Does this situation sound familiar? The owner of your company comes to you and says he is talking to a digital marketing agency. As an internal marketer, your gut reaction is probably one of the following:  

Oh no! They’re probably going to fire me!  

Aren’t I doing my job well enough? 

Why would they need a digital agency when they have me?  

Related Post: Why Recruiting Firms Should Hire a Digital Marketing Agency that Specializes in the Recruiting Industry ➢

Wide-Ranging Industry Expertise 

No one is an expert at everything. It’s impossible. If you’re the sole marketer or have a limited marketing team there is no way you’re an expert in design, paid advertising, writing content, and email marketing. There is too much to know, especially when the market is always evolving. By partnering with an agency, you can maximize your team’s time and play to your strengths. 

First, you can offload tasks that aren’t in your wheelhouse so you can focus on your strengths. You get job satisfaction in focusing on your core competencies, and your superiors see you excelling and getting real results.  

Also, as a generalist, you probably want to learn more about each area of marketing over time so that you can continue to develop your career. Use the partnership to continue to learn how to do specific things from people that have chosen to be experts in their field 

Cutting-Edge Strategy 

The goal of our digital agency is to take the accumulation of what we know about staffing, what we know about marketing, and what we know about digital strategy to create the best solution for your business.  

We have access to opportunities that many internal marketers in your shoes may not. We collaborate with staffing firms across the country every day, listening to their pain points and working with them to solve them. You may not have time to regularly research best practices in the market. Your team might not work with every marketing medium daily, you can’t be an expert at every medium. And that’s ok. 

Even as an awesome marketer you can’t be everything to everyone. Our value is in the fact that we know strategy. Trying a lot of things will get you some results but tying intention and purpose to your efforts yield the best results. By partnering with a digital marketing agency, you take the weight off your shoulders; collaborating on a master plan and focusing on executing pieces of the plan. 

Related Post: 5 Content Marketing Mistakes – That Give Competitors the Edge ➢

Driving Progress and Projects 

Our agency is great for helping internal marketing teams in a pinch. You know your company best, and you can see when a project may be backed up. We’re here to support you and your company’s efforts and get results. 

Maybe you have a great plan for the year but a couple of months in you’re already behind because of “other duties as assigned.” Let us help you get back on track with your original plan with a one-time project or take some other tasks off your plate on an ongoing basis. 

If you’re already maxed out every week but more projects keep coming, give us a call. Starting our partnership with an emergency project helps us understand how we can serve you and build a trusting partnership. 

Like I said before, we love working with internal marketers. We don’t want your job. Our sole purpose is to help other staffing firms learn and grow through digital marketing. Contact Parqa today to learn how we can drive your digital marketing efforts. 

There are three core categories for digital marketing: brand credibility, online visibility, and lead generation. The first step in digital marketing is to determine the objective, then which type of digital marketing services will result in that objective being met. 

Related Post: Why Recruiting Firms Should Hire a Digital Marketing Agency that Specializes in the Recruiting Industry ➢

Brand Credibility 

“I’ve been in business for 15+ years. How is my brand not credible?”  

Your brand is credible to those in your immediate circle. Walk into a networking event or look in your address book, there are people who know your name when they hear it.  

The question isn’t how is your brand not credible, rather it’s, “Is it credible to people that don’t know you?” 

People who look for the types of services that you offer or are randomly referred to your company by someone else start by opening a browser window prior to making a phone call. They will start with Google search to find your website.  

What does your site say about you? Does it address their pain points immediately?  

Ensuring that your website looks clean, updated, easy-to-navigate, and encompasses the right content to show all the amazing working you’ve done in the last year is imperative. These are the minimum pieces needed to justify this potential client to the next step in their research: LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn is a platform that recruiters live on day and night. Recruiters are constantly scouring the site to find the right candidate by reviewing their credentials. When was the last time you looked at your personal as well as your company’s LinkedIn profile? Do they each tell the proper story about your brand and highlight your successes?  

Your profile should have an up-to-date headshot, cover photo, overview of specialty areas, and testimonials from former candidates placed, clients, and associates. Each of these pieces will build your online brand and credibility.   

Related Post: Why Our Agency Loves Partnering with Internal Marketers ➢

Online Visibility 

Once credible online, it’s time to work on your brand’s visibility.  

Start with your website and social profiles by utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. Implementing SEO tactics on your site, when done correctly, will help your brand be discovered when people begin their research on Google or other search engines.  

A large part of all digital marketing efforts revolves around content marketing. Once your site is set up for success with SEO, you need to ensure you have the right content created, and available, on your site to show up on the search engine results page (SERP).  

It’s important to continue creating original content and publishing it to your site on a consistent basis. This helps keep Google seeing new content on your site–which helps your overall rankings–as well as assists with additional outbound sales engagement. New content can be shared on social media and with prospective clients and candidates.  

Social media accounts need to have a person behind them, it’s a digital marketing tactic that is important to ensure your brand is visible online. Social profiles are an easy way to share out content that you find important and show people the culture behind your organization. 

Related Post: 5 Content Marketing Mistakes – That Give Competitors the Edge ➢

Lead Generation 

Once you’ve established credibility and can be found online, it’s time to start generating leads for your business.  

Leads come in all forms, and this is no different in the digital space. Creating different types of offers such as free consultations or downloadable content (such as a salary guide) is the first step to capturing a lead via online efforts. Once these offers are created, it’s time to utilize paid advertising on Google, LinkedIn, or Facebook to drive people to the offers and speed up the lead generation. 

Email marketing also assists in generating more leads for your business. The best example is to think back to the Most Placeable Candidate emails. These emails are one of the easiest ways to start conversations. Previous connections can be re-engaged with email marketing by utilizing blog posts you’ve written.  Older conversations can be rekindled with content offers you’ve created. 

The utilization of marketing automation is one of the largest driving factors to higher conversation rates. It allows for ongoing nurturing to those in your system. Once someone downloads one of the content offers you’ve created, your marketing automation platform kicks in and sends them emails to automatically move them down the buyer’s journey to be ready for your services once they pick up the phone and reach out.  

If you’re interested in starting a digital marketing campaign, or you want to expand your existing efforts, our team can help. Get in touch and learn more about our services today. 

As a digital marketer, 99% of my thoughts and recommendations usually focus on digital platforms. That said, it is essential to think through who your audience is and how they prefer receiving communication.  

As recruiters, you’re an expert on outbound sales communication. What can you do to get in front of HR professionals that now spend 80% of their day online or your C-Suite network that spends 70% of their day away from their desk in meetings? 

A while back, Parqa sponsored two different conferences. I went through this exercise first hand and wanted to share with you the importance of putting together an overall sales and marketing plan that encompasses both online and offline initiatives. 

Let’s take a moment to set the stage before a typical conference or trade show. Many times, as a sponsor at an industry-related show, you can get the attendee list in advance. Along with this, you usually receive a post-show list of attendees. These lists are the key to preparing a successful communication plan. 

Related Post: Why Recruiting Firms Should Hire a Digital Marketing Agency that Specializes in the Recruiting Industry ➢

Traditional, Offline, Sales 

The offline sales process looks like this: Use the attendee list to determine if there’s anyone that you know attending. From there, you can look at the companies to see if you recognize any of them. Lastly, take a mental note of the companies that you need to get in front of. These companies may have been on your Tier 1 list to get into for years. 

Once you have your mental lists and plan of attack, it’s show time! While at the show, have as many meaningful conversations as possible and determine the handful of conversations that are hot leads. 

Post-show, back at your office, look at your stack of business cards one by one, adding everyone into your ATS/CRM, connect with everyone on LinkedIn, and start calling people to schedule consultations. 

Digital, Online, Marketing 

The digital marketing method is slightly different. After removing any competitors from the pre-show attendee list, use that list to create a beautifully designed email template.  

Send the message to the entire conference list that you will be there and that they should come and see you at your booth. From there, develop a sequence of emails to send one week prior, the day before, and the day of the conference to ensure you are staying top of mind. 

The show floor is the same as before, except this time, focus on sending emails to new contacts within 24 hours of meeting them. 

Post–show there is a slight change. This time, using your business cards, put those people into specific email nurturing campaigns to continue working through the marketing funnel, as they have yet to “opt into” the sales funnel. From there, you connect with everyone on LinkedIn, and you continue to wait until someone fills out the form on your site asking for a free consultation. 

Related Post: 3 Ways to Succeed with Candidate-Focused Marketing ➢

Bringing Offline and Online Together with Sales and Marketing 

Now it’s time to combine the two. As a marketer, it was difficult for me to get into the sales mindset at first, so I can understand the challenge as a recruiter to adopt a marketing mindset. 

Before the show, think back to your exact buyer. Start going through the attendee list and pull out all the attendees that you believe would be your ideal client. These people should get all your upfront marketing efforts.  

Think about what will help break through the noise in their typical day. Send them a product or a postcard in the mail two weeks before the show – I assure you, snail mail is not dead! From there, pick up the phone and give them a call to personally invite them to the show. 

Finally, make sure to send out an email to let them know, in writing, where you will be and when. Can they set up a time with you to meet at the booth? Are you going to be running a contest or special promotion while at the show? Share this information in that email to allow them to engage before the show. 

While at the show, set up a page that allows people to give you their information digitally. Automate the step of inputting them into your ATS/CRM when you get back into the office and automatically opts them into getting future marketing communication from you.  

Are you hosting a roundtable or speaking at a session? Have an email go out to your targeted list a couple of hours before your session. Remind them while they are making their session decisions to add you to the mix. From a sales perspective, don’t forget to take notes. Whether on their card or in a notebook after each conversation. You’ll want to personalize your post-show approach as much as possible. 

Once you get back from the show, categorize your conversations by action item. Send more information, ask if they are ready for a discussion, or reach out and set up a meeting ASAP. Create a communication plan that allows these people to see your name a minimum of seven additional times over the coming months.  

Use a mix of calls, LinkedIn, email, and snail mail. Send them blogs you’ve written via LinkedIn Messenger, send them an email with a link to a case study of a recent search you completed, send them one of your promotional products for their desk.  

Your leads need to see your brand 10-14 times for them to act. The important part is to bust through the noise to get to them. Remember, you weren’t the only sponsor/speaker/vendor at the conference. It is essential to come up with ways to hit those touchpoints but in the most meaningful way possible. 

At Parqa, we are currently in the middle of our post-show communication plan from our latest two conferences, and we can already tell that the upfront effort in mixing our online, offline, sales and marketing initiatives are paying off. We’d love to help you do the same!