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Today, we’re talking about creating your recruitment marketing strategy because, as we all know, for things to happen in our life, we need a plan, and not only just a plan, but we also need a strategic plan, so we can work out where we are now versus where we want to be and how are we going to get there.
We’ll cover that today in our basic series that we’re going through.
Planning is fundamental; talk to any successful business owner, and you will notice they always nail the fundamentals. We’re going to get into that in a second.
Today, we’re talking about all things marketing strategy; before you do that, you need to know where you are currently because that will inform what you do next.
If you haven’t downloaded the marketing audit checklist and are on our website, go and look everywhere, and you will find it.
You can download it just by going to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/mcl.
That will take you to a page where you can download the checklist; This will help you in this process we’ll go over in this podcast.
We’re talking about marketing strategy, but let’s get a handle on this.
So often, when you are thinking about marketing and what you want to do, there is a tendency to start doing before you finish the planning. You need a planning day before you start having a doing day and jumping into action day because one of the things about strategy is it informs overall where you are heading, what’s the vision for the company, and if we want X to happen, then what is the strategy around that, rather than just thinking about the tactical things that often many people do.
“Oh, let’s get some social media out. Let’s get some emails out,” without really thinking, what’s the bigger picture here?
What do we need to do before we start doing something else? It’s a common trait among many business owners. We find it particularly in the recruitment sector because people are so ‘on it, rolling their sleeves up and doing the work.
I applaud you because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’m a bit like that myself.
However, if you sit down and plan what you want to achieve, you will get better results in the longer term.
Today, I’m going to share with you a seven-step framework you can implement and start considering as you move forward and build your strategy.
Set a Financial Goal
Number one is to have a financial goal. I bet the likes of Bill Gates, Oprah, and all those other amazing successful business owners all have a financial plan.
Many people still don’t do this. Smaller organisations don’t always think, “Okay, what’s my financial plan here?
When you set a financial goal, then you can work the maths around this. Knowing your average placement fee is a hint; you can always increase that and then work out what you need to do.
For example, you are turning over 200K at the moment, and you want to get to 400K. Therefore, you need to double your business.
Now, do you need to double your placements? Possibly. Depends on what type of jobs you’re working, which we’ll come onto, how effective you are at working those roles, and your fee level.
Let’s imagine that you have this turnover goal. Let’s not look at profit at the moment. I’m not saying we don’t look at profit, but I’m just saying that at the moment, to give yourself a goal and make this process simple.
Thinking of simple maths, you’ve got a 200K turnover, and let’s say that each placement you make is 10K.
I know you’ve got costs and everything else, but let’s use this as a simplistic way to determine what you need to do. Each placement is 10K. That means that 200K is coming from 20 placements you make annually.
If you want to double that, you need to move from 20 placements to 40 placements. Very simple maths, because then you need to think, “Okay, if I’m going to do that, how am I going to do it?
What do I need to have in place?” I would suspect that you probably need to work with clients that give you more roles, those that give you higher value roles, and you will need to ensure that your lead generation is on point.
Let’s say that, for every client meeting that takes place, you convert 100% of them. Therefore, let’s say the average client gives you five roles. Then you need to think, “Okay, I need to bring four more clients that will give me those jobs on board.” I know I’m making this very simplistic, and I’m sure most of you have already worked it out. If you’ve not, it’s just thinking about the importance of having that financial goal.
I track everything on a spreadsheet. I know there are other pieces of software you can get. I find it useful. I know, “Okay, these are our targets for these months, and this is what we want to achieve,” because then, once you have that tangible, “this is the number, this is the figure we’re going for,” then it’s about using your marketing to create demand, to create that figure.
That’s number one. Have a financial target that you track.
Some people track it weekly. We track it monthly, particularly around the quarter because of how our business works, but whatever works for you, make sure you do that.
Even if you are a brand-new startup listening to this, it is important to have that goal and that target and make it a stretch.
Get Sector Specific
The second thing is deciding on your sector. This may surprise some of you but are you in the right sector, a sector where you have sub-verticals that you leverage?
We are in a weird time at the moment. I think it’s always good to plan for the future and have plenty of options. You look at other people; they are always expanding their reach.
Say you are in sales recruitment; what about marketing and other aligned commercial roles or customer success managers? This is how businesses grow; they expand across aligned verticles.
Apple started as a company for P.C.s, and now they dominate the planet!
Decide on Your Business Avatars; Clients, and Candidates
The next thing, number three, is to think about your business avatar. Who is the ideal client, and who is the ideal candidate that you want to work with?
Getting clear on this will give you a huge boost in focus that will lead to revenue; because you can hone your marketing.
Rather than marketing to 20 different job descriptions or role descriptions, someone was talking about today in one of our Superfast circle calls; you’re honed into a specific part of the market.
What you focus on grows, as everyone will tell you. Knowing your particular business avatar, problems, and issues will help you market to them much better.
Create Compelling Offers
The next part I want to discuss here is deciding on your offer. What is your offer out to the market?
- Do you have a recruiting product or a recruiting service?
- Do you have different elements to how you work with clients?
- Do you carry out social profiling?
- Do you do different types of profiles?
- Do you work retained?
- Are you a contingency recruiter?
- Do you work exclusively?
- Do you represent candidates out to specific clients?
All of these different parts of your offer are important to consider before you start marketing because if you are marketing a retained service, you might want to think about some of the things you’re doing with your marketing. If you are a contingent recruiter, there may be something different that you want to do.
Marketing is about creating demand, and the way you market will relate to your ideal candidate and client.
Are you fishing for Whales or Minnows?
Because you will need to use different bait, they will hang out in different places.
Think about your offer, think about your price points, and think about what you deliver. I think one of the things where people don’t often take enough time thinking about the service they provide to their candidates and clients.
What are the solutions that my clients would love? What could I provide for them that’s a relatively small cost to me versus a big benefit to them?
The difference that could make when you are getting your offer out into the market will amaze you. Something else I want to say about offers as well is that when we make an offer out into the market, we are testing all the time thinking, Okay, so they seem to like this bit, but they’re not as bothered about that bit.
Let’s do a little bit more of this and less of that. It’s the same for you guys as well.
Are there different things you can help them with that you can build around your particular service and offer? Because for any successful business organisation, it’s all about how many offers you make where people say yes.
If you are offering your recruitment service out into the market, we’ll talk about candidates in a second, and if you’re not getting a lot of takers, you might need to go back to the drawing board.
It’s not about them; it’s about your offer.
Similarly, with candidates, if you are struggling with candidates, struggling with candidates talking to you, then what offers have you got for them? How are you helping them build their career?
What different things are you doing that showcase you and your organisation, and what can you do for them?
What are you doing around candidate care that will make a huge difference to them and probably does not take a lot of time? Think about those two parts of deciding around your offer and how you create it.
Creating Compelling Marketing and Sales Messages
Next, I want to talk about crafting your message, which is critical to your success. We’ve alluded to this over the last two or three ideas I’ve given you. What is the main issue that your particular client or candidate has around working with the recruiter or just getting their recruitment done or getting their career developed?
Then think about how you will build that around your messaging because it’s important to have a message that resonates with your candidates and clients.
We were discussing this the other day and thinking about our brand and how we can come across to people slightly differently.
Our ‘product’ is innovative in the market. We are ahead of the pack because we were an agency and also provided consultancy and training.
Our marketing training came from the agency side because we didn’t want to scale and grow big. We liked what we were doing and where we were living, and we didn’t want to build a massive team. That was our choice.
To have the agency model, we’d have to do that. We thought, “Well, how can we do different things for clients that will appeal to them, so people still get the consultancy, strategy, and resources to help?”
We also work with smaller recruitment companies and individuals strategically, but how can we write content in a way they can afford?
That is what we did when we were thinking about crafting our message. It does take some thought and some time.
Nobody likes doing the foundational work. I’ll be honest, everyone likes the sexy thing and getting things out on social, yet you need to do the foundational work because when you get your message right and your message lands, people are more likely to pick up the phone.
We work a lot around messaging with our clients.
You want to know more about that; you know the drill. Drop an email to either myself or Sharon.
Going To Market
Next, we want to talk about going to market. Of course, going to market is the sexy bit that everyone likes, getting out there and getting your website up and running, getting your emails, working, all that sort of thing. You must remember that you have an objective when you go out to market. If they are new to you, if you’re going out to a cold audience, they need to know you, like you and trust you before engaging with you.
Thinking about your strategy around going to market, yes, it’s about having a website that will convert. This is your authority bit of real estate on the internet. On top of that, you want to think about how you use emailing. You want to think about social media. How will you go out there to the market?
Remember, we’ve talked about the marketing funnel in the past. Go to the Superfast Recruitment website, search the search bar, and look for marketing funnels. A funnel is where we pull people who don’t know us into our world so that they;
- They become more aware of us.
- They get to know us.
- They get to understand how we might be able to help them.
Think through this as you are creating your go-to-market strategy.
- How will I build my client and candidate leads?
- How will I get in front of people in the first instance?
Social media is always a foundational place to start when people are unaware of you and your service. If you haven’t read our previous blogs on this, go here to find out the channels to use and here for what to post.
The final thing that I want to say, and this is probably the most key thing of everything, that is, whatever business you are in, and I know from our perspective that it will take quite a lot of input. There’s no magic formula.
There’s no magic put out two emails and half a dozen pieces of social media, and suddenly, you’re flooded with candidates and clients. It takes work, and it takes consistent work.
So often, people underestimate how much they need to do to get market traction. It’s no wonder that big organisations do well. However, you can do that, too, as a smaller recruitment company because it’s never been easier to position and promote our content in front of the candidates and clients we want online.
Across all our channels, we have approximately ten pieces of content a day, which keeps our brand presence at a certain level.
Sometimes, if we’re in a particular phase of growth or coming up to one of our really busy periods where we know people are making a lot of buying decisions, we might even double that because people need to know about you.
The more people see you, the more they understand who you are and how you can help them.
Don’t underestimate how much work it will take. I know that is not a popular message.
We all live in a distracted and busy world, and your message needs to be seen multiple times before it makes an impact.
When you are consistent with your marketing, you start to see the magic happen. It may take a few months. We have a fantastic client that joined us.
They signed up on; I think it was New Year’s Eve or something like that, and they are doing incredibly well; you can watch and read their case study here. And it has taken them a few months to gain traction because they are doing the work.
Today has been a quick whistle-stop tour around creating your recruitment marketing strategy. Results come from your actions, starting with your plan for what you want.
How Can We Help?
When you work with us, we help you every step of the way to create your marketing plan; it’s like having two virtual marketing directors within reach when you need them.
We will help you map out a plan that will work for you in your sector, and then we will provide the content resources you need to move forward.
If you want a conversation to find out more, you can book a demonstration of how Superfast Circle works here-> Book a demonstration.
Thanks,
Denise
