With the increased emphasis on technology and our reliance on the Internet, it is extremely important to evaluate your staffing firm’s marketing strategy plan. MarketingStrategyDoes your current plan include a social media component or a mobile recruiting app? Are you spreading brand awareness and building your SEO by posting a weekly blog? In order to effectively market yourself to your target audience, you must consider these important marketing strategy trends for staffing firms.

Invest in Your Brand
Take the time to evaluate your staffing firm’s brand image and company logo. Do you like what you see? Be honest and use the feedback constructively to improve areas where you are lacking. Your brand must communicate what differentiates you from other staffing firms as well as your track record and reputation within the industry. Invest in your brand recognition by ensuring that prospective candidates are able to easily locate your website online and create a sophisticated social media marketing campaign to get people talking about your staffing firm.

Responsive Design
Mobile devices are everywhere and sticking your head in the sand to dodge the ‘responsive site’ bullet is no longer an option. If your website is not designed to be viewed on phones and other types of mobile technologies, you should be creating a comprehensive mobile recruiting strategy right now. One of the most important marketing strategy trends for staffing firms is the concept of responsive websites that integrate online expense reporting and timesheet submission options. Thanks to today’s busy millennials, recruiting apps that allow candidates to apply directly from their mobile devices are also gaining popularity. Websites that are not mobile-friendly are prone to increased bounce rates, so do your search engine optimization (SEO) a favor and design a responsive website.

Give Them What They Want
Today’s candidates are doing much of their job research on the go, so respond to that demand by ensuring your site is simple and easy to navigate. Make sure your staffing firm stands out from the crowd by coming up with a creative website design. Take a look at your current job board. Does it contain relevant information that is presented in a professional way, or are there typos and other errors that make the job descriptions difficult to understand? In order to attract the attention of new clients and candidates, develop high-quality content and post it to your site and social media platforms on a regular basis. Content marketing allows you to establish your staffing firm as an authority in your area of expertise and gain the trust of your target audience. Due to the increasing popularity of video sharing sites, don’t forget to incorporate video content marketing into your overall strategy plans.

Location-Based Content
A location-based content marketing strategy is another important marketing strategy trend for staffing firms. If you are confident that your staffing firm is providing quality service and your clients and candidates are telling you this is the case, don’t be afraid to ask them to post an online referral for your business. Before scheduling that first meeting, most potential candidates are looking at sites such as, Glassdoor, Foursquare and Yelp, to see what kinds of experiences other candidates have had with your staffing firm. Online reviews and personal recommendations are important pieces of your marketing strategy that increase the likelihood of potential candidates seeking out your firm. No matter how uncomfortable you may be asking people to write complimentary reviews about your staffing firm, remember that their recommendations increase your company’s search engine optimization (SEO) results and help to promote engagement with potential clients and candidates.

Strive for Customer Service Excellence
It may seem obvious to state this, but great customer service is the best form of marketing out there. Amazing marketing campaigns are bound to fail if your staffing firm is unable to deliver exceptional customer service to both existing and potential clients and candidates. Make sure that your team is providing timely follow-up to clients and candidates. Assign responsibilities for monitoring your company’s social media platforms to guarantee immediate online feedback to requests or comments. Capturing the attention of your target audience is only the first part of the marketing strategy challenge. Building long-term relationships must be your goal.

Important Marketing Strategy Trends Takeaways:

  1. Evaluate your current brand and logo to decide if changes are needed
  2. If you don’t already have one, a responsive website is required in today’s mobile-friendly world
  3. Create quality content and deliver it in a format that is easy to access
  4. Use location-based marketing to ensure potential clients and candidates know about your staffing firm
  5. Make sure your customer service is exception in order to ensure both repeat and new business

About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations.