Cohen & Co has been named the winner of the Association for Accounting Marketing’s (AAM) 2023 Marketing Achievement Award in the “Marketing and PR – Recruiting Campaign” category. Announced at AAM’s annual summit on May 8, winners were chosen for accomplishing a specific goal or objective, executing a project strategically and producing measurable results.
Expert judges — including professionals in marketing, advertising, communications and professional services — evaluated more than 70 entries for this year’s competition and recognized 23 winners across 10 categories. Cohen & Co’s entry focused on its 2022 initiative to enhance recruiting efforts aimed at attracting experienced hires in the fiercely competitive registered funds space.
“Bringing on additional lateral expertise to our firm would mean more capacity to serve our clients and ultimately more growth and success,” says Stacey Rodgers, Cohen & Co’s executive director of People & Culture. “We needed to find a new way to drive home the message of our culture, expertise and qualifications, differentiators and, of course, current career openings to this select group of candidates.”
The firm’s Marketing and People & Culture teams collaborated to identify and target specific levels of investment industry professionals. The campaign included a coordinated effort involving paid digital advertising, strategic social media posts and centralized information on Cohen & Co’s website to create a multi-touchpoint approach. A key tactic in the campaign included a series of “What’s Your Cohen Why” stories from Cohen & Co professionals who have come to the firm, and stayed.
“The addition of a ‘What’s Your Cohen Why’ section allowed us to authentically showcase our brand through our people, reinforcing our status of being a both a Premium Provider to our clients and the Employer of Choice,” says Lesley Cawley, the firm’s CMO. “This was such a fun project for Marketing to partner on with our People & Culture colleagues. It illustrates the close and successful collaboration we’ve built across our two teams to support the firm’s business priorities.”
By the end of 2022, Cohen & Co successfully gained more visibility with audit and tax professionals from its targets, added to its recruitment candidate funnel and, most importantly, realized a significant increase in applications and new hires.