The clients you already have aren’t enough to help you grow your business.
Referrals are powerful, but they’re also not going to bring in the number of leads you need.
So you want to increase your visibility in the recruitment space through inbound marketing. And that’s a brilliant idea.
When looking for recruitment help, 68% of your target clients are researching on Google and getting recommendations from social media and friends long before they decide to reach out to you or another recruiter.
And if you’re not getting on their radar to provide value to them through inbound marketing, there’s no way they will reach out to you.
There’s a lot of information on how to do inbound marketing. And it is hard to know what you need to focus on and what you need to ignore. If this has left you stuck before, here’s are the inbound marketing techniques you need to focus on in 2021 and beyond.
1. Publish high-quality content
If you’ve been publishing content on your blog and no one reads or shares it, you need to do more. 76.3 million blog posts are going live each month. To stand out, you need to publish better content than anyone else in your space.
Besides, Google wants to serve its users with relevant answers to the questions they ask. And if your content does not provide these answers, you don’t stand a chance at ranking on page one or anywhere close.
Publishing high-quality content requires you to identify the problems that your target clients are struggling with then provide solutions to them.
For example, let’s say you’re a recruiter in the telecommunications industry and your audience frequently asks what are the best office phone systems to use:
My advice? Create a long-form blog post of 2,000+ words. Then, answer your audience’s burning questions, complete with recommendations:
Just remember that high-quality content is complete with subsections, images, and detailed information. Case in point, this Hawaii travel guide from Adventure For Less:
As you write, include relevant and specific solutions to these problems. Don’t worry about the length. In fact, the longer your content is, the better… Remember how I said to aim for 2,000+ words?
Not only does Google favor longer-form content, but so will your audience.
Secondly, you need to make time and write. Sitting down to write while you have other tasks you need to focus on is hard. And that makes content mills seem like a viable option.
After all, you know what your readers want to read, so getting someone to do it makes work easier, right? Wrong.
Codeless tested this option by hiring writers from five different content mills, and here’s the quality of content they got:
Given that content mills won’t help you do better, the ball is back in your court. You don’t have to publish every other day – once or twice a week will do.
If you do this consistently, your readers will notice and start visiting your blog often.
Google will notice and reward you with better rankings leading to even more readers for the content you publish, increasing your number of potential recruits.
2. Create irresistible lead magnets
Solving your reader's problems involves more than just providing them with the information they are looking for. You shouldn't let them walk away without the tools they need to implement what they learned.
Take this blog post, for instance:
Supposing a recruiter reads and implements the methods that the author suggests to find potential candidates, what would they need to move forward with the hiring process?
My best guess would be: knowing the exact questions they need to ask these candidates to find the best one. And that’s exactly what the blog has offered as a lead magnet. Take a look:
Once the reader sees this, they're likely to think, "I'll need this to help me save time by asking the right questions," then sign up to get these questions.
And just to be clear, this is not a lead magnet:
No one wakes up in the morning looking forward to staying in the loop or receive a weekly newsletter. Your readers want specific tools to help solve their problems.
So that means that your lead magnet should do one or more of the following:
- Make a specific promise that will solve their problems, e.g., a guide on how to implement what they learned
- Give a specific example to prove that your service works just as you say it does, e.g., a case study
- Offer a specific shortcut that blows their minds, e.g., a checklist
- Answer a specific question they have, e.g., a special report
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and try something like Lyfe Accounting did below for their tax preparation services lead magnet:
As you can see, this one is aimed more at those ready to take action yesterday by asking them qualifying questions such as their annual revenue.
Not only that, but they capture the prospective client’s email address and phone number right then and there.
That way, you know only serious inquiries will be filling out that form.
Providing recruitees with enticing lead magnets that feature exclusive information about the company can generate buzz and increase interview opportunities.If it is created and set-up by using a conversion driven tool, like Kartra, the results be even more enticing.
3. Nurture your prospects
According to Venngage, 90% of marketers struggle with lead generation. And among the reasons they found out in their study, lack of sufficient follow-up stands out like a sore thumb.
Why? Because following up with prospects is hard.
Other than delivering the lead magnet a prospect signed up for, what else should you tell them?
How do you keep the conversation going without being too sales-y and turn them off? ‘
For how long will you send them emails until they are ready to use your services?
These are tough questions without clear-cut answers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about it.
For instance, as you deliver the lead magnet a prospect signed up for, use this as an opportunity to introduce yourself through email.
Let them know what they stand to gain from being a subscriber.
And this is easier when using an email template instead of having to write these emails from scratch, which you can also do right in gmail:
If you have a lot on your plate, I highly recommend using a project management tool like Monday or Trello where you have your templates housed and block out certain times to mass send emails.
Being organized and having a system will only help your efforts and increase your response rates.
Just don’t forget to use a proven template to help you make a good first impression, as winging it rarely proves effective.
The next thing you should do is write more follow-up emails to continue the conversation.
For instance, let them know when you’ll be sending relevant content to them and that you’re open to answering any questions they have.
This ties back to the last two points about publishing valuable content.
Let’s say your firm just went through a data breach and you have a lot of knowledge about using private internet access to protect data and confidential information…
Publish a blog post about VPN recommendations like this one below and then send that post out in a follow-up email to your list:
Remember, everything doesn’t have to be strictly about recruiting.
You can share any type of content that is relevant to your audience and the problems they face.
Over time you'll win their trust with this strategy, and once they're ready to work with you, you'll be the first person they will reach out to.
4. Diversify your brand
Starting a new blog for your brand allows you to build an audience that prefers reading online content.
On the other hand, starting a podcast or Youtube channel allows you to reach out to a broader audience: one that prefers listening to and/or watching audio content.
Results from a survey by Statista reveals that 32% of adults tuned in to listen to a podcast in the past month, while two billion users log into Youtube monthly…
And weekly consumption is only growing on both channels.
In addition to reaching a wider audience, having a podcast or Youtube channel helps you maximize the content you already have, especially if your blog readers love it.
You won’t get stuck wondering what to talk about, just use what is already working.
Take some of your best-performing blog content and convert it into a podcast episode or Youtube video, and vice versa.
Another suggestion? Start by identifying five to seven top recruitment podcasts and listen to them.
Note down the popular topics and see if you can provide unique insights on each of them.
Reach out to the podcast host asking to appear as a guest.
Being a guest on other podcasts helps you build credibility. Besides, you’re also building an audience that will be listening to your shows once you start your podcast.
With major brands going the podcasting route, it’s time to create meaningful audio that will excite potential employees to work for you.
5. Leverage influencer marketing
Do you ever wonder how a fellow recruiter, one you never knew or even heard of, becomes popular all of the sudden?
He/she is all over the place, and a day or two can’t pass without hearing about them. And almost overnight, this recruiter becomes the go-to person for all issues related to recruitment.
It’s annoying because deep down, you know that you can do a similar (or better) job than them. What’s their secret?
When a fellow recruiter becomes this popular, something is going on behind the scenes… Meet influencer marketing.
But just creating and sharing content and hoping that an influencer will notice and share it with their audience doesn’t work.
You need to start an influencer marketing campaign to help you get in front of your target clients.
This doesn’t mean buying thousands of followers, which is costing brands over $1.3 billion annually.
I’m talking about an authentic influencer campaign…
Because a good influencer marketing campaign will help boost your credibility and authority.
You’ll get more interview invitations on podcasts, blogs, and expert roundups.
This will lead to more inbound links to your blog and, consequently, more traffic and leads who will visit your career pages.
6. Use dedicated landing pages
Your target clients have different needs, and, to meet them, you need to tailor the solutions you provide to align with their needs.
That’s the only way you’re going to earn their trust to get their contact information or even convince them to do business with you.
When creating landing pages, make sure that they speak to a specific segment, and that it talks about their needs. The more the landing pages you have, the better.
Research by Hubspot reveals that an increase of landing pages from 10-15 leads to a 55% increase in the number of leads you get.
Take a look at how Smash Digital personalizes their landing page for each of the services they offer:
Here’s their landing page for their SEO audits:
And here’s another for their link building services, which is usually an add on from SEO:
So, let’s say you’re targeting people looking for sales or marketing jobs.
To create relevant landing pages for each segment, you’ll need to create buyer personas for each.
Each of these personas will guide you on the tone, choice of words, and testimonials you’ll use to speak to each segment.
By creating multiple different Recruitee segments, you speak to a more precise audience and deliver the right recruiting message at the right time.
Conclusion
Inbound marketing is neither easy nor is it for the faint-hearted. To get hold of your prospects’ attention until they are ready to buy from you, you’ll need to be consistent and patient. The same is true with recruiting – these tactics take time but are worth it in the end.
Some of the techniques we’ve talked about here aren’t new to you. However, to get ahead of 90% of your competitors, you need to take action now.
Go through the post once more and identify ONE technique you want to apply to your recruiting practices today.
If you commit yourself to implement it for the next 90 days, you’ll attract more leads to your business, and ultimately, more recruits.
So what are you waiting for?
Guest post by:
Adam Enfroy writes about how to scale your blog like a startup to 150,000 monthly readers at www.adamenfroy.com. He launched his blog in 2019 and started generating over $35,000/month in revenue within 9 months. He wants to teach new bloggers how to start a blog and do the same.
