Full disclosure, this is a biased blog. Our bias: why inbound marketing is the best marketing strategy for staffing and recruiting agencies.
Not that outbound marketing is obsolete. There are still many benefits to outbound marketing. If there weren’t, we wouldn’t receive spammy emails and cold calls or see so many TV commercials or billboards.
But the most objective way to describe the lack of value and effectiveness of “interruption marketing” is by the abysmal CTR of outbound campaigns (0.16% on mobile and 0.06% on desktop).
Simply put: nobody asked for them.
Not only did nobody ask to be interrupted by outbound campaigns, but they’re also often irritating, poorly targeted, and distracting.
It’s the rare occasion an outbound campaign would resonate widely with its audience. And even then, their strategy to stay top of mind is to pester and provide as much added value as an earworm or a commercial jingle.
Why Inbound Marketing Is The Best Strategy For Staffing And Recruiting Agencies
There are several reasons why an inbound marketing strategy is superior, especially for staffing companies and recruiting agencies.
Inbound campaigns are more profitable on a strictly nuts-and-bolts level, and their ROI is much easier to gauge. For example, imagine the tools available to measure impressions and clicks of an email campaign. Then compare those with the tools available (if any) to gauge the impressions of a billboard.
But more to the point – inbound marketing is more fun. Remember fun?
Being a staffing and recruiting agency is all about building and maintaining valuable relationships and solving problems. Your search agency makes the persistent conundrum of sourcing, recruiting, and retaining quality talent both easy and affordable. It would follow that your content marketing strategy would reflect that specific added value.
Consistently connecting with employers in ways that resonate with them or predict/solve their employment problems is the most effective path to earning your way into their hearts and minds. By providing educational, informative content that businesses can interact with and believe in, you can convert them into a valuable client who trusts you and relies on you to provide talent they can hire with confidence.
What Are The Different Types Of Inbound Marketing?
So, what tools do we have at our disposal for an inbound marketing strategy? And why are they different for staffing and recruiting agencies for nurturing leads and developing relationships?
Unlike making cold calls, or other common outbound strategies that are time-consuming and costly, inbound marketing can make nurturing leads easier, less expensive, and provide better results with several tools:
- Interviews With Industry Experts
- Webinars or Tutorials
- Ebooks and Guides
- Email and Marketing Automation
- Case Studies
- Blog Posts
- Trade Shows
- Newsletter
Interviews With Industry Experts
The only thing better than connecting with employers or job seekers over expert tips, key strategies, or best practices is convincing one of your friends to do it for you.
Seriously though, leaning on your partners and associates in the industry who are experts in their field is a great way to provide valuable content for your audience.
We suggest turning your expert interviews into a series from the industry’s best professionals for even better results.
Webinars or Tutorials
Tutorials and webinars have been a dominating presence in inbound campaigns for a while now. But many staffing and recruiting agencies haven’t taken advantage of these powerful tools over a hesitancy for developing or presenting content or the technical roadblocks to filming or producing episodes.
Just like a blog post, remember to broadcast your webinars and tutorials on social media like your LinkedIn profiles for further engagement.
Ebooks and Guides
Ebooks and guides are a great opportunity to take a real deep dive into a subject you and your audience are really passionate about.
Because of the format (long-form, helpful & informative), you can get micro in your detail with the added benefit of not having to sound sales-y or finish with a pushy call to action.
Added bonus: eBooks or guides, provided they add enough value, can also be used as a free download in exchange for an email, which could lead to…
Emails and Marketing Automation
Email is a great tool for your staffing services team to keep candidates warm and to help your sales team nurture leads in a genuine way.
It is true, many traditional marketers struggle with a successful automated email campaign when they fail to consider the needs of the reader or where they’re at in the sales funnel. But the opposite is also true. With well-written and engaging emails that are highly targeted to the audience, you can:
- Win over potential clients
- Keep your agency top of mind for talent during their latest employment search
- Convert new staffing leads
- Reduce costly time-consuming marketing tasks for your sales reps
With a carefully designed workflow, your leads can be added to an email marketing plan that isn’t spammy or annoying. Your firm has the ability to customize its messaging according to where your target audience is at in their stage of the buying funnel.
Case Studies
If your staffing agency or recruiting firm wants to demonstrate your expertise to potential customers, there may be no better way than with a series of high-quality case studies. Case studies are highly relevant content you can use to demonstrate your success rate in recruiting leads.
With the permission and cooperation of a satisfied client, you can dissect a specific employment problem they were experiencing to tell a larger story to other employers in your focus industries. By mapping out the problem, your strategy to address or solve the problem, and the measurable and provable results, you’re creating a clear and clinical study in problem-solving for potential leads who may be experiencing similar problems.
Case studies are a great way to use your expertise to nurture leads – especially those leads who may need more in the way of evidence – with transparent and verifiable results.
Blog Posts With Staffing/Recruiting News From Your Focus Industry
Think of every blog post as accomplishing several marketing efforts at the same time:
- You’re reminding existing clients and potential leads you are up to date and in touch with your industry’s best practices, current trends, and their evolving pain points in finding leads.
- You’re claiming your industry expertise by providing helpful, relevant content that solves a problem, tells a story, or otherwise provides value for your audience.
- With a sound SEO strategy, your blogs help search engines define and categorize your content. Over the long term, this can help to raise your agency’s visibility with increased search rankings.
- You have the opportunity to tell a story that connects with job seekers or employers that, unlike commercial jingles and other outbound marketing tools (see above), stays top of mind in a good way.
- With the help of social media, you’re publishing regular content that provides another opportunity to drive traffic back to your website.
Trade Shows For Your Focus Industries
By taking advantage of local trade shows, you get to engage in person with potential leads and job seekers. While trade shows have been put on the back burner during COVID, businesses are re-opening and rehiring like never before. With the growing job market, trade shows are following suit.
For Best Results: Call On Inbound Marketing Experts
Remember the part about calling on a friend to help you with an expert interview?
Just like you might tap a friend to help you film an informative discussion on finding quality talent, call on the experts in marketing for staffing agencies and recruiting firms who can help you develop a great inbound marketing strategy.
We can help! We’re all about having fun creating valuable, relevant content to help our staffing and recruiting partners nurture leads and stay top of mind – without having to write an annoying jingle.
For help developing an inbound marketing strategy that’s right for you, contact Parqa today!
