Top advertisers, listed alphabetically below, are determined by measuring advertising placements across the major monthly HR trade publications, not including buyer guide or product directory listings.

December 2005

• Aetna
• American Express
• Aon Consulting
• Delta Dental
• MetLife
• Oracle
• Prudential Financial
• Recruitmax
• Salary.com

Commentary and Analysis: A recent research study by the Winterberry Group revealed that marketers are shifting their spending from brand building to direct response-oriented promotional channels such as direct marketing (print and email) and interactive marketing (online advertising). Our own research report, Trends in HR Marketing, verifies this trend in the HR marketplace. Traditional media outlets are responding to this shift by offering more direct response-oriented promotional opportunities.

HRmarketer.com tracks advertising opportunities for over 500 trade publications in and related to the HR marketplace. And over the last four years, we've found a dramatic increase in the number of direct response-oriented promotional opportunities. In fact, it is hard to find a print trade publication that does not also offer advertising in its eNewsletter and website as well as rent its print and eNewsletter subscriber lists for direct marketing purposes. As recent as two years ago, most did not offer these opportunities. Obviously cost is a major reason for this shift, but not the only reason.

Direct marketing communications are attractive to marketers because they are easy to measure - print advertising is not. And while average response rates for direct mail don't seem high (1.2% for email, 2.7% for print), they almost always have a positive ROI. One HRmarketer member does a direct email campaign to the same list (rented from a major HR publisher) every month, and while they only get a response rate of less than 1% each time, they always make at least one sale as a result of the campaign, which dwarfs the cost of the campaign. Not bad! In fact, one out of every $12 spent in the United States is the result of a direct marketing communication. So take a look at your 2006 marketing budget versus 2005 and 2004. Has your spending on direct response-oriented promotional channels gone up relative to your print advertising?

To determine the organizations receiving the most media coverage, we look at the number of non-paid editorial placements across the major monthly HR trade publications.

December 2005

• Hewitt Associates
• IBM
• Mercer Human Resource Services
• MetLife
• Oracle
• PeopleSoft
• Profit Sharing 401k Council of America
• Principal Financial Group
• SHRM
• Watson Wyatt

Here are some of the top stories in the major HR trade publications from last month. Visit HRmarketer News for a comprehensive listing of HR marketplace news releases and articles over the last 90 days.

Work/Life Benefits for Employees with Special- Needs Children

Data from The Families and Work Institute in New York, a leading nonprofit center for work/life research, indicates that nearly 9 percent of a given company’s workforce is caring for a child with special needs. Despite these estimates, experts say few companies have addressed the increased need for progressive benefits packages and innovative programs for those employees.

The New Roth 401(k)

Plan sponsors should learn all they can about the newest savings option – the Roth 401(k). Learn the basics, including contribution and distribution guidelines, as well as administrative considerations and recommendations for employers.

Delivering Training

Ranstad North America has created a new onboarding program that is yielding substantial benefits. The company is trimming new employees’ time to competency, improving satisfaction, and increasing the accountability of managers.

Using Behavioral or Cultural-Fit Assessments in Recruiting

There is a growing use of pre-hire cultural and behavioral assessments in the recruiting process. More and more, organizations are using assessments to filter out candidates before recruiters even get a chance to look at their resumes or qualifications for a particular job, experts say.

Transit Benefits Interest Increases

Expensive gasoline, due in part to the economic fallout from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the war in Iraq, is fueling new interest in transportation benefits, such as qualified transportation expense plans and carpooling arrangements.

Great!

Our unscientific measure of the human capital industry's health looks at the aggregate number of advertising placements across the major HR trade publications and our subjective analysis of other "activity" within the sector including new investment money flowing into the space, IPOs, M&As, closures, etc. We then benchmark against the previous month to come up with a 5 point rating system of Excellent / Great / Good / Average / Poor. Again, we caution readers that our rating is a subjective analysis and may not be a true reflection of the industry's health.

Commentary and Analysis: We maintain our "Great" rating this month as a result of continued strong earnings from major HR suppliers (see below), new companies entering the space, and voiced optimism from HR suppliers. In fact, we recently participated in HR.com's CEO Networking Breakfast and virtually all CEOs were pleased with their 2005 growth and optimistic about 2006 - and we can personally validate this. At HRmarketer.com, we sell services to HR suppliers, so when their business slows, our business is negatively impacted. But this hasn't been the case because we recently reported record sales growth and membership for 2005.

• Talx announced a 3-for-2 stock split.
• Workstream Inc. announced its fiscal second quarter financial results for the period ended November 30, 2005. The company reported second quarter 2006 revenue of $7,200,000. The Company's EBITDA loss was $1,718,000.
• Saba reported financial results for its second quarter ended November 30, 2005. Total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal 2006 were $16.2 million, representing a 57% increase compared to $10.3 million in the same quarter last year. Net profit was $131,000, compared to a net loss of $682,000, in the same quarter last year.
• Paychex declared a regular quarterly dividend of $.16 per share.
• Concur Technologies reported financial results for its first quarter ended December 31, 2005. Concur reported revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2006 of $19.3 million, which was driven by 26% year-over- year growth in subscription revenue. Total revenue for the quarter was up 18% from the year-ago quarter. Fiscal 2006 first quarter net income was $0.6 million, or $0.02 per share, which was $0.04 per share higher than the company expected. This compares to net income of $0.5 million, or $0.01 per share, in the year-ago quarter.
• General Employment Enterprises reported net income of $128,000 for the quarter ended December 31, 2005, compared with net income of $119,000 for the same quarter last year. The Company's consolidated net revenues for the quarter were $4,713,000, down 3% from $4,882,000 last year. Contract service revenues of $2,638,000 were down 11% from last year, while placement service revenues of $2,075,000 increased 8%.

Recent M&A activity in the HR space:

• Qwiz, ePredix and PDRI announced PreVisor, Inc., a new company name that represents the union of these three companies. PreVisor Inc. helps employers identify top performers by applying organizational psychology research and content that predicts on-the-job performance.
• Recruitmax sold some of its small business applications, originally acquired when it bought KnowledgePoint in 2004, to Administaff Inc. It sold HRTools.com and other desktop products and web portals related to job descriptions, performance reviews, personnel policies and procedures. Since acquiring KnowledgePoint, Recruitmax has focused on medium-sized and large companies.
• Stromberg, a subsidiary of Paychex, and a leading provider of time and attendance software solutions for mid- to large-sized businesses, announced the acquisition of Labor Resource Management, Inc. (LRM), a leading scheduling vendor whose systems are deployed by large retail organizations.
• Clark Consulting, an executive compensation and benefits consulting firm, is buying MedEx and its affiliate Argos Advantage, a utilization management company, for $8.6 million.
• ADP Claims Services Group acquired 100 percent interest in Stellix Body Shop Management System from Akzo Nobel. ADP Claims Services Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of ADP and provides software, services and information for insurance carriers, collision repair shops and automotive recyclers.
• Adecco is offering 636 million euros for DIS, the leader in professional staffing in Germany.
• Concur Technologies is acquiring Outtask Inc. for between $67 million and $88 million. Outtask, based in Alexandria, Va., makes online travel management software.
• ChoicePoint Inc. bought ELIOS Inc., a loss payee notification company for the property and casualty insurance industry.
• LRP Publications acquired the HRO World Conferences and Expositions, including, New York HR Week, LA HR Week and HRO World Europe, from Unicomm, LLC and Outsourcing Today, LLC.

Make Your Media Piece Stand Out from the Crowd

With the volume of press releases that editors and reporters see on a daily basis, it’s increasingly important to find a way to make yours stand out from the crowd. There’s nothing wrong with the tried- and-true “boilerplate” style, but it’s become so common that journalists now regard it as a “fill in the blanks” model. An example: “CompanyHR, the leading provider of worldwide integrated hiring solutions, announced today Product XYZ, a solution that will revolutionize . . .” Sound familiar? It’s worked fine in the past, but it’s bordering on cliché. Instead, try a feature-style lead that begins with how the reader will benefit from the announcement. An example is: “Employers now have a better way to measure and manage employee absences, thanks to CompanyHR’s expanded online XYZ information services.”

Also, a catchy subject heading is more important than ever, so take a provocative approach when possible, always between seven and 10 words. A recent example is: “New survey stats for Internet death penalty.” This brisk pitch outlined a study of Internet usage trends, including a “silent killer” that could keep people from returning to a company’s website. The above ideas are two good steps to avoid the clichés of today’s press releases.

- Based on tips from the PRSA newspaper "Public Relations Tactics”

This monthly feature highlights how HRmarketer helps our loyal members...

“HRmarketer has been an essential tool in our marketing efforts. HR software is evolving into a completely outsourced web-native solution for a majority of customers and marketing tools need to embrace the web as well to accommodate this development. Sapien has been able to maximize marketing efforts while streamlining its budget through the distribution of press releases and news events primarily using web technology. HRmarketer has been instrumental in that delivery. The broad reach of their wire service coupled with the extensive library of trade publications and journalist contact information has been extremely valuable.”

Payam Fallah, Managing Partner, Sapien LLC

Many of you have already downloaded our white paper on how to effectively market and sell to human resource professionals, but if you haven't, it's a rich resource for companies selling to HR. Topics covered include assessment of human resource marketplace, buyer characteristics, purchasing influencers, sales channels, marketing and public relations campaigns that maximize lead generation, and effectively selling to human resources. Download the Marketing and Selling in the Human Resource Marketplace: Winning Strategies and Tactics white paper today.

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HRintelligence is a premium HRmarketer service that tracks media and advertising placements in the major industry trade publications for all HR service providers, helping vendors monitor competitive information and track their own media and advertising placements. Much of the analysis in this monthly newsletter comes from the HRintelligence service.

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