Marketing Trends For The Recruitment Sector That Could Mean Massive Growth This Year

Today we’re discussing trends; and important trends that will mean massive growth for you if you just take some action on them. Often, people will look at B2B and B2C marketing principles and what will work in their business. The recruitment and staffing sector are unique because there are elements of both presents.

A couple of weeks ago, I recorded a podcast around why perhaps you’re not getting the candidate engagement and the candidate placements you want and how you can think about this and the marketing strategies you’re implementing now.

1.?????Marketing Planning

You’re probably asking yourself some questions. Where am I now? What am I doing? What are the results that I’m getting, and what might I need to do differently to make things truly work for me?

Start with consistency.?One of the things we work with our clients on in Superfast Circle is getting them to have a consistent marketing approach. Having a marketing plan where you plan each quarter makes things so much easier because once you have an area to focus on, it’s more likely to activate the things you need to do.

As we all know, with everything that has happened, the market is flipping around quite a lot currently. You get busy, you get a load of jobs in, you need to resource those jobs, and sometimes marketing takes a back seat. Then, of course, you get feast and famine again, and you realise you should have been doing some marketing. Whereas, if you have a consistent approach, that will make a huge difference. You can dial this in by creating a marketing plan with objectives so that you know what you’re going to be doing at different times and your approach – how you’re going to use marketing collateral and materials. When you have a plan, you’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes.

2.?????Invest in a Marketeer

Secondly, and I would suggest this to everyone listening to this podcast, if you have got the financial resource to do this, to invest in a marketeer. This person does not need to be full-time, but if you can have a full-time marketeer, that’s amazing. Where our clients in the Superfast Circle have a marketeer, they make a big difference for them.

It might be a marketing manager or a marketing exec, or it might be an administration person that wants to learn marketing. Incidentally, if you join our Superfast Circle, there is no additional fee for the two of you joining. You need somebody that is on it all the time because marketing is about creating demand. You need to be able to stand out above the crowd because everything changed last year.

People are looking at different suppliers. Maybe you’ve got candidates that you can’t get hold of. You need to make sure that you have everything dialled in to do the best that you possibly can. I know it’s quite classic for recruiters to think, “Oh, consultants pay their way, marketeers don’t pay their way.” You are wrong. Marketeers are worth a huge amount of revenue to your business in what they can do for you, the campaigns they can create and the strategy they can put in place. If you have not got a marketeer and you’re not thinking about it, then think again, my friend.

3.?????Client and candidate consultative selling

Number three is client and candidate consultative selling. Think about how you are approaching both clients and candidates with the way you are selling to them and how are your marketing materials changing? Just think about, “Okay, if we’re doing consultative selling, how are we going to do this? What materials do we need? What are the features and benefits that we need to deliver to our prospects? What are we going to do with these individuals?” Think about how you are going to pull that into your marketing and how it works.

4.?????Creating Connections

Number four is creating deeper connections across an organisation because if you don’t have multiple connections within an organisation, you will probably struggle. Think about having an account-based approach. When it comes to client acquisition, we often advise our clients to have an account-based approach so that they can have multiple contacts when running a campaign.

5.?????Human Networks

Think about your human networks. Referrals probably went off people’s radar last year, and they are very much back on people’s radars now. If you are not using referral campaigns to connect with a wider and broader reach of candidates, then this is something that you need to be considering? Who else do you know? Could you recommend someone to us? Which of your friends are looking to move? All of that can make a massive difference.

We recorded a podcast on logical reasons why you’re not attracting candidates. Have a listen to that because that will also give you some guidance on how your candidates have changed and need a better experience. If they’re getting a better experience from you, they will refer you to all their friends.

6.?????Marketing Automation

The other day, I was reading some data that 44% of organizations have some form of automation in their marketing. What’s fabulous in today’s market is that there is so much software that you can use at a pretty reasonable fee that will help you automate your marketing. For example, I am recording all these podcasts in a batch. We have a specific process that we go through with everything that we do, and these will all be lined up on the website, lined up in our email campaign, all automated, ready to drop.

Our podcasts go out on a Wednesday, and our emails go out on a Friday morning, and that all happens like clockwork because we have an automated system. We automate what we do. There are so many different things you can do. You may have downloaded a report from us, and you’re receiving emails from us at different points over a long period of time, and that is happening 24/7. I’ll have written those emails probably last year because they were relevant for you, and they’re adding value, but I did that once, and that’s been used time and time again.

How can you automate campaigns so that you always keep in touch with clients and candidates so that you are always front of mind?

7.?????Customer Delight

One of our clients recruits customer success managers for different organisations. Where before we’ve talked about the transactional sale in recruitment, people want an experience now. They want a better experience because they’ve had a better experience during the pandemic of different organisations in the different ways that they were serviced. Of course, you can do this in many ways. You can have chatbots or have a dedicated team member to ensure that your clients and candidates have resources and receive lots of TLC.

It makes a massive, massive difference. We’ve changed cars recently, and we used Cazoo, one of the new online car retailers. It feels very weird when you’re spending all that money online, but they have customer success managers. Where we live, we have this massive drive where you need to come down a steep drive.?It’s quite challenging. We didn’t think the Cazoo lorry would get it down there, so we went to the lovely Bishop Auckland to pick it up, and a customer success manager was waiting there for us. It was quite a positive experience.

Think about how could you do something like that. It would make a real impact with clients and candidates as you move forward. Just look at what some of the big boys are doing. What could your alternative be so that your clients and candidates would get a positive experience? Of course, lots of this can be delivered to your marketing campaigns too.

8.?????Value-based nurture campaigns

Number eight is value-based nurture campaigns. As many people are discovering now, there is a buyer’s cycle. We harp on about this a lot, and I will continue to do it because there are always new people joining all the time, but the buyer’s cycle identifies the fact that not everyone is ready to buy just yet. They need nurturing. They need to find out more about you. They want some value before they decide to work with you. This is where value-based nurture campaigns are key.

If you are struggling, whether it’s clients or candidates, create a nurture campaign. Over time, if people are being drip-fed your content and you’re adding value to them, they will experience you as an authentic recruiter, an individual or company that they could work with. All this, by the way, can be automated. We’ve talked about that in number six, alongside obviously the phone calls and the interaction you have.

If you’ve never experienced anything like that, go along to Superfast Recruitment, go and download one of our reports. Join one of our webinars, and you will experience emails, you’ll experience connections, you’ll experience us talking to you on LinkedIn. All these things will happen because you are then in our funnel. This is a long nurture because we know that not everyone will convert straight away; people will come to us when they’re ready. If you haven’t got a candidate and a client, and also a talent nurture sequence on a nurture campaign in place, make that a priority this year.

9.?????Video Marketing

We’ve had many conversations about this recently with our Superfast Circle members. There is no excuse now after all the Zoom and Team meetings we’ve all experienced not investing in or implementing video marketing. If you don’t like being on video, tough. I’m not as keen on being on video, but I do it because it’s my company, and I need to do it. People are more interested. Yes, some people are going to judge you, what the heck, who cares? Other people’s opinions are irrelevant to me.

Video marketing, for me, is important to get my message out and help my market. It will communicate your authentic brand. More and more people are doing LinkedIn Live, I’ve noticed. Get onto LinkedIn, get onto different platforms, be on your website, and communicate to your market. Video creates a different experience for people because they get to see you, they get to hear you, so they’re all the different modalities. People are impacted by the visual media, the audio sounds, and how they feel when you’re talking to them.

What’s great about video is that it can do all of these. People who are seeing you think, “Yes, they look like a professional outfit. I want to work with them,” and you will strike a connection up with them.

Here’s some data from Econsultancy. Did you know that 70% of B2B will watch a video on a service or from a service provider before they make that final decision? Video can be face-to-camera, or it could be screen capture. Some of you will have seen on our website or LinkedIn – I’ll be doing something, and you’ll see an instructional screen capture video. Whatever you do, get yourself on video.

10.?Social Media

I like to call it social media on steroids. We did a whole section at one of our virtual events recently on social media. Think about the buyer’s cycle. There are great pieces of software now out there that help you with your social media. Often this will be the first place that people come across you. It’s the first place they get to experience your recruiting and staffing brand. Sometimes it can turn them off, and sometimes it can turn them on, so think about your social media.

I was chatting to someone the other day about LinkedIn, and 80% of this particular individual’s leads came from LinkedIn. If you are leveraging LinkedIn not just as a sourcing tool but also as a way to elevate your brand and get it in front of people, that will make a massive difference to you and what you can achieve this year.

If you haven’t downloaded our Social Media report, go to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/smm. There’s a full report on how to leverage social media marketing.

11.?Podcasting

It’s fascinating how many people are now podcasting. I know a few people have whipped things from me, but I’m okay with that. We’ve had this podcast going for six years. I started doing it back in the day when podcasts weren’t as popular, and I have committed. I think I’ve only ever missed one or two podcasts. We normally do them every week. The only reason I’ve ever missed it has been when something happened at home, like a family death, or I’ve just been ill and not been able to speak.

Podcasts are a great medium. People listen to podcasts all the time, and again, podcast consumption shot through the roof last year. It’s a great way to interview people, elevate your brand and have a conversation. One of our clients interview all the key players in their market, and they get what’s known as the halo effect. They can track getting clients from their podcasts as well. Think about that. If you want some help with podcasts, then obviously talk to us. We have a training program on how to podcast as part of our Superfast Circle membership.

Think if that would work for you because one of the things about podcasts is that it is an easy way of making content. It’s much easier to set up than you realise. The equipment’s quite inexpensive, and it can make a great difference to your brand because you’re out on platforms like Spotify, Google Play and Apple, and you’re in front of more and more people.

12.?Artificial Intelligence

It would make such a massive difference if you can get data around people you can use in your marketing? There are so many platforms out there, e.g. Loxo and SourceBreaker. These different AI platforms can work in your marketing if you use them properly.

AI is the email marketing software you use or the social media automation software that you use. All of these can add to the impact that you can make with your brand.

13.?Paid Advertising

You will be used to using paid advertising when it comes to job boards, but what about Google AdWords? What about using Facebook advertising? What about retargeting and remarketing? You know when you’re searching online for that present for your significant other, and then it pops up everywhere you browse because you were targeted? What if you did that for you and your brand?

Imagine if someone visited your job page, and you could make your advert, maybe a nice, friendly video of you, appear in front of them; what a difference that would make. Think about paid advertising and how you can use that to market because that will be a trend. It’s not going away. It’s going to have more and more impact as time goes on.

?How We Can Help

We have?many clients on track for their best year ?ever because they implement what we teach and utilise the content and campaigns we give them. If you want a quick chat to see if what we do can work for you,?book your call and demonstration here.

Thanks,

Denise