How an office prank escalated into an elaborate quarter-long marketing campaign
or, Making my case for Marketing Teams to have fun
On a wet, grey Bengaluru evening in the Plum office, as keyboards clacked in unison, the marketing team sent an email to the people success team with an attachment.
This is the tale of how we spun that attachment into an elaborate campaign throughout the quarter.
What was the attachment?
Sit up straight, take a deep breath. Let’s rewind a bit to where it began.
“… of course it’s doing well, Zoheab’s in HR!”
We were looking for our next campaign idea when we observed Zoheab’s (Head, People Success) welcome announcement doing big numbers compared to similar posts on LinkedIn.
This was the topic of discussion at the next marketing jam, and as we swam deeper into the lives of HR leaders (our ideal customer persona), we landed on one insight: Skimming resumes and applications is almost second nature to the average HR leader.
What could we do with this?
Ideas were volleyed back and forth, but we ended our rally on one wild idea.
Creating a resume for Plum as a health insurance and benefits “partner” to be hired.
How could we test it instantly? Send it to our own team as a surprise and check their reactions.
Please find attached for your perusal
We sent the People Success team an email with the resume attached.
Here’s what they said:
Now, we had validated it within the team with some context, but would the rest of the world think it’s clever?
We weren’t sure. How far could we take a document?
I needed more votes of confidence, and quickly. So, I dropped everything and left the city.
To link up with my Sales team in Hyderabad.
SHRM Tech 22, Hyderabad: 500+ resumes delivered
SHRM, The Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest HR professional society, was hosting a mega-conference in Hyderabad.
All the popular HR leaders in the country were there. This was my playground for validation.
We shared our “resumes” widely — in long lunch lines, at the bar, to the audience yawning at speeches that rambled on, every nook and corner where we spotted an HR leader, at the tea/coffee queues, did I mention the bar?
The response was excellent.
HR leaders from the country’s biggest enterprises acknowledged our campaign’s novelty and creativity. The resume was a giant HR magnet for our booth.
“Love it! Very creative.”
– Every HR leader who received it (take my word for it)
“We want to reach HRs in a format they understood best instead of a boring brochure. What better than a neatly drafted resume?”
– Sushanth Kodela, Sales Lead at Plum, as part of his pitch (it worked wonders)
Another attendee from a popular fintech startup told me he wanted to copy the idea.
I knew we had a golden goose.
It was time to let it loose.
Sales Enablement: Increasing conversion rates
Why send boring, repetitive email pitches to warm prospects when you can apply to join their team instead?
WeWork pop-ups: 300+ resumes delivered
Okay, this is working; time to print hundreds of resumes, maybe a couple of standees, and take them to offices!
Ads and a landing page: Better click-through rates
Okay, this is really working; time to build a landing page and advertise!
Cold Emails: Awareness and Interest
Okay, this is really, really working; let’s use it to warm up some cold contacts!
Oof, okay, have we hit the ceiling of what we can do with this?
Not before a stop at LinkedIn… home of the #hiring HR population.
If the SHRM event was a physical playground, LinkedIn was the digital one.
Wait, my team wants me to plug some pages here for that valuable SEO juice. Let me check which ones…
The pages for group health insurance, group personal accident insurance, and group term life insurance?
How am I going to squeeze all that in here? Nope. Forget it, back to LinkedIn.
Latching onto trends
A great marketing campaign rests on good luck and (optimistic) opportunism as much as anything else.
A LinkedIn news trend on ‘CV mistakes to avoid’ (28,000-30,000+ readers) came by at the right time, allowing us to capitalize on resume-related posts and comments.
Founders loved it.
Hunting for opportunity
If the relevant trend above was “good” luck, this next one was “scrappy” luck.
A LinkedIn comedian-influencer posted a joke about handing resumes out in boxes, and I jumped in, eventually becoming the top comment under the post, which had 1500+ engagements.
Oh, and I also dropped it under posts where founders were looking for health insurance for their teams.
Top comment, every time.
The penultimate piece to the puzzle
Let’s recap.
We’ve done HR events, we’ve done co-working spaces, we’ve done warm emails, we’ve done cold emails, we’ve done ads, we’ve done LinkedIn replies, what’s left?
The plain, old organic post on the official handle. Boring.
But,
But worth 70,000+ impressions and counting! Go react to it, and comment for better reach.
… or, like and retweet if you’re a bird person.
I think this is a good place to wrap up.
This is the final piece. A “case-story” to eke out the last few hits from a good idea.
But really, I hope I’ve made a case for you and your team to have some fun at work. It helps.
Until next time!
P.S: If you’re a marketer at a startup, you should share this with your team and definitely DM your founder and marketing leaders.
If you’ve enjoyed this, share Plum’s resume with your HR team and tell them you’ve got a great referral.
Want to join Plum’s marketing team?
We’re hiring junior marketers (0–2y exp). All you need to have are excellent communication skills, creative chops, and high agency.
DM me on Twitter, or email me at diganth@plumhq.com.
Founder or HR leader? Visit plumhq.com to learn more about us.
Follow Plum on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/plumhq
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