are interested in, we know exactly what to show them. An ad could be the push they need to commit and convert.

The second type of Contextual Targeting, which is similar to Keyword, is Category Contextual Targeting. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has 300 predefined categories in which ads can fall into based on a website’s content. This personalized advertising method displays ads on websites based on which category the website falls under. For example, an ad for an upcoming movie release may show up on IMDb. Or someone may be on a website looking at different times and prices for airline flights and they may see an ad for luggage. Because the website falls into a certain category like travel, there are ads being displayed for things that go hand in hand with traveling, like luggage. This method is a real timesaver. Instead of just running your ads for random people to see, we are putting them in front of people we know are more likely to be interested in your opportunities, school, or brand based on which categories their viewed websites fall into.

Retargeting

One problem that everyone in the marketing world has experienced at one point or another is getting traffic to their websites, but there are no conversions being made. While some might think that the battle is lost once a person leaves the website without converting, in reality, we are just getting started. About 97% of website viewers don’t take any action when they are on a site for the first time. By using Site Retargeting, we are able to show those visitors ads for the very websites they visited earlier on any device with an IP address or location services. We are also able to target individuals who have never been to our website. We can see what kinds of things they are looking at online and what they are researching. We can then, based on those keywords, show people ads for our products and services that are the same as what they are looking for. Using these tactics we are able to increase the number of people coming back to your website after not taking any action the first time around, which in turn, will help to increase conversions.

Custom Lists

Different campaigns have different goals, and thus different target audiences. For example, some marketers just want their ads to appear on popular or well-known websites. For those individuals, we are able to do just that. We have Custom Lists filled with thousands of websites that put out quality content, get high volumes of traffic, and a large percentage of them are for companies or brands the average person is already familiar with. These lists are filtered into different categories based on industry such as business, news, sports, etc. Using our custom lists, we can place your ads on these popular and reputable websites. While advertising on these sites will get your ads in front of a large audience, we recommend blending all of these advanced targeting tactics into one single campaign to ensure that you are getting the best results possible.