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Today I want to talk about where you start if you haven’t done much marketing. I know the market has changed significantly in the past couple of years. Many recruiters have had their best year ever as they came out of COVID, yet things are starting to shift now.
Lead generation is on many people’s agendas as a key action item.
Interestingly, last week’s podcast went out to our subscribers– If you’re not subscribed, download one of our reports, and you’ll be able to get on our subscriber list.
I suggested that I might do a webinar on lead generation, and obviously, lead generation is different in our sector because we’re talking about candidates and we’re talking about clients. We’re also talking about talent for those who want to grow your team.
I was taken aback by how many responses I got, so that will happen. It’s probably going to be next month when that happens to get it all set up and everything else, so we’ve got that coming for you.
Our theme over the next few weeks is looking at some of the real pain points that you are going through at the moment and how we can help you from a marketing perspective.
Start With These 3 Key Areas of Focus
I want to give you three key focus areas to start your marketing today.
Always remember that marketing and sales are the growth engine of any business, and that’s where your focus should be. Marketing is about creating demand, and that’s demand for people at all parts of the buyer’s cycle.
Then once you’ve created that demand, you have a better chance of converting your contacts into clients who work with you and candidates you place.
The Gold Around Your Feet
Let’s start with the first area. I put this as number one because this is an area where you will get results incredibly fast, and that is the gold around your feet. Sometimes it’s referred to as low-hanging fruit. These are people, candidates, and clients, both past and present, that you’ve reached out to work in your organization. These are people that you are already in connection with.
Fact: A lot can happen in six months for many of us, and where an individual was in the past might not be where they are now, and this is a great strategy to use to re-engage with people. You can build a campaign around it and reach back out to them.
Remember last week’s podcast– If this is the first podcast you’ve listened to, go back to last week’s podcast, where I talk about working with those connected individuals.
If you have a database, you can filter people with whom you have not had a conversation within the past six months, and please, don’t let your crazy primitive brain jump in and say, “Oh no, they won’t be interested.”
You do not know whether they wouldn’t be interested. This is the first area I would look at, a list of clients and a list of candidates, and I would get in contact with them.
Now, whether you use an automated email campaign, something we do with our Superfast Circle clients, or you, depending on how many you’ve got, you start to do a ring round, or you go onto LinkedIn and reach out to them.
Whatever it is, do that and start conversing with these individuals. That will throw up many people that you can begin to talk to who are probably interested in what you have now. Be that a candidate or be that a client.
I remember a few years ago, we were working with a particular client, we were looking at this strategy with him, and he pulled up a list of whom he thought his team had been in contact with
He got, I think, a couple of hundred people, and he said, “Next time we meet, I’ll tell you how this goes.” Anyway, he’d started to go through the process with his team, and when we next had a conversation with him, he was very miffed; He used a different word, but we’ll say he was very annoyed.
Why?
Because he had found out several candidates had gone and worked with another recruitment company to get their next role, they hadn’t returned to this particular company’s brand. They’d gone elsewhere because his team hadn’t had regular contact with them.
Remember that doing this is a first start when you haven’t done a lot of marketing, but it’s something really to dial into your marketing campaigns. You should be doing it consistently because with the market the way it is, people are crazily being made redundant, and there might be some amazing candidates now on the market.
Clients are also in a situation where they might lose somebody because somebody has made them a better offer. Then suddenly, they need that role backfilling, so remember that is a great way to start, and this should be a campaign that you always consistently run. Remember, the gold around your feet will make a massive difference.
Identify Who You Want To Work With
The second thing is, who are you working with currently? Have you identified the ideal candidate and client you want to work with?
This is foundational work regarding marketing and something to spend time on to get it right while leveraging the low-hanging fruit and the gold around your feet.
At the end of last year, we had several conversations with companies who said, “We want to be working with companies on bigger roles because we should be doing that. We’ve got so much experience.” If that’s the case, you might need to shift your focus on what companies you’re working with, so make that identification.
I’m sure that at the end of last year, you reviewed where you’re spending your time, what companies you’re working with, and which candidates work best with you.
Use that information as you build campaigns around who you want to work with as companies, candidates, and clients.
Once you’ve got that sense of who you’re working with, it’s easier to focus on where to direct your energy. For instance, many of you may have Sales Navigator or Recruiter; from here, you can pull a list of those companies and individuals.
Let’s say you now want to work with companies with over 50 employees in a certain geography. You can go into Sales Navigator and pull a list of those people, some of whom you might already be connected to, and then reach out to them.
Getting Out On Social
Now, with that new knowledge, number three is about getting out on social. Social media is a gem, as it is one of the easiest ways to consistently get in front of your market to demonstrate who you are, how you can help people, and your professionalism and expertise as a recruiter.
Depending on which sector you’re in, LinkedIn might be the platform for you; for others, it might be LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, but think about your social channels and start posting consistently on social.
One client, when he first started working with us, when we talked about the gold around your feet, he noticed that he got a lot of business back from his past clients because suddenly they said, “Oh, I’ve seen you again. I wondered what had happened to you. I’ve not seen you for ages,” because he was posting on social.
So, for easy wins, start doing that now.
If you want an experience of the style of content to post on LinkedIn, follow us on LinkedIn
It’s Deniseoyston and Sharon Newey. If you’re a recruitment business owner or marketer, come and connect with us, and I will accept your connection request and then ring the bell on our profiles. You will then be notified when we post so you can experience what to post.
Because you’ll see that once you’re out on social media, you can brand yourself and your organization and share great content demonstrating your expertise.
For many of you I know have thousands of followers. If you get back in front of those followers, they will appreciate you and see you, which will make a difference.
Those are three easy things you can be doing when you’ve not done much marketing,
Yes, there are lots of other things you can do. I’m going to talk about email in the future, and we’ve got a webinar on that website that you can go and sign up for if you look at the downloads bar at the top. Here is a link that will help.
There you have three very straightforward ideas that work and will work for you and your organization.
This is Denise saying bye for now, and I’ll see you next week.
Thanks
Denise.
P.S. We share multiple ways to market your recruitment company, starting from scratch by helping you build your 90-day plan and providing you with all the content resources you need. Book a quick call with one of us here to find out more.
