National campaign to attract transitioning service members to Wisconsin

Wisconsin representative and military veteran Andrew Wentworth promotes the state’s career and lifestyle benefits to transitioning service members at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in southern California.

The State of Wisconsin has launched a $1.9 million national marketing campaign to encourage military personnel and their spouses who are transitioning to civilian life to live and work in Wisconsin once they leave the service.

The campaign, a collaborative effort between the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD), the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs and the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, is part of the state’s new $6.8 million marketing campaign aimed at attracting talent to address Wisconsin’s current and future workforce needs.

The state’s transitioning veteran attraction strategy involves direct, face-to-face interaction with service members at events throughout the country and abroad that are designed to help attendees connect with career opportunities. These events are hosted by Hiring Our Heroes, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation devoted to helping veterans, transitioning service members and military spouses find meaningful careers. Wisconsin’s marketing strategy focuses on transitioning veterans, as this audience is the most inclined and the most able to relocate for the right career and lifestyle opportunity.

Each year, between 200,000 and 250,000 active service members transition out of the military and into civilian life. The skills and values veterans bring to the workforce are highly regarded by Wisconsin employers and the state as a whole. By attending transition summits on military bases, the Wisconsin delegation aims to deliver relevant and motivating messages to service members during their programmatic separation from the military. In addition to the concerns of the veterans themselves, these messages give equal consideration to the needs and desires of military spouses and children. Wisconsin employers seeking to hire veterans are also joining the Wisconsin delegation at Hiring Our Heroes events.

Wisconsin’s message to transitioning veterans is that their work ethic, loyalty, and sense of mission and purpose, together with the skills and character they developed in the military, can be put to good use in Wisconsin. Interactive event materials deliver information aimed at the key concerns transitioning veterans have as they prepare to re-enter civilian life—careers, education, family, housing, community and quality of life. These messages will be reinforced by paid and social media strategy designed to boost the frequency and richness of the information transitioning vets receive about Wisconsin.

A new veterans section has been added to InWisconsin.com to serve as the destination for transitioning veterans seeking more information about achieving career and personal success in Wisconsin. These new pages not only offer a wealth of information on benefits and resources available to veterans in Wisconsin—they also offer a lifeline to the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, whose representatives stand ready to provide whatever assistance transitioning veterans need when seeking to make their new home in Wisconsin.

INsource newsletter
October 2018