BUSINESS JOURNAL

State's 'Mars' campaign drawing job-seekers

Jodi Schwan
jschwan@sfbusinessjournal.com

South Dakota's attention-getting marketing campaign comparing the state to living on Mars is generating traffic to the state's workforce website.

Since May 1, the state website youcanliveinsd.com has had more than 15,000 sessions, and the highest group is men ages 25 to 44.

That was the demographic targeted by the campaign, which led visitors to a website video testimonial from a young man moving to South Dakota to work at Marmen Energy, the wind turbine manufacturer in Brandon.

More than 60 percent of the traffic is coming from mobile uses, which the state also finds encouraging.

"We've been pleased with the results of the campaign," said Mary Lehecka Nelson, marketing director for the Governor's Office of Economic Development. "The early indications are that the message is resonating with our target audience and that they are doing exactly what we want them to — go to the Department of Labor and Regulation's job site."

The idea is for visitors to the website to continue to explore their job options in South Dakota. For those who spend additional time on the site, clicking on job openings is the top next step, followed by exploring the state's wage calculator.

Nine of the top 10 metro areas visiting the site are from outside South Dakota:

■Minneapolis/St. Paul.

■Madison, Wis.

■Sioux Falls.

■Milwaukee, Wis.

■Omaha.

■Fargo.

■Des Moines/Ames, Iowa.

■Chicago.

■Green Bay/Appleton, Wis.

■Lincoln/Hastings/Kearney, Neb.

"The one surprise is that Madison and Milwaukee, Wis., are two of our top converting metros," Lehecka Nelson said. "Our research had shown the most favorable image of Wisconsin, so it was a pleasant surprise to see that."

The state also recently debuted a testimonial ad featuring a young man who moved to Britton from Michigan.

"Working in South Dakota has been better than expected. I'm making more money now than my boss was making in my other shop," he says in the video. "So how can you go wrong with that?"

The plan is to do new ads around trending topics, such as living as Mars, but for now the state is sticking with the Mars ad. Of the more than 300,000 users the state can track for watching the ad, 90 percent watched the whole thing — above the industry average.

"Our numbers still look good, so we want to give it a little longer," Lehecka Nelson said. "We are currently working on populating the site with more information, and, of course, when the next trending topic does hit, we'll be ready to get on board."

Video:'Die on Mars' explained on '100 Eyes on Business'

National attention:Jimmy Fallon | Today Show

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