Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 07, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Stevens Strategic Communications Offers Award-winning Police Recruitment Program
Cleveland, Ohio— (August 7, 2018) Police departments are facing recruiting challenges everywhere across the United States. Stevens Strategic Communications (SSC) believes it has found a way to successfully recruit police officers— especially minorities, including women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and others.
SSC has been producing award-winning advertising, collateral, marketing and public relations services since 1976. SSC created the award-winning Join the Force Now campaign for a prototype police department. It is now being made available to other departments across the United States. The Join the Force Now campaign has won awards from the Public Relations Society of America, PRSA East Central District and Public Relations Global Network in the categories of media relations, video production, social media, community relations and multicultural communications.
“This recruitment campaign features deep community penetration, workshops and videos that educate candidates on what they need to know about becoming a police officer,” said Ed Stevens, APR, SSC CEO. “If you want your police department to look like your community in terms of demographics, you need a program that will reach out to quality potential applicants of diverse backgrounds. SSC has developed a proven recruitment program and can help you put it into action.”
SSC will provide services for your police department that will leave you prepared to continue the program for years to come. Services include public relations, social media, video production, community relations, website enhancements, copywriting/content, training, events and workshops, digital marketing and monitoring. This program also focuses on maximizing recruits on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. SSC will help track Google AdWords, monitor website performance and measure the impact of PR and wire release placements.
When SSC created The Join the Force Now campaign for a prototype department it experienced an immediate increase in the number of quality candidates, particularly minorities. The prototype police department gained a significant increase to 10,924 website visitors. More than 1,360 of website visitors clicked on the “apply now” link. 1,209 of these visitors clicked on the eligibility information link. In terms of referring pages, Facebook generated 5,711 sessions, while Google.com generated 390 sessions. The Join the Force Now campaign attracted website visitors from Ohio and also California, Texas, Arizona and thousands that could not be identified by Google.
Before the Join the Force Now campaign, the prototype police department had only 120 in their candidate pool but they were mostly unqualified and not minorities. Since then, an average of 270 candidates are in the pool consisting of 9.5% African-American, 7.1% Hispanic, 2.3% mixed race, 2% Asian and 1% Native American appears on this active recruitment list. Most of the candidates were qualified because the website discouraged unqualified candidates from applying. The gender breakdown was 19.8% female, which is 4.8% higher than a Department of Justice study that put the average number of female applicants at 15%. The police department believes that a continuation of this program will meet its recruitment needs as retirements and other attrition occurs.
Are you interested in the Join the Force Now program to improve the recruitment picture at your police department? Contact Ed Stevens, APR, Stevens Strategic Communications at estevens@stevensstrategic.com, 440-617-0100 ext. 201, or 877-900-3366, www.stevensstrategic.com or www.stevensstrategic.com/police-recruitment.
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