Month: May 2023

Social selling is a topic that’s been sweeping the recruitment marketing circle recently. Whether you’re selling your recruitment company’s services or promoting your podcast, sharing it on social platforms is rapidly becoming one of the most effective ways to get the word out. 

On Episode 13 of The Skill Point Podcast we sat down with personal branding and social selling expert Jamie Rose, who is an ex-recruitment business owner turned Social Selling Coach. Jamie joined us to share his insights on using social selling to level-up your recruitment business, including how to use pain points to drive conversions. 

Read on to learn why social selling is rapidly becoming an essential skill for a recruiter!

What is Social Selling?

Jamie defined social selling as the process of engaging with people and using your relationship to sell to them. The process typically involves getting an email address, keeping in contact with them, and driving prospective buyers to your platform, content, or community. It requires an understanding of the different values that influence buyer behaviour, then building your reputation in alignment with those points. In essence, it’s about using your social presence to subtly convince people to buy from you. 

Is Social Selling the Future for Recruiters?

According to Jamie, the answer is yes. Traditional sales methods are becoming less relevant as buyer behaviour changes across various industries. He told us that ‘with social selling, recruiters can position themselves on the radar of clients and candidates without resorting to cold outreach.’ This approach allows recruiters to observe prospects, identify pain points and tailor their approach to provide value without ever having to provide an unwanted sales pitch.

The Role of Marketing in Social Selling

Marketing plays a crucial role in social selling by creating visually appealing and valuable content that prospects are likely to engage with. A strong partnership between recruiters and marketers can inform the content creation cycle and lead to the production of high-quality, value-driven content that effectively represents your brand and delivers the desired outcomes.

Selling to Your Audience on Social Media

To effectively sell to your audience on social media, it is essential to understand who your target market is and how you can help them. Everything else flows from this fundamental question. Once you know your target audience and the problems they face, you can create content that addresses their needs and pain points. Combining your solution to their emotions is an effective way to drive conversions as well. 

Using Pain Points in Social Sales

To effectively use pain points in social sales, you must consider the following:

• The problem your target audience faces
• How the problem makes them feel and behave
• If your content resonates with their emotions 

By empathising with your prospects and addressing their pain points, you can create content that is more likely to resonate with them and encourage engagement, which in turn leads to sales. 

TL,DR:

Social selling is a powerful tool for recruiters, allowing them to effectively engage with clients and candidates while providing value. By understanding your target audience, their pain points, and how you can help them, you can create content that drives engagement and achieves your sales goals. Embrace social selling and personal branding in your recruitment strategies to stay ahead of the curve and succeed in the ever-evolving recruitment landscape.

Want to hear more from Jamie? 

Tune into Episode 13 of The Skill Point Podcast here. 

Events are a powerful tool for recruiters to grow your talent pools and market your solutions. 

On Episode 11 of the Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Elle Nash, the Senior Marketing Executive at Camino Partners Ltd, about how to create effective events that provide value for you and your audience. 

What’s Your Purpose?

Before you decide to host an event, it’s important that you define what its purpose is. 

Elle said that in her experience, “We knew that there wasn’t a space specifically for finance professionals in tech. There weren’t groups or webinars or anything like that at the time either, so we could see a gap in the market for it… [and] events would be a great way to engage that network.”

To define your purpose, sit down with key stakeholders in the business to determine your specific target audience and discuss how you can meet their needs. Find a niche that you can provide value to, then build an event that caters to them. You can find speakers who have worked in that niche or talk about your own internal expertise from working in the industry, but whatever you do needs to actively benefit your audience. 

Pre-Event Strategy

Events are a big undertaking, and take a lot of preparation to pull off. It’s worth spending time considering how well known you are in the industry and assessing the kind of audience you’ll attract using your current channels. Is your brand already popular with your niche? Are your consultants already embedded in these communities? Hosting a smaller webinar first could be a good way to gauge interest and test your outreach methods. 

Research your audience’s pain points and offer solutions in your event’s promotional material. This will gain traction with your audience, creating higher engagement and reach. It’s also important to build your brand awareness before you launch an event, because people need to trust you before they’ll be willing to go out of their way to see you. 

It’s also important to consider your venue. Would you attract a larger audience if your event was virtual? Would it create a more valuable networking experience if you hosted an in-person event? Consider the audience that you have and build your event accordingly. 

Live events have the potential for higher quality content creation. Getting a videographer to record key speakers and get b-roll footage of your event is a great way to generate testimonials, social content and future promotional material. It also creates a buzz during the event as people often want to take part in creating content and sharing their experiences online. 

Effective Promotion

If you already have an ample audience, platforms like meetup pages can effectively build out your guestlist. However, if you’re aiming for an exclusive, invite-only event, you’ll need to think outside the box with your attraction methods. Are you only inviting candidates or also allowing hiring managers to come and take advantage of your events? Curating your guestlist and having a screening process could be important depending on the type of event that you’re hosting. 

The main things to consider, according to Elle, are “How are you going to get people to the event? Who’s going to be responsible for promoting it? How many people do you want to attend?” You’ll never get 100% of your guestlist to attend, so aim to oversubscribe your capacity. No matter what promotional methods you’re using, having a clear strategy in place will ensure the smooth running of your event. 

Once you’ve decided who to target, gaining traction is essential. Advertise the value that you’re going to give people at the event and make sure you stay top of mind for when it rolls around. You can use emails or social media to promote your event to your existing audience, or host virtual webinars or roundtables as teasers for the big day. You can also use your consultants’ networks to personally invite key people to your event. Streamlining each of your touchpoints will keep your audience engaged at each stage. 

Maintain touch points with people who have signed up, both before and after the event. You can use your sign-up lists to gauge the ratio of people who attended, then assess which touchpoints they engaged with to create a better strategy for your next event. It’s also a good idea to share content afterwards so that people who expressed an interest but couldn’t attend still get something out of interacting with you. Keeping those touch points active also allows you to gather feedback, which results in positive testimonials or useful pointers for improvement. 

Elle’s Top Tips:

• Use email reminders to keep your event top-of-mind
• Share teasers for the event, such as speaker spotlights and key take-aways
• Create a diary invite that people can integrate with their planners
• Get engagement by asking for questions they’d like to ask speakers

Post-Event Strategy

Having a post-event strategy will help you establish how to get the most out of your event. Consider what outcomes you want to achieve, such as growing your talent pool, creating meaningful relationships with clients or generating leads. Tailor your calls to action at the event to promote those outcomes, and make sure they line up with the value you’re offering there. 

The content you’ll produce from your event is another consideration for your post-event strategy. Live-streaming your events can create a valuable resource for a widespread audience, but it can take away from the live experience. If you’ve set up hefty camera crews that block your audience’s view, you’re effectively damaging their experience, so consider the space and sightlines you’re working with before committing to a live stream. Having a single videographer that can create content from your speakers, networking time and venue set-up, providing valuable resources. 

Maintaining your touch points after the event can make a difference to the audience’s experience. If you follow up to thank them for attending they’ll feel like valued customers or connections. Sharing content with them will also create alignment, particularly if you were able to get great pictures of the event. Having a personalised message from the consultants that they spoke to will also improve the retention you get from the event. 

Want to know more about that videographer we mentioned? Reach out to discuss a quote for your next recruitment event. 

We bang our metaphorical drum about value-adding content all the time. It’s the key to successful marketing, because it’s the difference between screaming into the void and creating compelling content that drives conversions. 

Don’t just take it from us – Chris Cranshaw is a big believer in value too. Chris is the Founder and Director of Halt, another specialist recruitment marketing firm. 

We talked about it on Episode 10 of the Skill Point Podcast, then squeezed all the value out of the episode to give you this handy how-to blog.

How do you add value in recruitment marketing?

Valuable content is something that’s useful to your audience. To figure out what that is, you need to talk to your target demographics, whether that’s your clients, candidates or colleagues. Always have your audience in mind when you’re creating content, and make sure you’re speaking to their interests, pain points and daily experiences. Whether you’re offering a solution to their issues or sharing relatable and entertaining content that’s specific to your niche, it should always resonate with your audience’s lives. 

What makes a valuable content niche?

According to Chris, recruiters’ content should come directly from their day jobs. He said ‘you’re talking to clients, candidates and HR departments, so you’re building up knowledge of all these different trends, challenges and success stories, often without realising or documenting it.’ It’s these experiences that you can turn into valuable content, by making observations about the state of your industry or sharing your solutions to common problems in your sector. That’s where you can credibly build your expertise. 

Your expertise will often be niche because it reflects the sector that you work in. You might know things like the best way to attract talent in cybersecurity, which will be incredibly valuable to your target audience. People will recognise the specificity of your content and recognise you as an authority on those subjects. 

What are the next steps once you’ve made valuable content?

Create a clear plan for the content you want to share. Chris told us ‘that’s what you’re gonna become famous for; you’re going to be the place where people go to get information on X, Y, and Z’. To build a devoted audience, you need to be consistent and reliable. 

In order to build that reputation, you need to figure out a regular cadence for your content. Look at your capacity, skill set and budget before committing to becoming the next New York Times. 

Always do your research before you start making content, because the form it takes will impact how it performs with different people. If you’re trying to boost engagement, releasing interactive content like polls is a great idea. Scheduling this is important, because you also need to be able to respond to interactions and take the time to nurture your audience relationships. If you’re building your credibility as a source of knowledge, longer-form text posts could be the way to go. 

Planning your content well in advance can reduce last-minute workloads and improve the quality of your output. It also means that everything you make is intentional rather than scrambling to fill a gap in your calendar with something that isn’t valuable. 

What does great look like when a company is providing that value?

Ultimately, success comes from your conversion rate. Moving people through your marketing funnel takes time and meticulous planning, but when it pays off, it literally PAYS off. 

If you’re offering value to your audience on a consistent basis, they’re going to come to you when they need answers and solutions to their specific problems. Great marketing comes from meeting those questions preemptively and building your reputation as a reliable resource. 

As Chris said, ‘great is when your content or personal brand creates opportunities’. You can’t control conversions in recruitment marketing, but you can build an effective emotional connection that results in a higher rate of engagement, emotional investment and trust. That’s all done through regularly creating and sharing valuable content with your audience. 

To find out more about creating valuable content in the recruitment industry, tune into the Skill Point Podcast here. 

Reputation is an essential part of the recruitment industry. Because we rely on a relationship-based business model, how people perceive us will play a big part in how successful we are. Reputation can be a game changing differentiator, so how do we get it right as recruiters? On Episode 9 of the Skill Point Podcast we talked to Gordon Stoddart from The Recruitment Network about how we can build reputations to our advantage. 

What is reputation?

Gordon explained that reputation is how people think and feel about you. It’s the emotional connection that people have with you or your company as a result of the experiences they’ve had. It’s not how your marketing makes them feel, it’s a direct output of the interactions they have with you.

How can you build a positive reputation? 

In the recruitment industry, your reputation stems from your relationships. Whether that’s your internal culture or the connections that you have with clients and candidates, putting effort into those relationships will build your reputation in a positive way. An awareness of your reputation will drive your behaviours, because as Gordon said, “reputation is an emotional strategy.”

What does a great reputation look like in recruitment? 

If you’ve built an amazing reputation, your retention and loyalty will be high. You’ll also get referrals, introductions and feedback from the people that you’ve worked with. Clients will also be willing to give you exclusivity if they’ve had a great experience with you, because that will build your reputation and trust. They’ll be more likely to work with you again if you’ve provided an excellent service before, so repeat work is another way to gauge how strong your reputation is with your clients. 

Feedback is another essential part of measuring your reputation. Talk to as many clients and candidates as you can to understand which parts of your process are working and which ones have room for improvement. Gordon said that “how our clients and candidates perceive us is really dangerous, because our relationship with them might be at risk.” Not only that, unhappy clients could spread negative word of mouth and damage your reputation without you knowing. 

Can you repair a damaged reputation? 

Once a reputation is damaged it’s a lot harder to repair. When it’s a matter of underperforming your client’s expectations, there are things you can do to salvage that reputation. Offering alternative solutions or returning any payment can be a step towards preserving your reputation, as well as being honest about your limitations. Do whatever you can to turn the situation around and avoid a service breakdown, as long as it’s not costing your people. Well, rule number one, you do everything you can not to have a service breakdown. 

Feedback is the key to reputation repair. If you’re constantly gathering feedback from the people you work with, you’ll quickly see if something is going wrong, and be able to address any concerns before they become frustrations. Most people will recognise that things go wrong sometimes, so there will be some amount of leeway. It’s down to you to use that feedback to ensure that the same mistake doesn’t happen twice, because that will create a negative pattern and harm people’s perception of you, and therefore your reputation. 

Can you use feedback positively?

Feedback is also a great tool for creating a positive reputation for people who haven’t worked with you yet. If you’re able to showcase positive reviews or glowing recommendations, new customers are far more likely to buy into your offering. The most effective way to gather this feedback is from your frontline people, like consultants or customer experience professionals. They’re the ones talking to clients and candidates on a daily basis, so they hear how people respond to you. They can also directly ask people what’s working well and what isn’t. That creates powerful marketing collateral and evidence of how good you are. 

What strategies can recruiters use to build their reputation?

Firstly, gather insights. This works with the feedback to understand how you’re perceived. If you have a handle on that, you’re more likely to be able to manage expectations and meet them, which will create a positive reputation. 

The second strategy is to build an invested internal team. You need to find people who care about their role, then equip them to succeed. That starts with leadership and works its way down through the company until your whole team has a positive experience. Belief in your own excellence is the best foundation for a strong reputation. 

A third strategy is using a deliberate structure in client meetings to gain feedback. Whenever you meet with a customer you should be checking in to see how they’re feeling about your progress, and backing up your success with tangible statistics, such as the number of candidates placed and their retention rate. This will keep them excited about your work. 

Finally, using customer journey mapping will transform your reputation. This is an end-to-end understanding of the customer experience, which shows you which touchpoints people are interacting with successfully and which need more work. This is also where marketing comes in, which can manage and accelerate your reputation outside of your direct relationships. 

How can you measure your reputation?

Create a business dashboard. You can measure things like financial growth and inbound leads, but you can also measure things like retention, exclusive relationships, case studies and testimonials. Even simple things like your Google reviews can be indicators of how your reputation is shaping up. You should always ask for this kind of feedback or input from the people you work with, because not only will it strengthen your reputation externally, it will build a bond with them by showing that you care about their experience and want to address their concerns. 

Gordon’s last piece of advice was to ask ‘what a great reputation means to you, and figure out what you want to happen as a result. Take those things and measure them.’ that’s the best way to establish whether you’re meeting your own goals and upholding the standards that you set for yourself. 

To hear more about building a reputation in the recruitment industry, tune into the Skill Point Podcast here.