Our partner Growth Recruits cover three of the key points to consider when creating a recruitment marketing plan.
An effective marketing strategy is one of the biggest components of a successful recruitment agency. In order to carve out a space in the industry, build a reputation that helps you stand out, and continue to grow your business with new clients and candidates, you’ll need a range of marketing efforts that promote your brand, attract the right people, and ensure your agency gets remembered by the people who engage with your content.
But where do you begin when it comes to marketing a recruitment agency? How do you decide what strategies to use and where to spend your budget? Which methods work best in the industry, and which are you better off avoiding?
This post is part of a series by our partner Growth Recruits, who share their specialist insight into marketing in the recruitment industry. It covers three of the key points to consider when creating a recruitment marketing plan.
Before you start generating ideas for PR campaigns or planning social media schedules, there are several important things you need to outline that will form the foundation of your recruitment agency marketing strategy.
First things first; identify your target audience.
This is hugely important if you want to produce marketing material that is going to have a tangible impact. If you don’t know who you’re targeting with your advertising, you’re going to produce bland and ineffective content that won’t catch anyone’s attention.
If you’re an agency that recruits in a specific industry sector, you’ll already have a pretty clear idea of the kind of clients and candidates you want to attract. For both sections of your target audience, identify the demographics in each of these and consider creating customer profiles so that you have a clear idea of the demographics you need to reach with your marketing content.
If your agency recruits across a range of industries then this task may take a little longer, as it will be harder to whittle down your audience into key demographics to target. It can be useful to analyse your existing clients and candidate data to identify the most common traits of your customer base and then create profiles from this that represent the people and businesses you want to target with your marketing.
As a recruitment agency, you will have two separate target audiences; potential clients and potential candidates. These two groups will have very different priorities when it comes to choosing a recruitment agency, so it’s important to identify who you’re targeting in both areas so that you produce marketing content that responds to these individual needs.
After gaining a clear understanding of who it is that you are trying to target with your recruitment agency marketing, the next step is to establish what it is that they want from your business.
The most effective way to do this is to determine their pain points; the problems that your recruitment services will solve.
Really effective marketing appeals to its intended audience because it clearly illustrates an issue or challenge that they can relate to and then offers a solution. To utilise this approach in your marketing content, you need to understand the common recruitment problems faced by your candidates and clients.
Whilst there may be a few universal issues, it is likely that different demographics within these groups will have different goals and therefore different pain points that stop them from reaching these goals. For each of the groups identified in your target audience in the previous stage, expand these customer profiles by listing common pain points for each.
The easiest way to establish the common issues faced by potential clients and candidates is to ask your existing customer base. If this isn’t possible, or you still feel that you are lacking enough information, you may also gain useful insight from speaking to other recruiters in your industry, reading content produced by the businesses you tend to work with, and staying up to date with the challenges faced by those in the job market.
Once you’ve identified pain points that your recruitment agency will be able to solve, you need to decide on the angle you’ll take to promote this solution.
You’re not going to make it very far as a recruitment agency if you don’t offer anything different from your competitors. If your services are already offered by someone else, why would a potential client or candidate choose you over them?
Finding an angle or a unique selling point is what will make a difference and ensure that there’s never a scenario where a competitor agency will be chosen over you. It also ensures that your agency is memorable and likely to stand out in the industry, which will help you attract more business and lead to greater conversions down the line.
Perhaps your agency recruits in a very specific area of a wider industry, meaning that you’re the top choice for niche businesses who work in that sector. Maybe your agency prioritises equal opportunities when hiring, and ensures that companies have a diverse team of employees. Or perhaps your recruitment strategy uses new technology or approaches that set you apart from your competitors and make you the best option for brands looking for a new approach to recruitment.
Without a unique angle, you’ll have nothing to support the argument that you’re the best choice for the candidates and clients you’re trying to attract. This USP needs to feature in all of your marketing material to make it more persuasive and ensure that your brand image is strong, so you can’t go forward with a marketing plan unless you know what makes you stand out from the crowd.
If you’re struggling to get started with marketing your recruitment agency, or want to talk to industry experts about some of the approaches outlined above, get in touch with our partners Growth Recruits and find out more about the services they offer.
In Part 2 of ‘How to Market a Recruitment Agency’ Growth Recruits will share actionable advice for some of the best approaches to marketing for recruitment agencies in 2022.
Growth Recruits are the ‘go to’ marketing partner for recruitment companies. Their vast industry experience enables recruitment companies to become more visible, attracting & engaging with candidates and clients through various marketing channels. Whether it’s driving traffic to your website through Website Design, SEO and Content Marketing, or converting your traffic into leads through best practice Email Marketing and Paid Social Media, their campaigns are proven to increase lead generation.
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