Podcast: Play in new window | Download
[Excuse any strange typing errors; this is a direct transcription for your benefit.]
Today’s topic is branding. While we will talk about logos and imagery, branding is something different. It is even more important for smaller recruitment and staffing companies and exec search firms to think about as you move forward in today’s marketplace.
Before I talk about branding, I want to mention a useful free video series of ours.
Many people come to us because they want consistent lead flow. They want to be able to nurture clients and candidates, and so they ask a lot of questions about creating that framework for bringing in the leads they want.
We’ve created a video series that will help around this, where we share a couple of our frameworks that we use with our clients with great success. These are free videos that will give you a taste of us. No cost is involved apart from your email address.
If you want to know the frameworks that you should be using to pull in the right type of candidates and clients, then head over to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/clf.
Why Branding is Important
Whenever you talk about branding, people always think about logos, email footers, colours, fonts, etc. That is part of branding, but building your business brand is a much bigger conversation.
We tend to work with micro recruitment staffing companies and the smaller SME end of the market. And with this size of company, I’ve noticed a huge difference between having a real brand focus on how you interact with the market, and the value you give can make a massive difference because the market is shifting.
Let’s talk about these five areas to consider.
1. Define How You Want to be Perceived
Don’t rush and skip the pre-work. Apple didn’t launch the iPhone on a whim without planning around how it provided solutions for its customers and how it wanted to be perceived in the market.
Think about you and your recruiting service. When a candidate or client has finished working with you, how do you want them to feel about the experience?
People talk to their friends about their experience with you, and if people have a great experience, then obviously, referrals occur. They talk about it, and the word of mouth element of marketing happens.
If you are the organisation that puts candidates first, what do you want your candidates to be saying?
If Jane had gone through an experience with you, maybe she didn’t get the job, but your recruiter James was amazing. He kept conversations going. That is part of your brand.
For instance, when I work with Acme Recruitment, I know that the recruiters are really good; I get a great service, and they help me in many different ways.
It’s that experience you want to create.
Are you an edgy brand, or are you a friendly, personable brand that looks after people?
Are you uber professional? Are you working in the corporate sector?
Are you working with clients that want all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed?
What promise are you giving your candidates and clients, and how will you communicate that?
2. Know Your Promise and How You are Perceived
Plan your business and brand around your promise. For instance, you want to be perceived as an organisation that works closely with candidates and really supports them. Your marketing needs to communicate this; you need to demonstrate that this is what you do.
There are different ways of doing this. We work with a company that has a candidate success representative. That person’s job is to interact with candidates, do market mapping and be close to them. They even have a whole training program for candidates and a dedicated Facebook group.
What are some of the elements that you need to add to your brand? How do you differentiate yourself compared to other people in the market?
Recruitment is a relationship business where people want to know what they need to do about their career and building their talent pipeline. We create a lot of content for our Superfast Circle members because it helps that individual recognise them and their service as knowledgeable, friendly, professional, and somebody that gets the job done.
3. Communicate Your Promise
You need to communicate what you do and your promise in your marketing. Let’s say that you are friendly, honest, and interactive; how will you communicate that?
This is where you can get into the bit around logos and branding. Think about the colours of your logo and the fonts on your website. You can even Google different colour palettes.
Different brands have different colours and fonts. You can Google what colours represent whatever element or values you have as a brand. You’ll find lots and lots of information about that online.
We’ve launched a new coaching brand for Sharon, a qualified coach. We’ve just been setting up her new brand and her new website, and we’ve been looking at different colours and how they work because it’s important that people get a consistent experience so they know they’re in the right place.
If you’ve got a logo and specific colours you use, that needs to go through all of your social channels so that if people find you on LinkedIn and they go to your website, it needs to be the same brand and colour that they’re experiencing. It’s the same if they go to your Facebook page and the same when communicating.
4. Be Consistent
This can be a challenge for some recruiters because they get very excited. They’re all over social media, or they’re all over email, and then suddenly they stop. That is because they haven’t implemented a system.
One of the things we talk about is having a marketing system that’s always in place and working. That way, they are communicating; they’re the recruiter who always comes back to you, who always follows up.
Also, be consistent about your service. Many of you will have heard me talk about Prof Robert Cialdini, who has six key strategies in his work on the Psychology of Influence.
One is consistency because we need to see communication points multiple times, in various ways, in different areas before the message lands for us. If you’re not doing that with your brand, you’re missing that consistency piece, which does help.
5. Constantly Iterate
That leads me on to the final part, which is constantly iterating. Why do I say that? Well, the market is always growing. People always have different things going on in their life.
We only need to look at what happened at the pandemic’s start. People started working remotely and wanted to be more collaborative. They wanted to do things differently. Suddenly people were using products like Hinterview for their video interviews and Zoom. It’s thinking about how you can make your product and service better?
A recruiter we are working with is currently signed up for Hinterview – he’d never even been on video before – and it’s going down a storm. It’s transformed his business because he’s starting to be able to communicate differently, and people see his expertise.
Your brand always needs to move forward and iterate. We’ve just refreshed our branding. You’ll also see how we communicate solutions to our client’s problems. We do that in the way we communicate our brand. People see a consistent approach.
We want to be recognised as the marketing training company for recruiters who holds your hand every step of the way. You’re not just given a training course and then left. You are given a training course, your hand is held through it, and that’s what we’re communicating in our brand, images, and colours.
There are so many ways looking at your branding can make a massive difference to the revenues that you can achieve.
How We Can Help
We have many clients who are on for their best quarter because they implement what we teach and utilise the content and campaigns we provide.
Book your call and demonstration here if you want a quick chat to see how Superfast Circle can work for you too.
Thanks,
Denise
P.S. If you want to join Superfast Circle and would like to find out more, speak to us here.
