HRmarketer lists the previous quarter's earnings from publicly traded HR and HR-related companies and all the M&A activity in the HR marketplace.

• Ceridian Corporation (CEN): Reported fourth quarter 2006 net earnings of $49.6 million, or $.35 per diluted share, on revenue of $404 million. For the fourth quarter of 2005, net earnings were $46.7 million, or $.32 per diluted share on revenue of $379.5 million. For the year ended December 31, 2006, net earnings were $173.6 million, or $1.20 per diluted share, on revenue of $1,565.1. For the year ended December 31, 2005, net earnings were $127.9 million, or 86 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $1,459.0 million.
• TALX Corporation (TALX): Reported its fiscal third-quarter profit rose 15 percent, aided by stronger revenue in each of its divisions. Quarterly earnings rose to $8.7 million, or 27 cents per share, from $7.6 million, or 22 cents per share, in the prior-year period. Revenue grew 24 percent to $65 million from $52.3 million a year earlier.
• Albany announced the acquisition of eWork Services, Inc., a specialist in contractor payrolling services and 1099 compliance. The acquisition bolsters Albany’s plans for expansion into the U.S. market. Albany provides Employer of Record services for contract workers and contingent workforce management solutions worldwide. Albany acts as a traditional employer—hiring the workers as their own W2 employees, processing payroll, providing benefits and HR support—for short-term projects or assignments with contract workers. Serving companies in more than 65 countries, Albany is an expert in international tax and labor law, including U.S. federal and state regulations.
• Towers Perrin announced the acquisition of ISR, a leading global employee research and consulting firm. The transaction combines ISR's employee research capabilities with Towers Perrin's existing consulting and research capabilities to provide clients with market-leading services in optimizing the value of their workforce and workforce investments.

Whom and what do HR buyers rely on to make purchasing decisions? How do blogs, podcasts and other Web 2.0 tools influence their vendor selections? What keywords do HR professionals use to search for various HR services? How important is a vendor's online visibility? These questions and more will be answered in HRmarketer.com’s upcoming research report - Trends in HR Marketing: HR Buyers’ Behavior 2007.

Some of the key trends to be highlighted in this new report are:

• HR buyers' increased reliance on the Internet for researching products and services and the importance placed on a vendor’s online visibility
• HR buyers more likely to click through on a vendor's organic search results while rarely clicking through sponsored ad links
• Increased importance of vendors offering valuable content downloads like white papers, case studies, articles, third-party product reviews and other less promotional content
• Growth of HR-related webcasts, podcasts and blogs as marketing information resources to reach HR buyers
• Email marketing still preferred over vendor phone calls and printed direct marketing materials

The NY Post ran an article in their business section in February titled Put CMOs on List of Endangered Execs. The article discusses how the duties of CMOs (chief marketing officers) have shifted to include more responsibility for strategy and growth - not just advertising. As a result of these increased responsibilities and expectations, the skills required for success as a CMO have changed. This might help explain why companies like WalMart, Gap, HSBC and Volkswagon have replaced their chief marketing officers in recent months. "They're not looking for an advertising person anymore," says Jane Stevenson, who heads Heidrick & Struggles' global search for CMOs. According to The NY Post article, Ms. Stevenson has seen a 40% jump in CMO searches.

This is a very good thing. And a wake-up call for marketing professionals. Too many marketing people equate "advertising" with "marketing." In fact, this is what drives a lot of people into the field. How many times have you seen marketers spending more time trying to think of a catchy new tagline than they do on the mechanics of an integrated direct marketing campaign? The former may be more fun and enjoyable but the later is what pays the bills - and keeps you employed...

"With a new software product to promote, we decided to invest in a public relations campaign that targeted potential users while they searched for information on the web. We had heard of HRmarketer.com through an industry colleague who used their service. After three months of investing in HRmarketer's marketing and PR services, we increased our traffic to our product sites nearly 60%! Previously we did not rank high when a user typed in 'total compensation statement software.' However after three months of HRmarketer distributing marketing press releases through its Direct2Net service, we now rank 4th on Google...and if the user puts quotes around the search term, we account for every organic site link that comes up -- mulitiple pages worth! We planned on investing in pay-per-click advertising. However with these results, there's no need to pay for traffic!"

Ray O'Donnell, President, TotalRewards Software, Inc.

HRmarketer.com is excited to have thought leadership strategist David Meerman Scott present at its upcoming webinar. The webinar will highlight that the best way to reach your buyers directly is through online thought leadership strategies including blogs, Web news releases, ebooks, and viral marketing.

We've been evangelizing right along with David about search-optimized releases, online content, blogs and the like!

The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, June 14, from 10:00-11:00 a.m. PST. If you're interested in participating, please send an email to info@hrmarketer.com.

More registration information to come!

The following industry news releases and articles are only a sample summary of the news feeds that active HRmarketer members receive twice per week. HRmarketer members can also distribute their releases to thousands of media outlets and journalists covering the human resources industry. Releases sent via HRmarketer are also syndicated via RSS and posted to major Internet news portals and other public HR news sites.

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