Boosting Recruitment for a Federal Law Enforcement Agency During Challenging Times

For recruiters, this is a demanding time. Unemployment continues to be at an all-time low of 3.6% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This subsequently increases the challenge of properly staffing a Federal agency in order to fulfill federal mandates for agency headcount. Today’s candidates are expected to have a new range of skills in order for law enforcement and government agencies to earn and maintain public trust. Additionally, the hiring landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years with the increased desire for remote work. Federal agencies are responding to these challenges by exploring new techniques for engagement – including generating more engaging messages with the help of Persado’s Motivation AI platform.

Leveraging technology to improve law enforcement recruitment

A leader of recruitment for one federal law enforcement agency met with Persado and was interested in the promise of Motivation AI that generates highly personalized communications and clear data about what works for engagement. The federal law enforcement agency leader introduced Persado to NCN Technology.

NCN Technology is an IT consulting and application development firm that holds a master contract with the recruiting function for the federal law enforcement agency. NCN specializes in web and mobile application development. After the meeting, the federal law enforcement agency had a clear understanding of the value of Persado’s Motivation AI and was able to visualize how machine learning capabilities could complement their work in digital channels for recruitment.

NCN and Persado partnered on a pilot campaign aimed at driving talent recruitment through a Facebook advertisement. Persado began the engagement with a “brand voice workshop” – the company’s standard approach for capturing an organization’s past campaign content and performance data and using it to “teach” the Persado Motivation AI platform to speak in a way that reflects how the organization wants to engage with its audience. Persado’s content intelligence team works in collaboration with its technology to produce emotionally intelligent copy. Once NCN was convinced that Persado had captured the brand voice of the federal law enforcement agency, it presented sample content to the client for validation.

“Marketing communication and performance analytics are on my list of top integrations that every website or digital channel should have,” says Sharon Muniz, CEO of NCN Technology. “It was clear from our first meeting that Persado’s emphasis on producing high-performing messages that motivate action complemented NCN’s work to create a compelling digital presence for our federal client.“

Better language increased audience engagement by 25%

With the go-ahead from the federal law enforcement agency, Persado collaborated with the NCN creative team, using their draft campaign and developing 16 distinct Persado-generated variants to test with real Facebook users. Persado’s technology creates variants based on predictions about which concepts are likely to motivate the audience on the Facebook platform. After the variants were pushed out, Persado captured data on the real-world performance of specific words, phrases, and concepts, including emotions and narratives.

Measuring the impact of each component produced the mathematical equivalent of testing more than 2000 different versions of the recruiting message. These insights allowed Persado to generate a final set of recruitment ads with optimal performance potential.

“Persado made a clear commitment to lean in and learn about NCN and our client,” says Muniz. “Everything from the brand voice workshop to running the experiment was very collaborative in its development and smooth in execution. Though we are two organizations, we worked together like one integrated team delivering value.”

In the case of this federal law enforcement agency, the Persado variant with the highest performance achieved a 77% higher click rate than the original message. The improvement came primarily from changing one of the main images and the head-line language. The key change in the language transformed the emotional content of the headline from encouragement to challenge, which resonated more with the target audience.

Reliable data, proven returns

Public sector agencies are embracing the potential of digital transformation and data enablement to improve how they engage and serve the public. They rely on contractors like NCN Technology to help them experiment and innovate.

“The data-backed insights from Persado gave our client a lot of confidence that the Facebook ad we ultimately ran would help meet their recruiting goals,” says Muniz. “So many organizational decisions have to be made based on gut feel because that’s all you have. It was great to be able to say to our client, ‘This will work,’ and have the data to prove it.”

By working together, NCN and Persado were able to not only demonstrate but also quantify, the impact of AI-generated messages on reaching the next generation of public service talent. Our collaboration offers another proof point that words matter. And, when they are linked to the compelling, user-friendly, digital experiences in which NCN specializes, they are a key tool for driving higher performance.

“We data-backed insights from Persado gave our client a lot of confidence that the Facebook ad we ultimately ran would help meet their recruiting goals,” says Muniz. “So many organizational decisions have to be made based on gut feel because that’s all you have. It was great to be able to say to our client, ‘Wis will work,’ and have the data to prove it.”