Marketing Strategy Archives - Superfast Recruitment

Today we are talking about marketing systems and what you need in your recruitment and

We’ve just come off the back of Recruitment Marketing Week at the end of last month and had a lot of positive feedback.

Potentially, we will run it again later on in the year, definitely after the summer, because I think people found a lot of value in it.

One of the things that came out of the five days that we spent with, I think it was just the best part of nearly 100 people, is what systems do I need?

Now, we have done a deep dive into all the different elements. I thought it would be a good idea to record this podcast today and share with you seven marketing systems that you need to have in your business if you want to be successful if you want to maintain the clients and the candidates that you’ve already got and if you’d like to make more placements.

Let me go through all of these each in turn.

I want to start with what is critical: creating a marketing system to I.D. the right clients and candidates you want to work with.

One of the questions we often have for clients when they start working with us relates to data.

Sometimes people haven’t done the math related to their numbers.

What they’re hoping to achieve from the candidates they want to place is probably not going to happen because; the data does not add up. They want to deliver deals that are not going to happen with the current clients and candidates they are working with

The first thing you need to do is have some form of a system so that you can identify the best clients for us to work with and the candidates we want to place.

Now, you’ll have heard us talk in the past about your ideal client avatar, your ideal candidate avatar. If you are listening to this on the Superfast Recruitment website, go onto the blog and put in the search bar “avatar.” I know I’ve recorded several podcasts on that, which will help.

That’s the first thing you need to do because if you are marketing, you want to create demand. The important thing is creating demand with the right people. It’s about having a system to identify that, which is number one. You’ve got the right people then, so you’ve got the right type of companies you want to target, the right candidates.

The second thing is you must have a process for establishing your authority and credibility in the market. This is something where many people miss out on the opportunity building a brand presence, can bring.

This big chunky bit of marketing starts the whole process moving.

Some of the things that we’re talking about are, firstly, your brand and how you stand out in the marketplace, how you capture attention, how you continue to grab attention, and how you become the authority because when you work in the recruitment sector, you are working in a B2B environment.

I know you work with candidates, so it’s slightly different. However, you are working in a space where you have to establish authority and credibility because when it comes to recruitment, and for many B2B services we’re a B2B service as well, you have to build a much higher level of trust with potential clients before they say yes.

Now I can go onto Amazon. I went onto Amazon the other day. We were looking for one of these robot hoovers. Our nephew suggested it might be a good idea for us to get a robot, Hoover.

Off-topic fact, and do you realise you can get robot hoovers that will mop the floor as well? How amazing is that?

We’re probably not going to do a huge amount of research; we will look at a couple of reviews, I’m sure we’ll look at the price point, and then we’ll click purchase.

It’s different when you’re talking about human capital because we don’t do that. We think a lot more before we start working with another service supplier. That is why establishing your authority and your credibility is key.

The good news is that in today’s marketplace, as a small business owner, you can compete online if you are a micro-business or you’re a small S.M.E. The internet, the Googles have made that more than possible for you, whereas maybe in the past, it wasn’t quite as easy to get in front of your clients.

You are listening to a podcast. We do not pay to promote this podcast at all. There isn’t any paid advertising around it currently. Yet you come, and you listen to this every week. Many of our clients listen to this; for many people, that’s the first place they found us.

On top of that, you’ve got every social channel on the planet. You’ve got LinkedIn that doesn’t pay you to be a member. You have Facebook, Instagram, and all of these places you can get your message out in front of your customer.

You can write blog content, our Superfast Circle of clients, and get their content from us. You can write blog content; you can put it onto your website. People can find you; you can demonstrate your expertise. You can upload information to LinkedIn. All of this is going to establish your authority and credibility.

You can write a report, and that report, someone can give you their name and then give you their email address. We’ll come onto that in the next system later on.

You’ve got all these different things that can establish you as an individual who knows and understands hiring and the sector.

That is a system you must have because consistency was one of the challenges many people talked about last week on Recruitment Marketing Week, and they know that sometimes they weren’t as consistent as they could have been. That’s because sometimes they weren’t sure what to do.

Consistency is key. If you actually can nail this around being credible and being out in front of your environment– When I say your environment, your business environment, your candidates, and clients make a massive difference.

Next is creating a lead generation system. If you haven’t watched our on-demand training, you can access it here.

How are you going to attract these leads? Where are you going to get them from?

You can mine multiple places, including your own database and every social channel. A task for you go and access this free training where we give away the system our clients use.

The lead generation triad.

Number 4, and I know this sounds probably a bit different, but this is your sales system because you’re thinking, “I thought we were talking about marketing here, Denise.”

Yes, we are, but marketing and sales work together. Remember that when creating leads, what’s the next step in the process? Then you have to convert these leads.

Of course, as we know, unfortunately, people rarely say yes straight away.

That is why you need a sales system. If you haven’t listened to the last podcast, number 387, which is around follow-up, then you need to have a sales system so that your consultant, and maybe you, can follow up with people consistently.

That will create your sales system that uses marketing collateral to help them convert.

Now, number 5 is you need a client onboarding and a candidate onboarding process. As recruiters, you all know when onboarding goes awry, often when a candidate doesn’t stay in a job or a client comes back to you and doesn’t like the candidate.

The fact is that onboarding is key to your candidates and clients getting the best results out of your service.

Imagine that you have a candidate that’s uploaded their CV, nothing happens, or their resume. They’ve put the name and email address into your webpage and uploaded the document; they don’t hear anything, crickets, or even get an email.

Maybe they get an email acknowledging, “We will be back to you should your CV or resume fit any opportunity. If you haven’t heard back from us the next month, assume it doesn’t–”

I’m sorry, that is outrageous to be doing that when you have so many other options.

I know we’re all busy, but it doesn’t take much to set up a system so that people get a bit of T.L.C. and feel good about the process.

Even if they don’t get a role with you, they still talk to friends about, “Do you know what? Acme Recruitment was amazing. I didn’t get the job, but oh, the process I went through, and they gave me lots of help and support.”

It’s the same with clients. When a client comes on board– You know what it’s like when you’re a client, and they’ve contacted you, maybe you’re on a contingency basis with them. They’ve given you a job, but then they start thinking, “Do you know what?

I’m not getting much conversation here. Nothing’s happening; nobody’s getting in contact with me. I think I might also give this to another recruiter and see how that works.”

These examples happen consistently when you have not created a system related to working with candidates and clients.

Next one number 6. This is all about upselling and outreaching your current clients and candidates because who knew that these individuals might know many other people? It might be that you’ve got, in the nicest possible way, a foot in the door with a particular company.

What if one of the M.D.s or one of the directors happens to know somebody else in another division that you could also help?

Think about what you will do about upselling all the different elements of your service and how you will use this with the people you are with so they continue working with you. I’ve already alluded to it around the client and candidate onboarding, but how will they continue to work with you for the longer term? What marketing, what continual demand experience can they have from you as well?

Then the final one is you need a system for measuring your actions. Now, depending on how new you are to marketing or how long you’ve been doing it, I think starting with your input is good.

We were talking with one of our Superfast Circle clients about inputs. She wanted to measure some different things, and we were giving her some input suggestions.

You need to create a marketing system around that, so you can analyse all your hard work because this isn’t about beating yourself up emotionally; this is about data.

We don’t want drama; we want data.

We want to look at the data and think, “Is this up? Is this down? If it’s down, I wonder why it’s down. I wonder what part of the process we might have dropped the ball on.”

There are no guilty feelings here. It’s about, “What have I done right, or what else could I have done?

I remember we had a landing page earlier this year, and it was like we were getting people to the landing page, but when they got to the landing page, things were going awry. The number of people that normally put their name and email address on the landing page was much lower than normal.

When I checked the landing page, some of the copy was wrong. We changed the copy around. We removed some of the copy and added some slightly different things. I think we added a new colour and a bigger button.

I know, crazy. A bigger button. That made a big difference.

Sometimes it’s asking the uncomfortable question; “Are we doing enough?” I know I was talking to another client about the recent shifting market. If you look at cold outreach, which works incredibly well, you still need to do more than you used to do.

There you have seven marketing systems that will make your marketing work better.

You need to be able to identify who’s your ideal client and candidate; then, you can create your messaging around that. You need to establish your authority and credibility as the go-to person in the market.

Number 3, get your lead generation, and qualification system dialed in.

Then you need your sales system, which will include marketing collateral because, remember, very few people say yes, the first time you talk to them. Client and candidate onboarding make that work, and then we’ve also got upselling, creating more demand and referral, and measurement.

Thanks,

Denise

As part of Superfast Circle, we help our clients design and develop marketing systems for their businesses and provide all the collateral they need.

If you want to find out how we can help you stand out and deliver more move-ready candidates and job-ready meetings, then book a quick call with us here.

The post 7 Marketing Systems Every Recruitment Company Needs appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

This week, we’re continuing our series on how to leverage your recruitment website.

We’ve talked about your About Us page and your homepage, and this week, I want to talk about your blog; And how that can truly build your business in a way that many people don’t appreciate.

Your blog can be a great source of lead generation, which is a continual challenge for recruiters across the globe.

[If you haven’t accessed our Lead Generation training which is now available on demand, you can grab the recording here.]

Blogging has proven to be a highly effective strategy for B2B businesses. Here are several key pieces of data and evidence that show the impact of maintaining a business blog:

According to a HubSpot survey, companies that blog receive 55% more website visitors than those that don’t. Blogs act as additional indexed pages on a company’s website, which boosts its visibility and SEO performance.

The same HubSpot report found that B2B companies that blog generate 67% more monthly leads than those that do not. Blogs provide a venue for businesses to demonstrate their expertise and provide value, which fosters trust and encourages potential clients to engage further.

A study by Demand Gen Report found that 47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. This means that a blog can be vital to establishing trust and authority with potential customers before they ever make contact.

A report by HubSpot showed that 1 in 10 blog posts are compounding, meaning organic search increases their traffic over time. Well-crafted blog posts can attract new visitors months or even years after publication.

Blogs provide fresh content that can be shared on social media, which can help increase a business’s reach and visibility. According to the Content Marketing Institute, LinkedIn is especially effective for B2B marketers, with 97% using the platform to distribute content.

Remember that for a blog to be effective, it needs to be updated regularly with high-quality content that’s relevant to your target audience. Simply having a blog isn’t enough — it must be a key part of your overall content marketing strategy.

Thanks

Denise

As part of Superfast Circle, you get access to all the blog content you need as a small recruitment business. Would you like to know more? Then book a quick demo with one of us here.

The post Recruitment Websites 101: Business Blogging To Build Your Business appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

Miles and Sharon discuss the importance of maximizing client potential in this podcast conversation. Miles shares some of the strategies he implements with his clients as part of their growth plans.

He explains the importance of:

As the co-founder of a recruitment company specializing in using a non-biased process in the sporting world, Miles talks about how organizations are pressured to increase diversity and must start conversing with clients about what they are doing to bring about change.

He explains that smaller clients are feeling pressure from more prominent organizations in the supply chain and how companies must differentiate themselves and find clients receptive to their messaging.

To stand out in a market such as recruitment can be challenging.

There is, however, an opportunity and huge potential to become a go-to recruitment company and ideal partner for clients and candidates.

Miles and Sharon discuss the need for business owners to understand their ideal clients and invest time and effort in those relationships.

Miles suggests: “Having mutual respect and finding clients with the same values is essential. Companies need to invest in themselves and their value propositions, explore new geographies and sectors, and find ways to facilitate a better recruitment process”.

If you want to grow and scale your recruitment company or know how to capitalize and maximize your client’s potential, listen in as Miles reveals what’s working today.

You can get in touch with Miles  here

Miles discusses the importance of managing change effectively and avoiding overstretching oneself in this conversation. He emphasizes the need to delegate effectively, empower others in the organization, and surround yourself with a great team. Miles also highlights the importance of choosing partners carefully, taking time to go through change, and doing things with real purpose and conviction. He uses the analogy of climbing a mountain with Sherpas to illustrate the importance of having a great team and treating a business with respect.

Miles offers valuable advice for business owners and leaders to successfully navigate change, delegate effectively, and build a great team to achieve their goals.

Thanks,

Denise and Sharon

The post Maximizing Client Revenue Miles Lloyd Expert Interview appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.

SEO was ‘THE’ thing companies wanted ten years ago. Then Google went off the wall with multiple updates and challenges to the SEO community and the shift in focus for many moved to social media.

And now more SEO conversations are happening again as companies look for different ways to stand out in their market as we all use Google as our answer to any service or product-related question we have.

So, let’s talk about SEO and what you need to consider in the recruitment space.

According to the most recent data from February this year, there are approaching two billion websites, though they aren’t all active; Surprisingly less than twenty per cent are

Remember websites are full of pages and according to Tilburg University’s research, there are nearly 5 billion active web pages now online.

Of course, they aren’t all recruitment websites though it gives you an idea of the competition to have your page and websites rank above all others.

The argument as to whether recruitment and staffing companies should use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a complex one with valid points on all sides.

On one hand, SEO makes your website more visible and therefore easier for potential clients and candidates to find you online.

Yet SEO isn’t easy.

While it can increase visibility and bring in more leads, it can also be a huge challenge for smaller companies to stand out.

Let me give you an example.

I have just Googled Engineering Jobs and page one is dominated by adverts from Total Jobs, Google Jobs, Indeed, Reed, and CV Library.

There were also another 1,820,000,000 search results displayed with that term

Ummm……. Competitive, isn’t it?

All huge players with a budget much bigger than yours who you just can’t compete with.

Making sure your website is found when people search for your company is step one and that you have content related to recruitment hiring and careers in the sector you serve will help your website appear are key steps.

So, here are several things you can do to improve your chance of getting found online. 

Make sure your website is user-friendly and optimized for search engines. This includes having a clear structure, and well-written content that has relevant keywords added on every page.

Some navigation bars are confusing. Make it very easy for people to find what they want and have a clear value proposition front and centre on your home page; so, when people land on your page they stay; something Google monitors.

Your website should also load quickly and be mobile-friendly, as more people are accessing the web from their mobile devices. User experience is everything.

Fact: Candidates are searching for jobs and content to help them either build their careers or help them get an interview.

Clients are looking for ideas on building teams and searching for specific recruiters who can help them find candidates.

Make sure on your website you have specific words and phrases on pages that will help. This is why it is so useful to have a blog on your website. The more pages you have, the more chances you have of your website and all its pages being found online.

Whoever builds your recruitment website needs to have a way for you to add relevant keywords and phrases because this is how Google can find you in the first place.

Let me clarify.

Imagine having a filing cabinet with multiple folders. To find what you are looking for each folder needs to be labeled correctly. If every folder says ‘folder’ it’s hard to find what you are looking for, logical right?

Yet I still see many websites online and the home page is called ‘home page’ rather than the company name.

For instance.

Acme Recruitment |Engineering Jobs in Carlisle

Is a much more descriptive phrase that says what the page is about and more likely to be ranked by Google and be found by your candidates and clients than, ‘home page’.

If you run a local recruitment company, it’s essential to optimize your site for local search results. This can be done by creating a Google My Business page, adding your business to local directories, and using location-specific keywords.

I shared an example before about engineering jobs. Be more specific and optimize (add words and phrases) with local words. For example, engineering jobs in Carlisle.

Outsourcing SEO? As a micro or small SME recruitment company, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Head over to Google and tap in a few classic keywords into the Google incognito window which gives you a true indication of the competition you will have.

Of course, make sure you leverage Google Jobs so your roles appear and get as many Google reviews as you can.

The truth is you don’t have the budget of Total Jobs or Indeed.

A good SEO company’s fees start in the thousands, and it will take time. There are so many other things you can do with that money.

Plus, so many other ways you can improve SEO on your website yourself.

Thanks

Denise

P.S. Have you checked out Superfast Circle? As part of your membership, we share several strategies that will help you make more placements. To find out more book a call with us here.

The post Recruitment Marketing Questions: To SEO or Not To SEO ? appeared first on Superfast Recruitment.