Podcast: Play in new window | Download
[Excuse any strange typing errors; this is a direct transcription for your benefit.]
Today we’re talking about five marketing basics to action in your recruitment business.
As a first start, download our recruitment marketing audit checklist on our website, which will be incredibly useful.
Download it from http://www.superfastrecruitment.co.uk/mcl. Please put your Name and email address in, and it will download for you; 30 questions will help you as you start to think about the basics of marketing.
I have five particular areas to share with you. Before I do, let’s stand back and think about why we market in the first place. Marketing is about creating demand; the more demand you have for you and your products and service in the market that fulfil a need of your clients and candidates, the more successful you will be.
This is critical as we are in a particularly competitive environment.
In the U.K. alone, 7,000 new recruitment companies registered last year. Many people are also expanding, which means more competition, so you need to stand out and be distinctive. These are fundamentals you need to nail because you have to stand out in the environment today.
In light of the last few years, you have to market yourself to become the recruiter of choice in people’s minds.
Let’s talk about these basics.
1. Your Recruiting Sector
Decide on your particular area of expertise and where you’re working. For example, if you are a tech recruiter, which particular tech areas are you going to work with?
- What is your particular sector?
- Where is it that you can add the most value?
- Where is the market growing?
When we launched our own business, we provided services to anybody and everybody in coaching and consulting because of our corporate background. However, we decided to work in the recruitment sector, because it was an area that we enjoyed.
We nailed our flags to the mast and worked at becoming real experts in everything in the sector. We’ve been doing that for 15 years now, so we understand the market.
As you’re thinking about your market, ask yourself questions like, “Is this a growth area? Is this going to continue to grow or maybe not?”
For instance, if you’re a retail recruiter, will most of your business now come from online e-commerce sites rather than the typical brick and mortar retail organisation? What is your ideal company size? What is the ideal company size that you want to work with? Because there is a different process when working with companies of various sizes.
Think about the ideal candidates and the clients who will work within the sector you’re working with. In our coaching program in Superfast Circle, we work closely with our clients to identify their ideal client and candidate avatar, the people they can serve best and will add more profit to the business.
Once you know your market, you can start to move. You know it’s in a growth area, you know you enjoy working there, and you know it will be profitable.
2. Your Recruiting Offer
It is vital to nail your recruiting offer, product, or service.
You may productise parts of your recruiting service. We’re doing a whole session on this with our Superfast Circle members at our virtual event, where we look at productisation. Because standing out in the market is all about your offer, and if you can make your offer the most logical next step for people to say yes to, That will make a massive difference to how you can move forward.
You may have a retained service where you only work with select clients and have different elements to your service. We know that some of our clients have a completely different approach and do other things to help their clients, such as personality profiling.
They make their offer completely irresistible to clients and candidates in how they help them. It’s much easier to create demand for something that people want. Think about the elements that make you stand out that will make you distinctive.
3. Your Promotional Messaging
The messages that you put out into the market have to be aligned to the service that you’re offering:
- how you help people and the problems they have around filling their vacancies,
- how you help candidates develop their careers and get the next role.
To be successful, you must communicate how you solve your candidate’s and clients’ problems.
The good news is you can get your message out in front of your market 24/7 through various mediums.
First of all, you need to identify your key communication points. Know your ideal avatars and their problems; know how you can help them and communicate this to the market.
There’s a reason why the likes of Apple and Microsoft make billions.
They do that because they get that foundational piece dialled in.
These foundational elements make all the other parts of your business work.
We can help you with this when you become a member of Superfast Circle. If you want to chat about that, drop Sharon or me a quick email.
4. Your Added-Value Content
We live in a knowledge world; people are fascinated by knowledge. They want to know more. Every social channel has more visitors than ever engaging with content.
It’s the same for service-based industries because it takes a while for conversions to happen in the B2B market. They want to know that you are the recruiter who can help them; this is where added-value content comes into play.
Are you the recruiter who has a report they can download that could help them? What happens is that it sets up reciprocity in people’s minds. “Oh, those recruiters know an awful lot about what they’re doing because they’ve got reports, they’ve got blogs, I can go on to their website. You know what, when I’m moving, it’s them that I’m going to go and work with. Their emails drop-in, and I like their emails. There’s always added value there.”
You need to have a blog on your website; you need content, an email system, and social media. You need those key basics to be in front of your market because your market will not always come to you.
5. Your Website
You need a website. That is your online real estate. That is your shopfront. I’d recommend that you have a job board for many of you. It helps to develop your authority piece. You’ve got to think about having a good website that communicates value and shouts out who you are and who you serve.
You also need to have social channels set up and working. Here I’m talking about LinkedIn. It’s key for most people listening to this podcast.
Then, depending on your sector or niche, you’ve also got Instagram. We work with some hospitality recruiters, and they’re all over Instagram, and it works well for them. Then, of course, there’s Facebook. Love it or hate it, approaching half of the planet, and nearly 45% of the U.K. population, has a Facebook account.
You need to make sure you have a presence on the key social media channels. You then become an authority, and people like to work with authorities.
There are some fascinating data around how people move to the smaller supplier because they get a personal service.
The other key things to think about with your go-to-market strategy are to use email campaigns and messenger. It still provides one of the highest ROIs of any marketing strategy known to man. If you are not using emails to nurture clients and candidates, you are losing out.
Summary
So, know your market in your sector, decide which areas you will focus on, and start to identify the ideal clients and candidates to work with.
Then, think about your offer. Think about designing your service in a way that adds value to your market. Have your promotional messages, think about the features, advantages, and benefits of working with you and your organisation and saying yes to your recruiting service or product rather than somebody else’s. Think about the content you’re sharing that builds your brand and your authority in the market.
Have a blog with some content on it; have some content going down your social channels.
Then finally, in your go-to-market strategy, you need a good website. I would strongly suggest having a job board, claiming your social channels, not just LinkedIn, but you want to be thinking about Facebook and Instagram depending on your sector.
Have emails, use an email campaign to reach out to candidates and clients to nurture them through the process, and you will be amazed at the difference that will make.
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.
