Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Transcription:
(Prefer to read? Here is the transcription. Please excuse any typos.)
So you know what content marketing is if you’ve listened to last week’s podcast. If you haven’t listened to it then head over… It will probably be the blog post before this so go and head over there and have a look at it and what we’re going to do is put a bit more meat on the bones and we’re going to talk about how you can use content marketing in your recruitment company to attract more candidates, clients and potentially talent as well.
So this is Part 2 of our little series on content marketing and this is Denise from Super Fast Recruitment and you can as always get a transcription for this. If you’ve found us on iTunes or you connected with us on LinkedIn and you’ve seen one of the links that we’ve shared, you can actually get a transcription of this on our website.
Just head over there and look for the podcast section and now I think there’s a little image on the right hand side bar and just click that and it will take you through to the podcast page and you’ll be able to go and download this onto your iPhone… whatever you want to do and consume the content and the information. So hopefully you’ll think well of us others and in the future you might decide to work with us. That’s how it works and that’s what I want to talk to you about in how you can make that work for your recruitment company.
And some people say ‘Oh that’s all right for you Denise, you’re a marketing company and it’s very different the way you do it. How can I do it as a recruitment company?” Well, you can do it and you can do it incredibly well.
So today what I wanted to do is share at 6 strategies… 6 sort of top tips that I always talk about when it comes to content marketing with recruitment business owners and how you can get it to work really well in your sector.
So Step 1 then is actually create some content for your market and answer their questions and a top tip that I often share with people is… obviously if you’ve never done something like this before, it may feel a little bit daunting at first. It isn’t. There are 2 areas I would share with people. One, I would talk about skills and secondly, I would look at giving them some market information so that helps to brand you as an expert.
Now, skills… now some recruitment business owners groan when I say “Well, I would always have something on your website about interview questions, confidence, what to wear…” And you may think that is old hat but remember you are a recruiter. You are dealing with this day in, day out. And particularly in today’s environment when you’re wanting that high-quality most placeable candidate, then it may have been a while since they’ve had an interview. It may have been a while since they’ve structured their CV properly. You are an expert in this. How about putting some nice different tips for them and what they can do because you know, people search for this online.
Just before I was actually preparing for this podcast and I was planning it out, I just had a quick look on Google and you know, there are thousands and thousands of searches each month for, you know – How to write a CV; How to construct some answers to some competency-based interview questions; What should I wear at an interview?; What do I need to do for this?; How can I come across as confident?
So there are all these things that you know, as a recruiter, yeah that’s old hat to you because you are doing it every day of the week. However, for your candidates and sometimes your most placeable candidate, they may not be as sleek at that and they will be looking for information. So if they can find it on your website, that is great.
So what else can you do? Well, I would share industry news and a tip that I often say to people is go and grab that news and put it on your website. Put a little link back to the Daily Telegraph or wherever else that you got it from and just make a little bit of an editorial comment. People will thank you for it because quite often people don’t have the time.
Let’s say they’re preparing for an interview and they know… maybe let’s say it’s an engineering role they are going for and someone might ask them some questions about you know, what’s going on the market at the moment because obviously good candidates would know that type of thing. Well, if you are actually sharing that on your blog, that would be a lifesaver for many candidates that are going for an interview. And it is very easy to do.
There are different ways of doing it. A simple way and a free way is just to sign up for Google alerts and it will give you all the sort of top searches on that particular topic. If you just sort of put your name, sign up with your Google account and whatever that might be, whether it’s a little engineering or PR or oil and gas or whatever you are working in then set up a Google alert and that will give you some great information and news.
Now what about content? What could you share? There are so many things that you could share when it comes to content and often people say “Oh, I don’t know.’” Well, you know, I obviously in the role that I perform, I’ve had 20 ideas before breakfast. If you’re not that type of person make a note of them.
A great little tool that I use which is free, it’s called Evernote. Evernote.com just google it. Go and have a look for it. And it’s like an online notebook and it saves everything and it’s searchable that is what’s amazing. If you’re one of these people, if you are a bit creative like I am, then you can never find things then you can just actually search inside it. But I use that, there’s a little sort of web clicking tools that you can use. You can collect everything that you can write content about – great great great thing to do.
So how are you going to share this content? What I would say to people is, it is great to share things on LinkedIn absolutely, however your ultimate goal is to get them to something that you own, to your authority recruitment website. And I strongly suggest that you have a dynamic page on your website. Whether you call it a news page, your blog page or whatever you call it and it would need to be in contact managed system.
I recommend WordPress it’s the most popular one online, Google loves it and it’s very easy to optimise it for the search engines and at least for some keywords as well. Simple to use, you can add videos to it, you can add images to it and you can have some really nice content. So always make sure that you have that on your website – so that’s number 2.
So you know, number 3 is about creating content in different formats. It’s very easy to create an audio. This is a podcast that I’m doing… a little bit more involved in that but it’s very easy to create an audio. You know, the majority of the people I seem to come across have an iPhone or they’ve got a smartphone of some description. It is amazing the quality of the audio that you can get there and you can create that on your blog. You can get one of your team members to transcribe it and away you go. You’ve got content, amazing.
So what else can you do? Well, you can create white papers and you can… obviously you’ve got your blog post, you got your audio, you can create a little video put that online. It was interesting when I noticed a recruiter the other day, over in the States actually, I know quite well and he actually creates videos and he talks about his candidates. How good is that?
And that is there on his website. He talks about, you know, his most placeable candidates that he’s got or he’ll talk about a position that he’s got vacant… come and have a look at it… very very sleek way that he does it. But you know, hey you could even do that when it comes to comes to sharing content.
You can have a PDF. Now people can download PDFs from your website. Something I always encourage people to do is… It’s great to share content obviously, you’re attracting people in but how about doing a bit of reciprocity here so that you will give people a nice PDF download and some resources maybe and you will do that in return for an email address cause then you’ve got… I know for lots of you maybe you have people uploading CVs, but it’s great to actually collect an email address. And then you’ve got that person’s address and then you can start to really really build a relationship with them.
And I always say you know, it’s a bit like your blog posts are your hors d’oeuvres and your email marketing that you send… start to email to people, that’s the main course. So you sort of grade your content. So this content that you’re receiving now, it’s pretty good. I tend to give quite a lot away anyway on our blog and on our podcast but you know when you sign up for things, then you get even deeper content, you’ll get some specific examples and more how-tos because, you know, you are then engaged.
You’re a subscriber of ours, you are forming part of your tribe, you’re joining us and that’s the whole point of this sort of content revolution… content marketing. So that’s number 4 and 5. So that’s when we talk about grade your content and have the top content when people subscribe.
So what else do you need to think about? Well, you need to do it consistently. There’s nothing worse than going on to a blog than and seeing a very very lonely blog post that was put up six months ago or worse still, last year and there’s been nothing else there. It’s something that you can outsource because the thing about it is it will produce an ROI for you. And it’s about consistency and things built over time.
If you are training for a marathon and Sharon’s training for half a marathon at the moment, then it doesn’t happen overnight. If she was to go out and run now, no she wouldn’t make it all the way around because she needs to build it up and the results come after you put the work in.
And it’s the same with content marketing. It’s about doing it consistently, you know, once a week. If you can’t do that then once a fortnight, better still, outsource it then you know that it’s going to take place. You know it’s handled. And you know you’ve got that part of your marketing and it will work. You know, this works. As a friend of mine said, “this stuff works”.
So that’s a real sort of quicky around content marketing. What you need to do – first of all you need to create some content for your market. Think about what some of their questions are. You know, just pick up the phone and talk to some people and you’ll find that what it is that they need. Please don’t make an assumption that they don’t need any information on interviewing skills, confidence, what to wear, motivation, all those sort of different skills or softer skills that you can really brand yourself as an expert.
With that content make sure that you are also talking and giving them some information on what’s happening in the market. Have a blog page – really really easy to get put up by your webmaster. You know, create regular content in different formats. We all like to consume different information.
I’m very visual. I like to look at pictures. I also like to listen, download things onto my iPod and listen to them. I find this particularly easy to consume. A lot of people like audio because they can listen to it on the go. So create different content. Grade your content so the really meaty stuff. People have to… the jargon term is opt in… give you their name and email address and as I say top content for people when they subscribe.
And then the other thing, do it consistently. Just make that decision that you will do it and then watch the magic happen. Because what happens is when people see that you are in it for the long term, then you will be amazed at the results that you’ll get.
So this is Denise from The Recruitment Marketing Podcast signing off for today and this is Part 2 around how you can actually use content marketing in your recruitment business.
Tweetables:
Click To Tweet: [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]Create some content for your market and answer their questions. – Denise Oyston[/inlinetweet]
Click To Tweet: [inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]Go and grab that news and put it on your website! – Denise Oyston[/inlinetweet]
This podcast was hosted by Denise Oyston. Visit our Google + Page!
Important
As an ambitious recruitment organisation, THE marketing strategy to master is email marketing. It will consistently deliver both candidates and clients.
In a special complimentary training Webinar, we give you the template for writing emails we use for our clients and the exact 4 campaigns that are working now.
You can register here.
