What you’ll learn:
- Why content marketing is more important than ever to recruitment and staffing agency competitiveness
- The five reasons why agencies should implement content marketing
- The basic “content marketing” tactics to employ in an effective program
Is your recruitment and staffing agency using content marketing in a consistent, integrated way to attract qualified job candidates – and even to capture new clients?
The unfortunate reality? A lot of recruitment and staffing firms don’t give content marketing as much weight in their self-promotion and outreach plans as they should. Why is this a problem? Because the lack of a strong content marketing program puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
Keeping pace in the race for candidates
What do we mean by a “competitive disadvantage”? Let’s start with the fact there’s an awful lot of competition out there in the recruitment and staffing agency space. There were over 12,500 firms in the segment at last count, and that’s just in the U.S.
That means you’re in a race – not just with LinkedIn or other job boards – to engage and retain the kind of top talent that you need to thrive in a job market where client organizations may be willing to pay a premium for the right hire.
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Let’s examine the five key reasons (and there are still more than that, believe us!) why a staffing firm or recruitment consultant ought to incorporate content marketing into their promotional planning.
1. To stay competitive with other recruitment & staffing agencies
More B2B and professional services businesses than ever are using content marketing to attract audiences. Yes, we said that a lot of recruitment and staffing agencies haven’t jumped on board yet. But there are more than a few that have – and they’re seeing results.
Just Google “recruitment blog” and see how many of the top links are from recruitment and staffing firms. How many of them might be your competitors for the kind of talent that you’d love to pass along to your clients? Try a Google search for your market segment or geographic region, and you’ll see links to content from staffing firms in that sector or region, too.
Why are they investing in content, especially content like blog posts and site SEO pages that are optimized for search? Because 70% of job seekers use Google to look for a new job. How do you rise in the rankings? By creating content that answers their questions and gives them the resources they’re looking for – satisfying their “search intent,” as Google terms it.
2. To cut your cost per candidate
The average cost per hire in the U.S. is about $4,000-4700. Of that a big chunk – 30% of the overall budget – gets spent on job boards. That’s a pretty sizable expense on a per-hire basis, and if you’ve had any experience with job boards? You know they’re not always a cost-effective means of locating the right candidates. If you can show potential clients you’ve got a more economical way to find those candidates, that’s a strong argument in your favor.
Deploying a good website, a regularly updated blog that’s relevant to your target audience, a social media campaign (even a free one among your own followers, if not pay-per-click on LinkedIn), and a newsletter will capture jobseekers and make them loyal – and entice them to apply for open positions or register with you as part of your talent pool.
Building that kind of following and using it to source talent is a really cost-effective method for finding good candidates. And that’s beyond the other brand-building benefits delivered by content marketing.
3. To capture not just candidates but new clients
By using content marketing, this can happen at least two ways:
- Indirectly by building your brand image and reputation as a top-tier firm, thanks to the great content you’re publishing and the candidates you attract. See our point above about how content marketing can help you demonstrate to clients that you’ve got a more streamlined and cost-effective alternative to spamming job boards.
- Directly by publishing content that’s relevant to organizational human resources and staffing teams, and that shows you’ve got insight into their challenges and ambitions. Here’s an example.
4. To improve the productivity of your sales team
Content marketing can improve the productivity and success of your sales reps in a few ways:
- Over time, it helps attract a pool of qualified candidates your sales team will be able to utilize in filling client openings.
- It gives them helpful information and education assets – Blog posts! Guides! Infographics! Videos! – they’re able to share with prospective clients and candidates.
- You can use content marketing to elevate the visibility and reputation of your sales team in social media, building goodwill and putting that oh-s0-important human face on your efforts to connect with candidates and companies.
5. To build reputation, trust, and leadership
“Thought leadership” is a key tenet of B2B content marketing. It’s vital to show you’re smarter, more expert, and more insightful than your competitors. A good recruitment content marketing program is a perfect way to accomplish it.
By publishing good, original content that demonstrates you’re a thought leader in your market, you’ll become a go-to resource for people. You’ll also rise in search rankings and become the kind of recognized trusted expert people and media seek out when they’re looking for an authoritative POV.
The caveat here? Don’t expect to get these results by pushing mediocre content out. Some of your competitors may rely on content they buy “off the shelf” from so-called content mills, or publish content simply for the sake of owning keywords, or otherwise publish craptent, not useful and interesting content. Google won’t reward you, and neither will your target audience, because they’ve already seen a ton of mediocre and repetitive content.
Reward your audience with great content, and they’ll reward you with great content marketing ROI.
Reward your audience with great content, and they’ll reward you with great content marketing ROI.
What assets work best for a recruitment content marketing program?
There are multiple types of content marketing assets that work extremely well for recruitment and staffing firms. Just as importantly, they work even better when they’re part of an integrated, multi-touchpoint content marketing program.
Just a single example? A blog post you just ran can be included in next month’s newsletter. And it can provide material to incorporate into a guide or eBook that candidates can download (as you capture their contact data). Plus, you can include a link to that post in your social media marketing efforts.
The key here? Don’t think of any content asset as being standalone: It should be leveraged so that it’s exposed to your target audience across multiple channels and touchpoints at multiple moments.
A recruitment content marketing program that’s committed to delivering quality content that’s got real value for candidates (and even corporate clients) will open up a big range of opportunities for your firm, and have positive bottom-line impact.
If you’ve got questions about how it can work for your firm, you should learn more by reaching out to a qualified team that’s got in-depth expertise in taking recruitment and staffing firms to the next level in content marketing.