Event ID: 2170748
Event Started: 6/18/2013 2:49:17 PM ET
Please stand by for realtime captions.
Hello, everyone. I think it's time to get started now. My name is Miranda Kennedy. And I am the
training director and one of the technical assistance liaisons on the DEI national training and
Technical Assistance Team. I want to start out by thanking all of you for joining us for today's
training webinar during which my colleagues Mary Lynn ReVoir and Kevin Nickerson will be
presenting today's training as part of our Ticket to Work Boot Camp series. Of which today's
training will be providing information on marketing and outreach Employment Network
strategies. So before we get started I want to go over a few quick logistical details. If you have
any technical difficulties at any point during today's webinar, please call our WebEx support
technicians. I'll provide you with the toll-free number and you can also find it in the chat box.
That number is (866)863-3904. Also in the lower right-hand side of your screen you'll note in the
media viewer that we have captioning available. If you don't want the captioning display it, you
can minimize the media window or you can also make the media viewer with the captioning
bigger by minimizing the Windows above it such as chat, Q&A and panelist window's. This
webinar is being recorded and will be posted on the DEI website's pack -- password protected
training page within five business days. We'll also be doing a file share of the PowerPoint as well
as the other materials discussed today at the end of our presentation. Once we've finished the
presentation we'll take time for questions and answers. Until then, you all be in mute. -- on mute.
As we go through the presentation, please feel free to submit your questions and comments using
the question and answer chat boxes. Simply click in the box, type your question and hit submit to
the host or presenter and we'll respond to those throughout the presentation and also during our
Q&A time at the end. So let's begin by putting today's training into context. As a reminder,
according to the Solicitation for Grant A pplications, DEI project at the state level and/or local
level anticipating Local Workforce Investment Boards are required to become Employment
Networks under Social Security Administration's Ticket to Work program. Training and
technical assistance to the DEI project in attaining Employment Network status and
implementing effective Employment Network operations is provided under US Department of
Labor employment and training administration contact NDI consulting Incorporated and the
National Disability Institute. Evaluation of the impact of the DEI project implementation and
outcomes as Employment Networks will be provided under the US Department of Labor's Office
of Disability Employment Policy contract with Social Dynamics and its partners. Let's take a
look at our learning objectives. For today, our expectation is that upon completion of today's t
raining, grantees and participants and partners from the public workforce system will have the
following. And understanding of general marketing and outreach strategies that will help grow
your workforce Employment Network. As well as information on how to access Ticket Holders
utilizing various resources. And of course exposure to specific examples of internal and external
marketing products. Now with that, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Kevin to go over
our agenda for today and get us started. Kevin?
Thank you, Miranda. I appreciate it. For those of you who haven't heard me speak before, I'm
joining you from left -- lovely Ithaca, New York, where there is some construction right outside
our One-Stop. I hope that doesn't interfere with any background noise today. Let's cover the
agenda, what we hope to get through today. Pretty simple. We want to talk about marketing, both
internally and externally, and throughout, we have sprinkled in some marketing tidbits for you
based on some of our own experiences and experiences of our colleagues. Sounds simple, but we
have a lot to cover today. So we're going to jump right in. Marketing. The first thing I think
about when I think about Ticket is that it is so unusual when compared to other programs in that
typically customers come to us, but in this Ticket program, we actually -- if we want to have
success -- find folks, market to them. When we get them here, we have to explain a number of
things and then filter a bit more to find out those that are most ready and willing to go back to
gainful employment. It is a little different in that way. That's why we're spending a little time
today talking about marketing. Some of you may not have had to do marketing before. What
we're going to talk about isn't rocket science. These are some basic take -- techniques that will
help you find some folks you can help out. How we have broken this down is both internal
marketing -- really in your house, so in the Job C enter. We want to ensure that your staff, they
understand what is your up to, they have this capability to provide direct service. And they need
to have a clue as to how to make referrals internally. Right? A suggestion I have here I'm a we
didn't put it on here until the last minute -- is to develop -- I have for our center, simple staff
guide that shows your staff internally who it is you're going to work with and in the process of
the customer flow, when does it make the most sense to send a referral your way in terms of
Ticket? External is another focus we have to look at. That requires getting the word out to Ticket
Holders and providers in your service area about the fact you are now a workforce EN. They
may already know about you as a Job Center but I'm sure they wouldn't know that you can
provide intensive services to Social Security beneficiaries to the Ticket program. That's the
message you need to get out now. Like any new business, it does take time to develop this
reputation and process in your community. Eventually, once you do -- I have told our folks in the
New York -- it sort of like your EN grows roots and all of a sudden you're getting all of these
referrals and you're wondering, how did that happen? It does take time. Here's a tidbit for you. I
don't know if folks know this, but I like that we put this in here and this is useful. You're going to
see the use of bit -- the Ticket to Work logo which you have permission to use on marketing
materials, not the Social Security Administration logo, the Ticket to Work logo, which you are
looking at. If you're wondering how to get that or if you need a format to make that easy for you
to use in your marketing materials, let us know. So internal marketing, what are the mechanisms
to make that happen? One of the advantages of having security clearance as an Employment
Network -- some of you on the line do have security clearance may be in the process of getting
clearance -- some of you may not have clearance. We're going to talk about how that fits later
with the beneficiary CD. The directory is a piece we can all access. This list sauce on the Ticket
to Work site. This allows beneficiaries to find us, find the service area we cover and it tells you
what kind of EN you are, whether you are a local, state or national. And they have made this
much nicer I think, the search feature and to talk about -- make it easier to sort through whether it
is a national EN, VR, et cetera. Things that are listed on this are the service area you cover, and
that allows folks to say, use a zip code or a state. If they use a state, they can find you that way
but they will find everybody. If they use a zip code, it sorts that further. It tells on this directory - if you are on there, double check your information. Make sure it's all correct. It will tell you the
disability groups to serve, gives you a link to your website. We found this to be very useful. Late
in the training, I'm going to show you our link to our website. That gives you an idea of what you
can do in terms of marketing your services and what it is -- what does the Ticket program mean?
Also the primary contact and address for your agency. When folks look at this, they're going to
find out, who do I call? In my case, you're going to see my name. If you look of our EN and so
forth. That would be the beneficiary contact you would see there. Making sure to check once in a
while to be sure that your listing is accurate. I've had to send in a couple of corrections over time.
So keep an eye on it. How do you get to this directory? If you go to the Ticket to Work website
on the left-hand side, all of the links. Right at the bottom is a big map. All you have to do is click
on t hat. So if you are a beneficiary, that's one way you could find an Employment Network. If
you haven't clicked through t hat, you should try that after today's webinar. And see how all that
works. It's is what I started talking about when I was talking about security clearance earlier. The
beneficiary referral CD -- that does require us to have security clearance, which is a bit of a
process -- some of you may not have it -- and if you want help figuring out how to get clearance,
you can also talk to us off-line up -- about that. This CD contains all -- a list of all the working
age beneficiaries in your service area. Again, it's kind of a big advantage of having one of the
advantages of having security clearance. The things you will find on the CD are the specifics -the name, address, phone number, not a full social but you'll get the last two Social Security
numbers of the beneficiary to help you match. The birthdate, those who have had any earnings is
one category. Those who have had earnings in the last 60 months -- and then those who have had
earnings in the last 18 months. You'll also find out if they had prior history with your state
Vocational Rehabilitation agency. If they happen to have a representative payee, that contact
information will also be listed. When you first get the CD, I will say that it is kind of o
verwhelming. Depending on your service -- we are in a very small area in New York. I don't
know how familiar folks are with New York. People think New York City -- a lot of New York
is very rural and we represent a small rural EN in New York. We have a little over 3000
beneficiaries. That's a pretty small circuit -- service area. We have some areas in our DEI project
here that have probably 14, 15,000 and more beneficiaries. It can be overwhelming when you get
the CD. We have created a guide for the effective use of the CD which I think will be provided
to you later. Mary Lynn may discuss that just a bit. Because it is daunting when you first get this.
What did you do with the CD? It allows you to get Ticket Holders directly. Because you have
their contact information -- there is a method you have to follow to make the best use of this.
Before I go further, I'm sure there's folks that might wonder out there, will Ticket Holders
wonder how the heck you got their name? They might. What we do is we explained to folks that
if you get benefits -- actually, it's part of something you agreed to when you get benefits. I'm sure
in the fine print, but it is indeed legitimate and it is right in the application. Good to know
because some folks will ask about that. In terms of marketing strategies when using this data,
there's lots of things you could do. You could do a direct mailing. We've certainly done that here.
And first of all, I put a note at the bottom but let's look at the note, this information is what they
call comma delimited. To be able to query and sort the information, otherwise it really is not the
most useful product without doing that. So again, we've put together a guide to help you with
that. Which you will have access to l ater. Now, this direct mailing, that makes sense especially
if you are in an where thousands of beneficiaries -- first, you want to sort the subset of folks
within the CD that makes sense to reach first. And I know Mary Lynn and I have done this
differently, but there's a lot of common things that we all do -- you probably want to look at first
folks that have worked, r ight? Again if you have a small area, you may say let's try to reach
people who abort last 60 months. If you have a really big area, you may want to say, let's reach
folks that work in the last 18 months for example. It depends on how big an area you're serving
as to how you want to sort this list. You might want to do a mailing to provide marketing about
what you d o. That you provide EN services, maybe a job fair you could note that's coming up or
certainly and primarily I think when we do our outreach is to invite folks to the Ticket to Work
monthly events you might have like work incentive outreach events. Another thing you could do
because it is provided is to do direct phone outreach. I really like that process, but it surely is
time intensive. I don't know -- I didn't think to ask Mary Lynn's personal experience with mailing
but I -- I think we agree it is a pretty low percentage of response rate. You probably all know that
too because you've done similar things. Calling, I think the rate is much higher but the downside
it is very time intensive of course. What that can do -- it easy to throw out a piece of mail but
when you get on the phone with somebody and start listening to them a little bit and you can
quickly sort out if this fee is about benefits and talk about we're inviting you to this event, so you
can have a lot more success on the phone I think in terms of the percentage of folks that come to
you because of this outreach. Again, that's very intensive. So the idea is to invite beneficiaries to
related events like for example you may have an asset development event also. Anything that
would encourage them to consider moving forward in the work process, if they are able to, is
what we're trying to do with this outreach. Now, I just mentioned some stuff about Work
Incentives. You may be saying, we don't have that expertise. That's okay. So for workforce EN's
that do not have that internal ex-parties around SSA disability, benefits, you can use these Work
Incentives seminar events, WISE, to help beneficiaries become informed about the impact of
going back to work on benefits and health insurance, et cetera. And how these Work Incentives
actually do ease this transition back to work. They certainly do. You can also provide
information at these events regarding what you do. That's a big piece of the puzzle. You want
folks to know that his the good news about Work Incentives. And you can go back to work, but
here's another source to help you. That's us. In -- now that you are an Employment Network.
These can be hosted live or there are archived versions of this that you are certainly able to
access and use. For an event. Pretty good. Is a link at the bottom here that shows you how to get
to those, choose worksite. -- choose work site. A lot of folks will come with fears to these events.
That's why we have them, to really in many some of these fears about losing benefits completely
or immediately, losing health insurance. After folks here this, what we've done is we've created
sort of a follow-up sheet that they can complete and let us know, would you like an individual
appointment now that you've heard more about Work Incentives? Most people do want that. This
is sort of part of that whole process of screening who is really ready to commit to the levels of
work activity that this program requires. We talked in the beginning of it a little bit about internal
m essaging. And how customers know you are an EN. Right? You have to advertise. You need to
have signs at your location that you are an EN. There are materials that you can get from the
operations support manager. I've seen posters and all kinds of different marketing materials. You
could also include a tagline that you are an EN in different materials you produce from your Job
Center. Certainly on your business cards, brochures, these are just ideas, folks, but I guess the
overall suggestion here is to make sure that you are including this information in a variety of
ways because that's what it takes when you get started, people -- if people don't know you are
there, they're not going to come. This is what you're trying to do, to get people to really
understand this. Remember, your workshops internally are important too. And your staff from
your center are probably -- don't forget how important they are as a partner in the us. So again,
I've developed a process internally here for staff to understand when during the customer flow
we should be talking to folks about the Ticket program. You should do the same. It could
certainly be announced more broadly for example reemployment workshops that you have
services for folks with disabilities specifically that you provide more intensive services for
individuals that receive Social Security benefits. Later, folks can decide if they want to step up to
talk more about that. You could connect with the marketing department, and really get this EN
tagline everywhere on your site, on your materials, wherever you can. So you don't have to be a
professional [Indiscernible -- audio cutting out] to put together materials that will work together
for you for this program. They could be basic marketing materials such as a brochure, flyer, and
really what you're trying to do is spell out that your Job Center is number 1 an Employment
Network and offers this following list of services and we have examples of materials we're going
to show you. I guess this is just handy to leave places when you are at other offices that will
allow you to, where there's places to leave marketing materials. Later we are going to you
somebody -- ideas where you why -- might want to put those. We have these ready with us at all
times for a variety of different kinds of events. This e-mail listserv we use extensively here -- we
use it routinely to market our monthly outreach events. It works pretty well. I don't know if every
community has this kind of -- we have a human service listserv. And we find that to be
extremely valuable. You may or may not have one. You're going to have to research that locally
to see if that is a venue for you. If it is, it's certainly an easy one and you could attach some of the
-- some listservs don't allow attachments. If they do allow, you could embed your marketing
flyer. That's a real easy lift to get the word out. On the next slide, I'm going to show you a
sample flyer that I helped put together for our project in New York. It does have very specific l
anguage. I had to really think about this. It has sort of been something I've worked on over a
period of time here. To really elicits a reaction. What I want people to do is read something and
say, I didn't know that. That's doesn't sound right to me. Of course it is because we have
researched and understood -- that's not the biggest. You may not be able to see that really well -I apologize for that -- it does not translate well in a PowerPoint -- obviously, this is not a onepage -- this is what we might send out to promote an event. The picture were -- the picture, the
changes -- our different sites use different images. This is a friend of mine who was quite happy
to let me use this image that I took. But I'm going to read a few of the questions. What this is
asking is are you a beneficiary? Are you afraid of losing benefits or medical coverage if you
return to work? We know folks are. That's why this is in here. It says, join us for a Choose Work
event and learn about the important topics that will help you return to the filling work again. One
of -- remember, this is New York specific. If you are going to use something like this, you need
to tailor it to your state. For those that are not certified benefits planners, just bear with me.
These statements for example, did you know you can earn 46,000 and change per year and keep
Medicaid health insurance if you are on the SSI disability program? That has to do with our
threshold here. I can assure you, time and time again folks come to these events and they say,
where did you get that number from? I've never heard of that. That has to do with the 1619 B
provision under SSI allowing people to stay connected to SSI even when they exceed the
breakeven point, meaning they earn so much money that they have $0 coming in cash benefits.
The 1619 B provision help -- protects their health insurance. I did not spell that out there. I just
put out the question that made people go, wow, I never heard that before. It does bring folks to
us. The next statement, did you know if you receive disability, you can work for up to 12 months
with no earning limit and keep your cash benefits? Now, that's a little -- on the surface you could
say, that's misleading if you are a benefits specialist. It could be. It doesn't mean that everybody
is going to come to the door and have 12 months because they might have used to some of their
Trial Work Period. Right? The point is we want get people there to help understand these Work
Incentives exist and I think what I'm trying to message today is that try to make it enticing. Try
to put information out there that makes people think and makes people question you. Because
they don't understand Work Incentives. When they find out all of this is true and how these work,
they get pretty excited. I can tell you that. One of the other pieces we put in -- I'm going to
mention, have you considered your plans for future price and -- financial security? If not, would
you like to know more about resources that can help you become more self-sufficient?
Homeownership, savings for retirement? You have to do with our asset development strategies
here. I think this goes so nicely with what we're trying to accomplish with Ticket Holders.
Helping folks find real careers and getting back on a path where they can have resources again.
And again, lastly here, see if I can point to this down here in the brochure, where and when, who
should attend? Who to call to register. We would put her they should call. This is an idea of our
brochure that we use. It seems to get a pretty good response. Depends on area again in terms of
how many beneficiaries are there in terms of how many folks will show up. So if you haven't
developed any of these materials, you can certainly go to the BASS site. That is the beneficiary
access and support service site. There's some material there for download that will help you get
started. Maybe at least to look at language you would like and that's what we're trying to do is
give you some samples and examples today for you to work with. We certainly have some to
share. We are going to show you a couple things today if the technology works for us. We're
going to show you -- Mary Lynn will show you a loop for a lobby marquee which is kind of n
eat. And this is a scrolling display, some of our centers have these big TVs now, the flatscreen
TVs. We have one. And we scroll information. And I have on hours too building information
about Ticket to Work, so this is useful when you have folks captive in your resource room for a
variety of reasons, maybe waiting for appointments, so they can read this material. And some
office signage. Later I think we're also going to share a radio ad that we did here if that works
out. So we are in an age of technology. And as such, we should take advantage of that. So we
wanted to get you thinking about the use of your website and social media to promote the Ticket
to Work program. And so think about these things. Do you have an announcement on your
website that you are an EN? Maybe there's somebody in the IT department that has to help make
that happen. You could -- you could maybe consider that. Can you devote a page to Ticket to
Work? That would be ideal. Below you're going to see a link I put in of our agency's page that
we have dedicated to that. And the reason this is useful is you can have a lots -- rather than the
EN directory, you have a lot more opportunity here to explain what is this Ticket to Work core -program? Who is it for? Who is eligible? What age -- all these things can be spelled out on the
website. We also did a link back to the Ticket to worksite too which is helpful. So that way
you've got links going both ways. If you are on the EN directory, that can be linked to your site
and the site can be linked to the Ticket site. The other thing you can do with this site is we
haven't really spelled this out. We prefer more of an in person meeting but you could certainly
provide directions for those who want to discuss assigning of T icket, next steps, it's really a
simple process, you could put things like that in there. Just some basics about the fact that folks
do have a Ticket available, folks would know that and [Indiscernible -- audio cutting out]
probably know that so this is an opportunity to educate folks. I like the idea of a success story on
the website. And I know -- these are combined ideas from Mary Lynn and I. We have not done
that yet and I really like this idea. I'm going to use this idea, Mary Lynn. Once you get rolling
and you have folks you've helped through this process, not everybody is going to be interested
and putting their name out there. For someone that is, there's certainly nothing more powerful
than the story of somebody who has walked the walk. Below here is a link. You're going to get a
chance to download this PowerPoint today. And you can then use this link if you want to check
out our back page about to go to work. And lastly, we would recommend you explore using other
social media to market such as Facebook and Twitter and so forth. If you need help with that,
you can't ask me because I really don't know much about those. At least Twitter. A lot of folks
are using this and it is a tool we should explore. All of us, myself included. Now, this piece gets
me really interested in marketing, believe it or not. Our management information system because
this is really our most powerful tool to reach folks who are most targeted, really. What are we
talking about? We have an advantage with our management information system in terms of
attracting potential Ticket Holders to the registration process, very -- by virtue of folks coming in
and registering -- I believe most all centers are asking folks voluntarily if they have a disability.
That's the beginning of a process of sorting out who in our very own centers might be a Ticket
Holder. So if you are wondering what this has to do with using the management information
system and again, look at the second bullet, folks have voluntarily disclosed a disability, we can
use this data through each data sorting as part of the p rocess. This is something -- e-data sorting
through the e-process. How do you use this? You can query your management information
system for customers who have disclosed a disability. Once you have that list, and there's a
process to do this, that's a separate training. If you need help, we can help you. Once you have
that list of Social Security numbers, you can utilize e-data share to determine which of the
customers is Ticket eligible. This is able to be done right to the portal today. We used to have to
securely send that file in. Now we can get that response back immediately by using the portal. So
once that comes back to us and it is sorted, when we first sent i t, all we know is those folks have
disclosed a disability. When it comes back to us, using this process, it tells us, of the folks you
submitted, these people are Ticket Holders. So once you have that, then you can use that data to
invite those eligible Ticket Holders to one of your outreach events. I've got to say, in terms of all
the marketing techniques, if I was going to use one to jump start your Employment Network, this
is the one I would probably start with. I would then move out into the beneficiary CD once
you've exhausted and gone through your whole database to make sure you've cut those folks -you've got to think about if they come in, they've expressed an interest to go to work. If you find
their Ticket eligible, that's just a win-win for e verybody. So those are some of the basics of
internal marketing. Now I'm going to turn it to Mary Lynn ReVoir. She's going to discuss with
you some external marketing tips. Mary Lynn?
Thanks, Kevin. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm excited to share with you this next section of
information. As Kevin reviewed, the information that he talked about was stuff that -- steps you
can take internally or when in your existing operations that you typically do day to day in your
Job Centers and tapping into some of the already existing marketing efforts that are common by
your maybe marketing staff or communications Department. But we can go a little bit further and
once you have exhausted all of the internal marketing tips that we shared, you can start looking
at external. We're talking about activities that you can conduct that is outside of your Job Center.
And we shared with you the internal marketing ideas first because those should be the ones you
can most easily tap into. Kevin, the very last slide talked about the e-data share. Those are
customers already coming into your center. They probably are interested in working as Kevin
referenced. And they already know who you are because they found you. So capitalize on that by
using a variety of methods and strategies and tools. Kevin also mentioned we have a few more
things to show you, but we've got a large suitcase full of different products, some of them that
we've created and some of those that have been graciously shared by workforce EN's. And we
could not begin to show you all the different products and examples that we have stored in our
little file cabinet. So send us an e-mail when you get done today. And we will see that you can
get some examples above and beyond what we're going to show you. So externally, let's talk
about using your media. What's available in your community. Some of my experience, we used a
cable television, the community events station. Seems like every local cable company has a
station that is devoted to local announcements. And we had on there, -- it was designed to be
looped around and would come periodically. I'm guessing it depends on what else is going on in
the station during the day -- about once an hour, some of our communities -- it would talk about - it was one screen and talked about we're an Employment Network. If you are on SSI or SSDI
looking for employment, considering extra income, send comments and questions that Kevin
referenced earlier. There may be a free radio or TV talkshow that you can contact. They are
always looking for presentations of information that's available in their community. Typically
there's no cost associated with those types of events. Press releases, good old-fashioned press
releases to announce that you are now an approved Social Security approved Employment
Network. Or perhaps periodically you would sprinkle in there a press release on something going
on a drug -- in your Job Center and allude to the fact you are an Employment Network. Again,
you would want to capitalize on the custom activities that your -- your marketing department
already takes advantage of. And piggyback with another popular community event already in the
media. Were going to talk about that a little bit here in just a second. Referral sources. You're
going to be reaching out to Ticket Holders. You can use that beneficiary referral CD. You can be
reaching out to those who are customers through the e-data share. What's really critical is to
consider reaching out to Ticket Holders through partnerships and collaborating with other
employment agencies, disability agencies or the business community, consider community
providers. And those who have some connection to potential Ticket Holders, potential
individuals who are on benefits. You can inform these individuals through your partnerships with
these other providers and let them know that your Job Center invites them to come and see what
you offer and that you are an Employment Network. You might have to think outside the box a
little bit too and not only think about community service providers who serve people with
disabilities but other places in which your agencies in which they serve a wide variety of
individuals that perhaps include those with disability. It's also very valuable to think about as a
marketing strategy, that you may want to partner up and join forces with other EN's and your
state Vocational Rehabilitation offices in your community. Together, promote Ticket to Work.
Promote the employment for people with disabilities. And in this instance, your perhaps not just
singling out your workforce EN, but promoting the Ticket program itself. Promoting the concept
of people becoming more self-sufficient, being able to work and how does that connect to their
current benefits status? They can be powerful about that, if you join forces with others, then
together, you will all benefit. Because that sends the messaging to the entire disability
community. And it sends a message to the n on-disabled community to say, we are a contributing
factor. We are a workforce -- a segment of the workforce and we want to be included. You can
develop brochures together as that single source of joining together. We did that when I was
operating an EN. We had at that time the WIPA project and the state Medicaid infrastructure
grant and Vocational Rehabilitation and the Department for the blind and the workforce and a
couple other Employment Networks. We all joined forces and put together a brochure and we all
put in a little financial contribution to be able to cover those cost. Much cheaper way to go than
trying to foot the bill yourself. You could also host Ticket events as a group, as a collaborative
effort for beneficiaries. And that can be powerful also, not only for the sake of -- for the ease of
your time and your coordinator to try to get that pulled off but it sends a very common message
to beneficiaries from a variety of service providers that have the common message that we're
going to support you and we believe in the employment of persons with disabilities. So that will
increase the awareness of -- among the disability community. Kevin talked a little bit about
beneficiary outreach events such as the Work Incentives. The Work Incentives seminar events
that are offered. You could also look at as partners, you can look at some outreach events that
draw Ticket Holders together. You might -- a good subject to that with -- it might be you would
touch on what happens in regards to if you go back to work and you are on benefits. The benefits
planning piece, you might want to address -- which ties right into this -- what happens to health
insurance coverage? You could always at the end tag on and give an explanation of the services
that you offer there at your Job Center. You might want to do some type of event where you will
repeatedly do the same event on a regular basis. So once you get it designed, you can just have a
standard operating practice that that's going to be offered in the community the second
Wednesday of every month. Everybody knows that it has the continuity so the community
disability -- the disability community can get the word out among themselves. Here's another
tidbit that we wanted to throw in there. We hear that expression, walk the talk. You want to make
sure that your Job Center -- if you're going to be promoting your Employment Network and your
services to job seekers with disabilities and specifically those on benefits, you need to set the
example. You need to make sure you have a welcoming environment for those customers who
have disabilities. Nothing more embarrassing than to say you're going to host an event for
beneficiaries and they can't get in to your facility. It's not accessible. Or you want to explain to
them the services you have to offer and they come and want to join one of your workshops that's
being offered on resume development and they're not able to access the equipment. If you post
your phone number, be sure you that you add a TTY number. If you don't have that, add that tag
line, the 711 for those who are deaf or hard of hearing. And be sure that your agency staff knows
about accommodations. Nothing more embarrassing than to be marketing your EN and a
beneficiary walks into the Job Center and says hey, I understand that you are an Employment
Network. And someone at the front desk says, I don't have any idea what you're talking about.
I've never heard of that before. Or as an example where there -- the customer might need some
type of accommodation [Indiscernible] interpreter at the front desk or reception people are like,
oh, man, we don't know what to do. We don't know how to get one of those. We have to do our
groundwork first and make sure we're walking the talk before we really do this marketing effort.
Now, the next slides are going to talk about looking and locating certain types of events or places
where it would be a good place to market your information. Just about what establishments to
beneficiaries frequent? There's some very common places -- for numerous reasons why they may
be frequented, such an establishment if it's the clinic, the housing agency, or they apply -- on the
Title XIX benefits or perhaps it's a wellness center or transportation is a big one. It's not
uncommon that they need to be using public transit services. Find the resources in the c
ommunity. And ask if there's a way that you could share your information at those particular
establishments. You could market to a specific audience. The former slide talks about targeting a
specific location. This target a specific audience. You might want to spend some time and target
veterans and think about where would we find veterans? What types of other agencies serve
veterans? Or you might want to say, let's look at the older worker p opulation. You might think,
that's not a very good road to go down because the Ticket ends when they turn 65. That's true,
but we think about you where is the largest number of popular -- population? In terms of age?
Baby boomers are in that 55 to 65 age range. It might be a good place for you to give it and talk
to those agencies that provide services for that particular segment of our population. Particular to
note that for this day and age, we know that research is telling us that the mature workers, those
who are hoping to soon retire may not be in a position to retire as early, because their financial
situation is such that they need to keep working. So keep that in mind. And then use. Research
also tells us the shorter period of time -- and then use -- youth. And they're not dependent on the
benefits and not as fearful to try working to get off of that. So the youth population is it good
segment of the population to t arget. -- another good segment of the population to target. You can
target an event. Before we talk about locations, this line is targeting event -- think about any type
of event in which there might be the large presence of beneficiaries. And you could present at
such an event or maybe BA vendor and have a booth. Some examples are listed as -- for example
a peer support or mental health empowerment conference. You might have a veterans resource
fair. It might be a youth transition conference or a youth with disabilities leadership conference.
And then broaden your scope a little bit and think about any type of ADA Council in your
community that sponsors ADA events especially in the month of July with the anniversary.
There's sometimes some type of ADA celebration going on. Human rights Council, sometimes
they sponsor different events throughout the year. Again, events might be something to target.
And then we also came up with a list of what I call some unique ways to market your EN. And
these examples typically piggyback something else that's going on that you can capitalize on that
and have a way to market that you are an Employment Network. Some -- examples include if
you are at an event, take the skills and knowledge that you and your colleague at your Job Center
no and provide that as a service at no cost maybe. And then you could say, this has been
sponsored by your Job Center XYZ who is an Employment Network for individuals who receive
Social Security disability and SSI benefits. You can provide mock interviews for those job
seekers. You could provide tips on resumes and maybe even resume critiques. Take advantage of
the skill set you have within your Job Center. Another example is partner up with -- if you have a
state deaf services agency and partner up together to provide an interpreter for an event. You
could then have some little notation or some signage that says, the interpretation has been
provided by asked -- XYZ Employment Network. And you could -- it may cost you to perfect -purchase those interpretation services, but you have some flexible funds in the DEI grant that
you could maybe help offset that cost. And so it may sound really common things, offering
freebies at a booth, promotional types of giveaways, and if you don't have a budget to do that,
again, be creative and think of something you could provide that would maybe not really cost
much or very little. We did this once. We had -- we wanted to have a gimmick and we had major
budget cuts. Not permitted for us to get any kind of candy or goodies to have a the booth. So we
just did a little raffle and those of us on staff, is it lunch for two? We provided the lunch. And
might be considered kind of dorky or a simple thing, but made it fun and it actually -- maybe
other consequences that were very positive than what we intended for it to be. Okay. This is a
point in the presentation that we wanted to show you a few items because as I said earlier, we're
unable to certainly show you all that we have. But please trust, we do have a lot of different
examples. And we would be happy -- we have permission to share those examples with you.
Before you go try to put this together, feel free to shoot an e-mail and ask us if we have to -have an example of whatever you're thinking and we can look in our little bank of products. If
we have something, we will certainly share it with you. But we are going to share two things. I'm
going -- just for the sake of making the simpler I'm going to show you the first one. And then I
will hand it over to Kevin and Miranda. We're going to show you a second one. Kevin mentioned
that when we experience the recession -- when all of that hit back in 2009 or ' 10, right in there, a
lot of the Job Centers decided to start informing the customers of a variety of different services
that are provided internally. One way they decide to do that was to have a flat screen monitor.
And we created a PowerPoint. When I say we, this was the efforts of business service reps and
with our WIA staff and at that time we had the Navigator program. Very similar to the DRC. So
okay, what do we want on the scrolling marquee that was made into a PowerPoint product? It
was made to loop. Nobody had to sit there and flip through it. It automatically is just showing.
What I'm going to show you here is some of the examples of the slides. Again, this would be a
PowerPoint template that we could send to you. It started out by just saying, welcome to the
name of your Job Center and had some basic information. And then the next slide gave them real
basic notations of what types of services are available, and then it would flow into listing the
types of workshops and what time of day, day of the week they were offered. And then the
person viewing this would see there's also some youth services. And they would have bullets
listed under their of their type of service. The same would happen for the WIA intensive and
training services, and then there was -- we as a team decided that they would pull some particular
hot jobs or jobs that were just recently posted from employers. And they would insert that
information there. And we tried to demonstrate it was a wide variety of types of jobs with
different types of industry. Then there would be a little slide about Assistive Technology. Again,
doesn't come right out to say, if you have a disability, this is what we have for you. It's more how
we inform these customers to say, if you need this, this is what we have. Then this is a slide we
had for Ticket to Work that was inserted among the numerous slides -- this is the one devoted to
Ticket to Work. As you will see -- you will note in Kevin's information too -- if you were to just
put, do you have a Ticket to Work? Probably most beneficiaries are not going to have a clue.
That's going to be foreign-language to them. It's highly recommended if you're going to have any
kind of marketing materials, start off by identifying some language that includes a Social
Security disability or SSI and employment. That will then put the reader to know, that's what
they are talking about. If you just say Ticket to Work, that's going to be very likely unfamiliar to
them. This is a slide we had about the Earned Income Tax Credit. And then we have a slide
about Job Accommodations. If we could talk to about that -- and then we had another one again,
inserted among the others that talked about will I lose my health insurance or what will happen
to my benefits? So we would say, as benefits planning services and peers who you contact and
the contact i nformation. If you offer that service in-house, you can note it there. We had
veterans services that were listed and who to contact. And we included some of our mandated
partners, state Vocational Rehabilitation, where the nearest office phone number and so forth -our older worker programs, the Senior community service employment program, again, who that
was targeted for, what were the services? How to get access to that service. And other partner
was the Department of Human Services. We often had customers in the doors who we felt were
may be looking for work. They were eligible for some of the services that are under that
program. And we also promoted the training through the local community college or area
vocational technical -- technical College and what they could offer some of it being the GED and
the continuing education. We always had the one about turning off cell phones. I think that might
be our last -- yes, it is. So the purpose of this as well as many of the marketing materials is you
can have items that are Ticket specific. And really stand alone. Or you could have items that are
blended in to the existing materials so it promotes that Ticket is not a standalone program. It is
not something a person applies for the Ticket program. They assign their Ticket to the workforce
Employment Network and access the services of the Employment Network. And we thought that
this particular PowerPoint demonstrated that fact very well. It's integrated and blended right in
the Job Center services. The last thing we want to show you is -- I'm going to hand it over to
Miranda and to Kevin -- there is going to be just one quick thing I'll do and then I'll give it to
them. I promise I won't -- we have some guidance in regards to how to use the beneficiary
referral CD. That's going to be available for you to download at the end of the presentation. With
that, I'm going to turn it over to Kevin and Miranda. Kevin is going to show you a really cool
product.
Thanks, Mary Lynn. So I'm not going to show this to you because this is kind of a different
business we're going to do. We haven't tried this before. Recently -- it was one of our DRCs that
focuses on work incentive advisement, had an idea that he wanted to have a radio ad, a canned
add that people could add a time and place of their events to to make it make it easier to promote
with radio stations. Miranda is going to try to play this. This will give you a flavor of some other
-Are you in -- [Indiscernible] did you know you can keep your Disability Insurance for up to a
year and keep ongoing medical benefits? Many local One-Stop Career Centers can offer
placement services to the Ticket to Work program to help increase choices and opportunities for
Social Security disability beneficiaries. We want to assist you in obtaining training, employment
and other support services including one-on-one Work Incentives, advisement and job
development sports. Individuals on Social Security disability benefits are a priority for us. If you
would like to know more about how you can return to work, please come to our outreach event
on the following date and time.
That was awesome, Miranda. Thank you. You could see at the end that we just left an opening
for folks to add the time and date and the location. So with that, I'll turn it to Miranda.
Thanks, Kevin. Sorry at the beginning -- I think I might have woken people up a little bit -- the
volume was a little louder than I thought it was going to be. Sorry, folks. Late in the afternoon
for a lot of us. So as we saw today, we did cover a lot of information. I'm going to give all of
these materials for you as downloads including the radio ad, which you should be able to
download as well. So just informally, what we did cover today, Mary Lynn and Kevin both
talked about suggested methods for internal marketing and for external marketing as well as
other unique marketing strategies that have been employed by Workforce Employment
Networks. Certainly please do take them up on their offer of if you are thinking about doing
something, let them know, here's what we're looking at doing because they might very well have
examples of their own or things they've been exposed to from across the country. Things others
have done. You can build off of those ideas. And make things that are unique and tailored to
your own areas that get some good ideas of those ideas we've seen today. In terms of next steps,
moving forward with all the works were doing with Ticket and Employment Network, we do
encourage you to join us for our June Ticket Employment Network TA Office Hours. We love to
hear what you're doing in your area to market and outreach your workflows -- workforce
Employment Network and hear about what other DRCs and DEI pilot's are doing. So this is your
time to talk. You can talk about anything you'd like to talk about, but we'd be interested in
continuing this conversation we started today. So those hours are on Tuesday, J une 25 from 3:00
p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and I've provided the link here. It is on meeting center so unlike the webinars
we have, you don't register. Click on the link and it pops you right in. I'm going to now take us to
-- I've got the contact information. I hope all of you really know Kevin and Mary Lynn's contact
information by now. While I'm pulling up some of these documents to do a file transfer -- I know
you want the PowerPoint I'm a probably going to want a copy of the DEI lobby marquee that
Mary Lynn walk us through as well as the effective use of the beneficiary referral CD -- I'm
pulling those up right now. While I'm doing that, Mary Lynn and Kevin, why don't you wrap us
up for today?
The only comment I has -- have is if folks are going to download the radio ad, it is a larger file. I
wouldn't say it's huge but it is like seven or 8 megabytes. Sometimes that is a problem with
systems. So other than that, you've heard a lot of different ideas. You can certainly use the R&D
approach as Miranda told me years ago. That's not research and d evelopment, that's ripoff and
duplicate. Take what you like, make it your own and we're glad you joined us today.
Mary Lynn, you are on mute. I don't know if you wanted to say any things -- say anything to
folks as we are ending today?
Okay. There we go. Let's try that. I kept hitting the mute button. Anyway, thanks, everyone, for
joining today. Hopefully you find this information useful as you grow your EN a ctivity. We
look forward to continuing to support you.
Great. Thank you, everyone out there for all the wonderful work you're doing which is really
making this happen. And getting all these services out Ticket Holders and turn your workforce
centers into Employment Networks. I did post the four different i tems. The one last tip I have as
you are walking out of today's training is if you could keep the WebEx platform open while
you're downloading especially since some of those files are larger, I'll leave it open on my end
for a little while. When you do finally help out, if you could take one minute and fill out the post
training survey, we really appreciate your feedback and look forward to connecting with all of
you again soon. Thanks, everyone. Take care, and enjoy the rest of your day.
[event concluded]
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