Amerit/BRAVE Case Study

Problem: Not Enough Awareness

Amerit Consulting, a recruiting and staffing firm, created a subsidiary called BRAVE to staff client companies with high-potential military veterans. Amerit/BRAVE wanted to educate C-Level executives about the benefits of recruiting military veterans and present themselves as a strong provider of this service.

Solution: Leverage Forefront Editorial Team and Forefront Network

Forefront’s team collaborated with Amerit/BRAVE in creating a relevant article for Forefront’s audience. Forefront then leveraged its network of C-Level executives to offer commentary in the context of their own role and experience. Forefront then set up Amerit/BRAVE with introductions to strong leads.

Result: Awareness, Dialogue, and Introductions

Amerit/BRAVE went from being simply a service provider to being perceived among C-Level executives as a thought leader and expert on the subject of employing veterans. Most importantly, Amerit/BRAVE was able to generate strong leads to present their services to.

See below to learn more about how we did it.

In [2012] Amerit started BRAVE (Business Recruiting Allies for Veteran Employment) to offer progressive companies a new approach to engaging highly qualified Veteran talent.

There are many companies that value hiring veteran talent and there are many firms that provide recruiting and placement services. The market is there, but the service providers are very fragmented.

Forefront positioned Amerit/BRAVE as an expert/authority in this area and got C-Level executives to read and offer commentary on the article. Forefront sought to promote Amerit/BRAVE’s services indirectly, without turning off the reader with a marketing message.

How does Forefront do this?

Forefront regularly works with and engages a wide network of C-Level executives in a variety of functions like HR, IT, Finance, Legal, and others. We regularly contact them to offer insight on their careers, roles, and current projects. For this particular situation, Amerit/BRAVE wrote a relevant article for our audience. Our team polished it up, and we presented an opportunity for members of our executive network to write up commentary, which would be published in conjunction with our summary. We specifically targeted executives in our network who happened to be veterans.

Note: Executives rarely comment on social media and rarely write on their own blogs, but collaborate with and trust our team. They like that our platform can be a safe place to serve as their “voice” for their opinions. To see how candid and open our executive network is, please read through some of our executive features. A good example is Todd Richardson, Former Head of HR of ExactTarget. He was featured in and regularly contributes to Forefront.

Amerit/BRAVE gains exposure in two ways:

#1: During the initial request to C-Level executives for their opinion

Forefront has a proprietary list of executives that have expressed interest in participating in our editorial opportunities. Executives are busy. All of them are engaged with Forefront, but only a fraction have an opening in their schedule to participate. Amerit/BRAVE gains exposure to this list of executives during this initial phase.

#2: When the commentary is published

Executives take other executives seriously. When a C-Level leader has something to say, other C-Level leaders really consider what they are sharing.

Example #1

As you can see, we worked with Amerit/BRAVE on creating a thought leadership piece that educates our audience on the benefits of hiring veteran talent. Note that this is not a “pitch” as to why people should consider their services.

Commentary #1 was a very well written and thoughtful article by Larry Mathews, former First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, former Chief Financial Officer of the Institute for Population Health.

Commentary #2 was a thoughtful article from Bob Hughes, Chief Strategy Officer at Kronos Inc., a global provider of workforce management solutions. Hughes is a also veteran of the US Navy.

Commentary #3 was a great write up from the SVP of Supply Chain Management at ServiceMaster, Mary Kay Runyan. Also a US Navy veteran, she offered great insight on the benefits of hiring veteran talent.

Phase 1 of our partnership with Amerit/BRAVE included marketing, branding, awareness, and engagement.

Phase 2 (2015) consists of the Forefront team plugging Amerit/BRAVE’s services and setting them up with introductions to warm leads from our constantly growing pool of C-Level leaders.

As you can see, the Forefront team is extremely skilled at creating engagement with C-Level executives across a wide variety of topics.