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Welcome to the first in a series of blogs surrounding marketing questions clients often ask us, and today’s topic is all about campaigns.
As recruitment marketing experts, recruitment business owners and their marketers often approach us to discuss the different types of campaigns to use for the best effect. With the rise of social media, there are now a few areas to choose from when running your campaigns.
In today’s blog, we look at how to utilise different avenues for your various campaigns, from the ‘old school’ to newer methods.
First, let’s look at how you can use direct mail as a strategy to increase client leads.
Direct Mail
We were asked earlier on in the year about direct mail:
- Does it still work?
- Is it worth doing?
- Who should I send it to?
- What sort of reaction will I get?
I would say absolutely – direct mail will work, does work and has been working for us even throughout COVID.
However, it depends on your market. I would recommend using direct mail to send out something of value to your sector, but send it out to people who are starting to go through the buyer’s cycle.
One individual that we were talking to had an idea to get a couple of thousand documents printed up and send them out to people.
Yes, depending on the size of the fee you have, something may come of doing that. However, it is an expensive exercise.
Our suggestion to our clients and anyone who asks us is that if you’re going to send out direct mail, make it very targeted and send it to people who are already engaged in your sales process. It could be that receiving that brochure, piece of lumpy mail or a freebie will tip somebody over the edge.
The truth is it doesn’t need to be expensive. As part of our process, we send out a sales brochure which we also have in a PDF format, but when the printed brochure drops on the doormat, it looks very professional.
Top tip – we send it in a slightly different envelope, which catches people’s attention.
If you’ve got a good sales brochure with lots of testimonials and different case studies in it, then use that.
The other thing you can do is send a piece of value-added content in the form of a brochure style.
Let me explain how that might work.
Utilising Collateral
On the Superfast website, you will see various places where you can download a checklist from us. We also have a guide to content marketing, an automation guide and a couple of different PDFs.
Imagine what your equivalent might be; you could have these printed up inexpensively and send them out.
The great thing about doing something like this is that not everybody else is doing it. Bear in mind these are your hot prospects that will be receiving your mail. How different will your brand come across compared to others?
We write campaigns for clients in our membership programme, and they also receive a report that we write every month. They’ve got multiple options, and one is to get it printed up and send it out.
There are other types of collateral you can send out, too.
It could be a mug, a pen or a pad of paper. You could even send a USB drive containing some value-added pieces or videos. You can send all of these different things, but the critical thing here is to make sure it’s branded up.
Secondly, make sure you send it to people as part of an ongoing process and those key clients you want to bring on board, and this would be something you would spend your money on with regards to clients rather than candidates.
Email Campaigns
Now the second thing we want to talk about when it comes to campaigns is email campaigns. We get quite a lot of questions about this because email provides you with one of the highest ROIs of nearly any marketing strategy that you can use.
It would be best if you had multiple campaigns going at the same time. People often say, “Well, where do I start?”. We often ask several questions, such as:
- What is your most crucial hot button at the moment?
- What is it that you need the most of currently?
- How can you win some quick business?
First of all, if you are short of clients, then you need to have a client emailing campaign. If you are short on candidates, then you need a candidate emailing campaign.
We recently covered the topic of conversions in this video which might interest you. Sharon talks about how it takes time to nurture people, and not everyone converts straight away. At an absolute minimum, you need to have a client campaign and a candidate campaign.
It’s always good to keep everything moving along and to always have plenty of options open.
Also, you will have a database, and you will have lapsed clients. You never know what’s going on in somebody else’s world at any point in time. Maybe they didn’t work with you at one point, but now they’re in a completely different situation, and now they do need your help.
As a given, make sure that you have a lapsed client campaign to utilise and your current client and candidate campaigns; that will have you covered.
Social Media Campaigns
The final question here around campaigns is about social media.
It depends on your definition of a campaign, but you need to have social media promotion going out into the market to build brand awareness.
Because often, this is where people will come across you for the first time. It depends again on what market you’re in; for example, I know some people love Twitter because it works well for them.
At a minimum, I would suggest being on LinkedIn. I would also test out Instagram because it is growing well, and almost definitely, I would go onto Facebook too. Use these different options because all of those platforms will allow you to advertise on them too.
Now, the new kid on the block is Clubhouse. Yes, I even have a Clubhouse login and account, but I don’t know what the market is for recruiters there as it’s brand new. At the moment, it’s full of online marketers and entrepreneurs, so watch this space.
Remember that you need to prioritise what you’re doing as you don’t have an endless supply of time. When it comes to campaigns, have consistent social media going out daily, and you can do that in a campaign type of format.
Ready to Implement Campaigns of Your Own?
So, to recap, use direct mail for those key clients and think about if it’s worth investing some extra time and resources on additional collateral to send in the mail.
Use email campaigns consistently to engage with current clients and candidates, and utilise social media to run campaigns aimed at your followers.
Do you have client and candidate email campaigns ready to go? What about social media updates – are you regularly posting to keep your brand awareness up?
If you know you need to create some new fantastic campaigns but don’t know where to start, we can help. Our email marketing campaigns have been working for our clients successfully for years – click here for more information on how one of our email marketing campaigns could work for you.
Alternatively, if you need help creating a new marketing plan for your recruitment company that works and don’t know where to start, book a free no-obligation call with our marketing experts today; click here to book your call at a time that suits you.
This is Denise from Superfast Recruitment saying bye for now.
