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Today, we will discuss marketing a new recruitment service or product to your client and candidate market.
This is all about launching a new recruiting service for you and your brand, which many people are considering at the moment. We are helping several Superfast Circle members launch different iterations of their service.
Today, I want to share the seven key areas to consider.
1. Validation
Let’s start with number one, and that’s validation. You probably think, “Denise, I want to launch this service.”
The question is, do you want to launch this service?
Is it viable?
Is it what the market requires, wants, or will buy?
Is it just an untested or validated idea?
A very short story, an amusing story. When I left my corporate job, I decided that I was going to create a product for sales managers.
It flopped because I didn’t validate my offer.
The questions I forgot to ask were, “Would people want this? Would they buy it?”
I was a very keen sales manager.
I was obsessive about studying and assumed everyone else was 🤦‍♀️, learning new things, and always improving.
The course was only a couple of ÂŁ100 at the time. I was teaching how to be a really good sales manager. I just thought, “This is going to fly off these shelves. I’m going to be a millionaire; everybody will want this.”
We had five people buy it.
Now, this was a very good product, I have to say. However, the market was all wrong because the market that I was approaching was corporate people who wouldn’t put their hands in their pockets.
They expected their company to do that for them rather than taking charge of their growth.
I hadn’t validated my offer or chosen the right avatar either.
That is the first thing that I would say to you when it comes to making that decision about the products that you want to launch because it could be, “Well, I’m going to have a consultancy arm to my business,” which is fine, and have you spoken to anybody who has shown interest?
Do people buy consultancy services in your sector?
I’m going to have a training part of my business, which will align well with a recruiting service, but will people buy it? Because there’s nothing worse than putting hours, days, weeks, months, and effort into something people won’t pay for.
When it comes to a recruitment service, maybe you’re going to have a new temp desk. Perhaps you’re going to launch a temp side to your business; maybe you’re going to establish a contracting side. Maybe you’re going to have a retained side to your business or a new exec search desk; that’s fine.
First, establish if this is solving a market problem that people will buy to solve.
If you are in the contingency space and it isn’t easy to get people over 12 or 13%, then maybe retained isn’t necessarily going to be the best thing for you.
As you validate your new offer, make it irresistible.
- What can I do with this product?
- What can I add to this product?
- How can I make this product/service and make it the best on the market
for my clients and candidates?
Here is a quick personal story to help you understand the products and services you develop.
As some of you will know, we had a complete service side to the business, content marketing, and social media in all its many forms.
It came with a price tag that was a challenge for many micro and small SMEs, which are our preferred markets to work with.
That is one of the reasons we created a unique product in Superfast Circle: we could provide virtually everything people need for their marketing, consultation and direction, training, and marketing collateral and campaigns.
A question?
Could something like that work for you and your market? What could you do so that your offer becomes irresistible? You’ve got a great promise, the price is right, you’ve got a vision for how that will work for clients, and the clients can see how that would work for them.
That’s important.
Think about your client, your candidates, and what’s in it for them because once you know that, it’s much easier to communicate what you have.
There is something else you must understand as you are validating your offer.
Remember that launching a new product takes time; It will not fly off the shelves as fast as we want and will take a lot of work.
It’s like when you first start your own company, you have never worked as hard in your life, and launching a new product can feel like that, too.
If you still want to proceed, let’s set up a beta test.
2. Beta Testing With Current Clients
Next, let’s run a test of the product and service with some of our current clients.
There are three benefits to doing this that are going to help you. First, you get used to talking about this new service offering to a human being.
You’re talking to a real-life client or a candidate where money will change hands for what you’re selling. It is important to beta test with some people you have identified.
What this will do for you is it will help you iron out what is important to your customers and what they want when it comes to this new service offering because what you think they might want and what’s important to them might not be what you think it is.
The other thing that I would suggest that you do, and there are a couple of things here, is get case studies and testimonials from your beta users.
It might be that you’ve reduced the price of your new service offering. I’m not saying you give it away for free, but you might have a reduced price because you’re testing it in beta mode.
You might be talking to someone, and they would agree to give you a case study or a testimonial because you will do whatever the offer might be at 10% off or 15% discount.
Decide who would be an ideal client I would like more of, more of this type of client, because those are the ideal people you want to have in your beta testing.
We’ve looked at viability and beta testing, and now let’s look at creating a launch plan.
3. Create Your Launch Plan
What gets planned happens.
Have you ever noticed that? If you don’t have your plan written out, your day sometimes seems to crash and burn.
Make sure you have your launch plan created so you know what your deliverables will be, have a target, and know your timelines.
Are you going to do a countdown?
What will happen at month one, month two, and month three? When I worked in the pharmaceutical industry, the machine kicked in when we were launching a product, and we had a plan that would count down the days.
When you plan your launch, consider your deliverables, timeframes, resources, and who will be involved.
That way, when you have a brainstorm about what are all the things that we need to do, and obviously, I’m giving you some things here, then you can put that in your spreadsheet.
You can put that in your launch plan so you don’t miss things like, “Oh, hang on a minute here, we haven’t got any case studies or testimonials as part of our marketing collateral. Oh, hang on a minute here; the web page isn’t loading.”
If you create a launch plan with dates, times, activities, and who’s responsible, that’s number three; next, who are you selling it to?
4. Define Your Ideal Avatar and Target List
Number four really alludes to what we were talking about with the beta test: who is your ideal avatar? Who is the target list to which you will launch this new product?
Depending on the features of your product, the advantages for your clients, and the benefits they’re going to get from working with you will help you identify who is the ideal avatar for this particular product or service because it’s likely that it will be different.
That’s where many people make a mistake because they think, “Well, I’ll just launch it to everybody that I’ve got. I’ve got this great idea for a new service; everyone will love it.”
They might not.
It might be a sub-sector of your market that will be the ideal person for this.
That’s why it’s important to do your avatar work. Who’s ideal, and will they buy?
One character in the classic film Jerry Maguire says, “Who’s got my money!!!?
This, my friend, is key!
Who has got your money and is willing to purchase your new offer?
Make sure you do your avatar work based on the propensity to buy and the propensity for you to serve them in the best way possible.
Then that leads us to your target market because you will, I’m certain, have clients within your database that you could work with, so the first step is to create a list.
In addition, those of you who have watched The Lead Generation Triad will understand that when it comes to generating leads, there are three key areas you need to focus on: current contacts, cold outreach, and content.
What you need to do now with this is to look at, “Okay, I’ve got my current connections; I’ve pulled off a sub-list that I’m going to work on.” (I will talk about content next.) I also need to think about “I need a cold list to approach.
Get a cold list of contacts and start reaching out to them.
Fact: You need to have some new people in the pond that I’m fishing in with my new product to have conversations with and ensure that I’m selling my new product. Next, we need to craft our message.
5. Creating Your Marketing Message
Now, we need to create your marketing message.
I have already mentioned the holy grail: your product or service’s features, advantages, and benefits.
Remember, People need to understand what’s in it to consider working with you.
Let me remind you to reflect on when you first started selling and you had features, advantages, and benefits about your product that you communicated.
Ditto for your new product.
What’s the gap that they have? What is it that your product will do for them that fills that gap?
This isn’t a sales tutorial here, though you need to get your messaging right.
For example, our messaging is designed to attract solo, micro, and small SME recruitment and search companies.
We work with really good recruiters, amazing at what they do. They care about the clients and candidates they work with.
One of the things they’re not particularly good at is marketing themselves, creating demand and getting their message out there.
Look at our messaging on LinkedIn and how it communicates to a certain person.
Consider your particular avatar, ideal client or candidate and what will resonate with them.
6. Creating Your Marketing Collateral
Next, once you’ve got your marketing messages, you can start putting them in your collateral. You need to use marketing collateral consistently and constantly to bring people into your funnel and do some pre-selling.
For example:
Your social media.
Reports/Guides
Articles/Blogs
Pitch Decks
Email Campaigns
Scripts and objection handlers are critical, too.
We have covered a lot today.
7. Set A Goal and Take Action
Number seven is to set a goal and go for it because it’s easy to say, “Oh yes, I want to do this.” Do all that work and then start to procrastinate: “Well, I’m not quite ready to launch yet, I’ve not quite tweaked this bit yet, not quite done this yet.”
There comes a time when you have to press go, and you have to go and get you and your product or service out into the market.
I was listening to a Gary Vaynerchuk video on YouTube the other night. I love Gary, and he was saying something so obvious.
It’s not that you haven’t got time to create the social media, it’s not that you haven’t got time to do, ……pick any excuse from 20, he was saying………… it’s the fact that you’re frightened of getting out there.
You’re frightened of standing out in the market and saying, “Look, this is what we’ve got for you. This is what a difference it will make in your life.”
Number seven is to ensure you implement the plan you’ve decided; these are the sorts of things to say to yourself.
“Okay, this is what I will do, and I will have a plan. This plan, I’m with it. I’m in this for the long game.
With the new service, I want to achieve this by Q1, Q2, and Q3, and this is where I expect to be in year three.”
The market needs great products and services, and let your service be one of them.
Thanks
Denise
How We Can Help You
Marketing creates ongoing demand for all your recruiting services and products, whether already established or about to launch, and this is where we can help you with your planning, messaging and collateral. To find out more, send us an email or drop us a message.
