TEGL 03-23 Opens the Door for Digital Campaigns to Support WIOA Enrollments

Have you been struggling with reaching underserved populations that fit the criteria for your WIOA programs? Maybe you’ve thought about more targeted strategies like digital campaigns but didn’t think you could use funding for outreach. Think again! 

September’s 2023 Department of Labor Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 03-23 has opened the door for WIOA-funded programs to utilize funding for advertising- but with caveats! One of the requirements is to ensure that the focus is to promote federally funded activities, services, and programs with a call to action that is measurable. This means that general advertising to promote a brand is not allowed. 

FCM has been supporting WIOA-funded programs with digital ad campaigns for years because our key performance indicators (KPIs) link directly to enrollments. One example is the Workforce Board of Solano County, which needed to reach underserved populations in its service areas. The goals were to obtain qualified applicants for three market segments as follows: 80 out-of-school youth applicants, 60 applicants for adult job seekers, and 110 applicants for dislocated workers. 

FCM created demographic and psychographic profiles of these segments in order to create a campaign theme, an advertising web landing page to capture contact information, inviting ad visuals and messaging, and a media plan that included advertising on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google. 

The short six-week campaign yielded approximately 400 qualified applicants, exceeding the campaign goals. Additional benefits of the campaign included 613K impressions (those that saw the ad), thus increasing the awareness about WIOA services to a broader audience. 

Digital is highly efficient and cost-effective for meeting your KPIs. The analytics from these campaigns also inform future outreach efforts in terms of cost-per-lead, the best platform to utilize, and gender and age distribution, to name a few. 

Another example of digital advertising is the adaptation of FCM’s national Behind Every Employer campaign that was localized for the Santa Cruz Workforce Development Board and its regional partners. Read the full blog to see how in just two weeks into the campaign, 679 companies targeted yielded a 53% open rate of the invitation to connect – that’s 34% higher than industry benchmarks. Of the 364 companies that opened the invitation and/or clicked on an ad, approximately 13% have asked to be contacted.

These results tell us that job seekers and employers are very much interested in what you do; it’s a matter of deploying the right strategies and the right messaging to get them to engage with your workforce mission. 

If you have gaps in your WIOA performance, schedule a consult with FCM to discuss options for digital campaigns and other strategies to build your brand. We’ll review your pain points and recommend options that will work for you.

Ready to elevate your WIOA-funded brand through TEGL 03-23? FCM is launching a 4-part webinar series in June 2024 that teaches a common sense data-driven approach to marketing under the Department of Labor’s TEGL 03-23.  You’ll walk away with an understanding of how to effectively use allowable funds responsibly by creating a data-driven plan that provides measurable results in elevating your brand, recruiting underserved populations, and engaging employers through this course and its toolkit, templates, and WIOA marketing case studies. Get on the interest list by contacting info@fullcapacitymarketing.com.