Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Hi there, everyone. This is Denise from Super Fast Recruitment and today’s podcast is all about content marketing. I’m going to outline 10 reasons why, if you are not investing in it now as a recruitment business owner, it’s something you should seriously consider if you want to make an impact in your market.
Now, before we get into it, this is well over, this must be 116th podcast we’ve done. If you’ve not given us a shout-out on iTunes, then please go over there and do it; we do appreciate it! That would be fantastic. Thank you to Mark Woffenden from Lucy Walker Recruitment that gave us a lovely review, we very much appreciate it, from a great recruitment company, by the looks of it, based up in Leeds. So, thank you to Mark.
Is Content Marketing Worth The Investment?
Why am I recording this podcast at this point in time?
I’ve been asked a number of questions recently about the value of different marketing strategies, what should you be considering, what is going to work well, what creates fast leads, what creates branding, everything really. So, that’s the reason why I wanted to record this and give you 10 top reasons why, particularly for recruitment organisations, it’s something to consider investing in.
The truth is we live still in the knowledge age, and I’ll come on to that a bit more, and people, they want answers to their questions. So, what do they do now? The easiest thing to do is “Google it” if they want an answer to a burning question or a problem solved.
I have just come back from a fantastic holiday with my sister and niece. We had carried out a lot of research before we went away, where we wanted to go, where we wanted to stay, and it was all based around some blogs that we’d read.
We know deep down that content marketing can and does deliver results, especially so for recruitment organisations. Need more convincing ? Then her are 10 reasons to consider accelerating your content marketing now.
1. It will make you more money.
Number one is it will make you more money. It’s going to make you more money because it’s going to bring in more leads for you. Generally, it will bring in more targeted leads. At the end of the day, every organisation wants to make more profit. We all want more leads coming into our business that we can convert.
2. In the knowledge age, people want answers to questions
Number two, as I mentioned earlier, we live in the knowledge age. Whenever we have a question now, the majority of us, we can ask our other half or ask somebody in the office. However, we’re much more likely to jump onto Google and do multiple searches, keyword phrases, keyword searches, until we find the answer to our question.
Both your clients and your candidates are going to be searching online for content related to their career progression and their recruitment; consistently. Look in the Google keyword tool , and you will realise how many people are searching online for content related to recruitment.
The thing about it, of course, is that when people are searching for content, if you’ve got a number of blog posts, each of those blog posts can get ranked by the search engine. So, that’s a little bonus tip for you as well. We have some clients who have blog posts that appear on the first page of Google now and actually get multiple hits every single week, which helps to drive people to their recruitment website.
3. Establishes your authority as the recruiting partner of choice
The other thing about content, number three, is that candidates and clients will buy your service because of the content on your website that presells you as a recruiter of choice.
Now, as I’ve mentioned probably in the past, sorry to disillusion a number of you, writing about how wonderful your service is will only start to help once they’ve bought in to the fact that you might be able to help them.
One of the ways to do this is to demonstrate your expertise through the content that you write because the more content that you write, then that is going to help you.
We have one client who has shared on a number of occasions with us that because of the blog posts that are written and uploaded onto her website, it attracts people, candidates to her. One candidate actually said that she was more likely to work with this particular recruitment organisation because of the blog posts that she’d found because she knew that she was skilled in that particular area.
4. Content can be used in multiple ways
Now, the thing about content, number four, is that it can be used in multiple ways. I am recording this podcast on a very wet Tuesday afternoon. Once I’ve recorded this, I will then, here’s a quick tip for you, I will go and get it transcribed.
I get this transcribed with a fantastic service called Rev.com. Head over there, very good transcriptions, and they turn them around in lightning fast time ( this one took about 3 hours only).
You will be either listening to this or reading the transcription, and you might possibly have opened an email. I could actually create a video of this. I could do a PDF download of it. There are multiple ways that people can consume content.
The thing about content that people often don’t appreciate is it’s very leverageable. What do we mean by leverage?
As I’ve just said, you can turn it into multiple formats, and you can then share it down multiple channels as well. So, for instance, I can take this podcast transcription, and I will share it on LinkedIn. I will share it potentially in a group. To add some value, I might also share it down my LinkedIn Pulse, I will share it on Facebook, and I will share it on other platforms too.
This is content that is valuable, a valuable resource to people. So, what do you think that’s going to do? It’s going to brand us as an expert in this field, and people are going to come back to us.
5. Tailored to your ideal target client or candidate.
The other thing about your content, number five, is you can tailor it to your audience. Now, what does that mean?
That means that as individuals, as human beings, we filter for information. Here is some advanced thinking training for you.
What happens is the way that we access information, as human beings, can be quite different. Through sight, through sound, through feeling. Also, we filter for information that is relevant to us at different points in time. So, it’s very easy to then write content that is going to be related to your market. For instance, if there is a certain test that is prevalent in your industry your ideal candidates might be looking for advice and tips on how to handle it. Therefore your tailored conent will appeal to them.
What does this really mean for you? The plus point of this is if you have a certain persona or avatar that you want to attract, then you can write your content related to them. Trust me, they will find it, or it will get shared to them, which brings me on to another point in a second. So, it makes a huge, huge difference being able to tailor your content to your audience because then you’re speaking directly to their wants and needs.
6. Long conversion and buyers cycles
The other thing about content is, and we’ve talked about this before, this is number six, and this is the buyer’s cycle and longer purchase cycle’s.
For instance, with many of us who work in professional services, people don’t want our product every single day of the week. It’s not like we’re nipping down to Booths to buy some lettuce or a pack of ham or whatever. It’s different. We are selling high value services and products.Therefore, it’s generally a longer buying cycle.
When somebody recruits their CEO, it’s unlikely that they’re going to recruit another CEO into that position unless everything goes belly-up, which I’m hoping it won’t.
But they’re unlikely to recruit someone into that position for a couple of years. Therefore it’s likely to be a long buying cycle. Consequently having consistent content on your site always keeps you in touch with your ideal target clients and candidates.
As we’ve mentioned before, people go along the buyer’s cycle; they go from awareness through to consideration, intent, and then, they buy. Content at different points along that buyer cycle will help them make their purchasing decision.
7. Content marketing is cost effective
It’s incredibly cost effective to create content and have it shared. If you think about some of the content, we create for clients, and which you can create if you’ve got a marketeer or whatever, is called evergreen.
Evergreen content, as the name suggests, is content that will always be relevant.
There are certain things, particularly in the recruitment sector, that are not going to change anytime soon: different types of interview styles, how to be confident. That data has been around for years. People are searching for it all the time. I went to the Google planner search tool this afternoon, and the search term “common interview questions” is searched for approximately 10, 000 times a month in the UK alone.
You could write a blog post, or you could outsource the writing of a blog post or something like that, on this exact topic for your target market, and it could last for years. We’ve been writing content for one particular client since 2009, and their content is still found on search engines and, in some cases, at number one or number two position because it’s been around so long and it’s just as relevant today as it was then.
Imagine that you pay once for this content, and then you could turn it into a PDF download, you could turn it into a PowerPoint presentation, you could record it onto a podcast like this, you could record it onto a video. The same piece of content that you paid once to be created by a content marketing person for you. So, you can see how cost effective content really is. That’s why it’s hugely popular at the moment because it’s meeting a great need and it’s a cost effective way to do it.
8. Candidates and clients crave answers to their questions
People crave content. They crave the answers to their questions. So, this is number eight. What’s great about this, and if you haven’t gone over to our website, go over there and sign up for one of our free reports or sign up for one of our free webinars. You’ll see that there, we are providing you with some high quality content in even more detail than what you’re going to receive in a blog post. For that, we’re asking for your email address and your name.
Then what we’ll do is is you’ll be on our list, and we’re going to market to you. Let’s be frank about it. When it comes to the point in time that you want to buy some marketing training or consulting or service of some description, you, if you’re on our email list, are going to consider us and we might have a conversation with you. So, you can see how that makes a huge difference.
9. Content accelerates referrals
Content marketing is everything from blog posts to videos to social shares to Facebook to YouTube to Twitter, whatever. What happens with content, and this is one of the reasons why we always say to people, “Have social sharing icons on your website,” is that people will share your content around.
What does that do? That gets you great reach and awareness and also helps when it comes to referral. I always think the referral is really underutilised when it comes to recruitment organisations and how they generate leads. I think some of you do it very well and a lot of you don’t focus on it as a consistent strategy. It can make a huge difference.
10. People buy into your brand.
Now, number ten, and it is important, particularly if you are keen to grow your organisation and accelerate your penetration of the market, you want to dominate your sector, are people buy brands. People will go along and, this is not just for consumers, it’s every single service. People will look for:
- A recognised brand, yes, and…
- A brand that they can trust.
If they see you everywhere, if they see the fact that you have a Facebook page, that you have an active blog, that you’re regularly sharing content, that you’re emailing them, it sets up this conversation in their head that, “Ah, these people know what they’re talking about. This is a recognised brand in our market. Maybe I should be working with them.”
You imagine then that the content that you produce answers questions that your candidates and clients have, it positions you as a go-to person in that market, and what a huge difference that makes.
Summary
I hope that has given you an understanding of some of the benefits of content marketing. It’s going to position you, and it’s going to help with inbound lead generation, which is the holy grail when it comes to growing any brand.
We can all pick the phone up, can’t we, and make cold calls; we can do all of those things as well. But wouldn’t it be great if people are coming to us because they found us on Google or they found us on LinkedIn? They’ve seen some of the things that we’re sharing on Facebook or Twitter, and they get that we are an expert and they like our style? They’ve bought into us, and they think, “You know what? I could work with these people.” All of that is done without you having to make hundreds of calls to them. It’s created by you sharing great content that provides a solution to a need or challenge they have.
Now, somewhere on this blog post, the bottom of this blog post, I think you’ll probably find a link to a report of ours on content marketing that you can go and download and have a look at.
Go and check that out. If we can be of help, then do get in touch and just email [email protected] and just put, “I’d like some help with my content,” and maybe we can have a brief conversation and see if this might work for you.
So, this is Denise from Super Fast Recruitment saying bye for now.
