Author: Haydn Morgans

LinkedIn is a key tool for recruiters. But what about their paid ads? 

Are you using them? Are you using them well? 

On Episode 19 of The Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Justine Rowe, the Founder of Impactable, which is a b2b marketing and ads agency that specialises in getting the most out of LinkedIn. 

Justin talked us through his insights on LinkedIn ads, as well as his advice for levelling-up your ad game. 

Why is LinkedIn a good platform for ads?

LinkedIn is a thriving social platform where creators are regularly sharing valuable content that’s specifically tailored to business leaders and key decision makers. “LinkedIn is one of the largest personal networks out there, the place where b2b buyers actually come to learn and be influenced on buying decisions,” Justin said. “It’s a great place to hang out organically, and it’s a great place to have your ads.” The platform has changed dramatically in the last 20 years since its launch, growing from an online resume site into the bustling community hub that it is now. If you’re looking to target a specific demographic of professionals, LinkedIn is the place to be. 

Are LinkedIn ads good value? 

There are plenty of channels for paid ads online. From other social media platforms to Google or other websites, there are lots of options to choose from. So is LinkedIn really worth the money? Justin shared that while the cost per click is higher on LinkedIn, they are more valuable due to the amount of targeting that you can achieve on the platform. 

“If you don’t care who sees your post, and your only goal is the cheapest cost per click, then there’s gonna be lots of better options than LinkedIn. The appeal of LinkedIn is that the quality of those clicks is better,” he said. You can specify who to show your ads to by job title, industry and location. That way your leads can be pre-qualified before they even see your ad, leading to better conversion rates and a better ROI. LinkedIn also provides a more engaging way to connect with potential clients, because your ads can foster conversations rather than relying on cold outreach. 

Can LinkedIn ads be used for business growth?

When people log on to LinkedIn, they come with the intent of being influenced on b2b buying decisions. High level executives come to the platform to learn about other people’s buying decisions, strategies and successes, and they actively want to apply that to their own businesses. If you can position your ads to speak to their questions or interests, you’re going to be able to influence people to buy your product or service. “Running ads on a platform like that and to people in that mindset is really powerful,” Justin shared. “The trust that you win on LinkedIn can be monetized more easily than popularity on any other platform.” Your ads can be used for anything from selling to building brand awareness, and business growth is definitely included in that.

Should you touch on customer pain points in your LinkedIn ads? 

Absolutely. Your cold layer should tap into something that people want to engage with. Whether you’re using polls as surveys to see what your customers care about or asking which of your solutions they would find the most helpful for dealing with XYZ, touching on their pain points is essential to building that engagement. 

Justin recommended talking about the main pain point that you solve. That might be higher calibre service at a more affordable price. Whether you focus on the pain itself or the relief that your services offer, it’s important to touch on those pain points throughout your ad campaign. Justin recommended using the narrative of “This is the pain point we solve, these are the results of people that work with us, and this is why you can trust us to do the same for you.”

Why is retargeting so helpful for LinkedIn ads? 

Retargeting is the trick to boosting your conversion rates. While your ads can be great for getting your message in front of the right people, retargeting can put you back in their minds when they actually want to buy. Justin said that when people are first looking for a specific service, they’re not looking to buy immediately. “Retargeting is important, because chances are they’re making that decision and evaluating people over the next 30-90 days. They’re evaluating other vendors. They don’t know that they trust you yet.” 

Retargeting should focus on building that trust during the evaluation process. If you’re using testimonials in your ads, touching on your customers’ pain points and presenting yourself as a reliable option, they’re far more likely to choose you than if you’d just shown them the same 20% offer 5 times. This is where a podcast can come in, because it builds the impression that other people trust you too, including leading names in your industry. Retargeting moves the needle on trust more than anything else. 

To learn more about using LinkedIn ads for your recruitment business, tune in to Episode 19 of The Skill Point Podcast here. 

It’s no secret that podcasts are powerful content machines for the recruitment industry. They’re easy to set up, host and promote, but how do you keep that momentum going when you’ve reached 30, 40 or even 50 guests? 

On Episode 18 of The Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Robert Hanna, who is a legal recruiter turned community builder. He is the host of the Legally Speaking Podcast and Managing Director of KC Partners, as well as a popular personality on LinkedIn. 

Together we unpacked the secrets to hosting a podcast that stays valuable into its seventh season and beyond!

Provide Value to Guests

When you’re working with high-profile guests or expensive lawyers like Robert, it’s important to show people the value of coming on your podcast. Robert recommends tailoring your outreach to each guest, backed up with research you’ve done on them. “You know they have a social media profile, you know what other interviews they’ve done, and you know what their practice areas are,” said Robert, “so tailor it to their level of sophistication and interest. Make the benefits sound so good that it would be an absolute no brainer to say yes.” Use your own metrics like “the last three guests who featured on our show actually then landed X client, which generated X for them,” to keep your outreach value-focussed from the get-go. 

Keep Content Fresh & Relevant

Talking to the community you’ve built around the podcast is the best way to make sure your content is relevant to your listeners. “Before we launched season seven we were doing a lot of giveaways,” Robert shared. “Ask them ‘What do you want to see? Where are the gaps in information?’ Because yes, you can use Answer the Public and Google Trends, and I would encourage you to do that, but listening to your fans is how you’re going to turn them into super fans. Make them feel seen and heard.”

Robert’s other top tip for keeping content fresh is getting good quality guests onto the show. If you’re tapping into insights from leading voices in the space, your audience is far more likely to value the advice that you’re sharing. Researching guests helps you to get the most out of your conversations with them, and gives you insights into any areas they might not have talked about elsewhere. Listening to previous interviews also allows you to rephrase some great questions and get better answers out of them, as well as updated takes on the topic that will make you a more valuable source than your competitors. 

Repurpose Evergreen Content

When we were living through the pandemic, talking about how to adapt to our new situation was great content that people wanted to listen to. Now that we’re out of lockdown though, people aren’t going to want to go back to that content. Robert said that “when we’re asking the questions, we always want to make sure that we’re including not only our current listeners, but our future listeners too.” You need to be asking questions that stand the test of time to get evergreen content from your guests. 

‘Five top tips for being a leading corporate lawyer’ is an example of evergreen content. The industry might evolve, but nine times out of ten it’ll still be relevant in several years’ time. When people go back and listen to it they’re still going to get some value from those answers. 

Evergreen content is super important because you can repurpose it. For example, June is Pride Month, so you can share content from episodes where you’ve discussed diversity and inclusion on your show. Creating a database that links up all your content is a great way to keep track of repurposable topics from each episode, and helps you plan your podcast promotion campaigns throughout the year. That also allows you to leverage content from guests who are gaining publicity, which is a great way to get more eyes on your content. 

Combine Value & Storytelling 

The best way to generate valuable content that resonates with your audience is through storytelling. People engage with content on an emotional level, so pulling out your guests’ personal experiences will create moving content. You can do that by researching your guests’ histories, what they talk about on social media and their previous interviews, as well as having a pre-show chat to get to know them on a more personal level. 

“We’ve had guests who are law firm leaders who have been very open about their mental health and their breakdowns. They’re authentic leaders,” Robert said. “We actually get them to talk us through that story, the lessons they learned, how they came through it and what they would do differently.” The key to differentiating your podcast from the others in your sector is to ask deeper questions that dig into the core of important topics. The quality of your content comes directly from the quality of questions that you ask. 

To learn more about creating powerful podcasts in the recruitment industry, tune into The Skill Point Podcast here. 

In the recruitment marketing industry there are plenty of opportunities to take on the role of Marketing Manager. On Episode 17 of The Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Jade Brar-Haase, the Marketing Director of Murray McIntosh & Associates, about her experiences in the sector. Her expertise lies in helping companies with their employer branding, but she has also held multiple marketing manager positions, giving her a wealth of insights into the topic. 

So, how can you become a master Marketing Manager?

Starting a New Role

Whether you’re moving up the ladder or joining a new company, the first thing to do is assess the current state of play. Are there already marketing channels that the company is using? What tools do they have set up? Is the marketing budget being used well? 

Once you have an idea of what’s going on, you can start to make changes. Don’t try to overhaul everything at once, that’ll be jarring for your colleagues and customers. A good place to start is by getting rid of any money drains. Those paid ads on LinkedIn that aren’t converting? Time to turn them off. Those expensive graphic design tools nobody uses? They can go. 

Jade’s next step is to get to know your consultants. What do they think is missing in your marketing? Which questions are they answering all the time? Does the website work for them? They’ll know which touchpoints people are coming through and where conversions are happening, which is invaluable information for marketing. 

Creating a Strategy

Once you’ve got to grips with your new position and you’ve got some ideas of where to go, you need to build a strategy. Work with your consultants to figure out what kind of content would help them generate sales. Maybe a salary survey would be really useful for opening conversations with prospective clients. Maybe a social media campaign about one of your customer’s pain points would help answer their most frequently asked questions. Jade recommends using marketing as a “hybrid firefighting” method, where you put out fires before they spread by addressing your customer’s issues in your content rather than during consultants’ calls. 

Your strategy should have a plan for the next three, six and twelve months, with a clear goal at the end. As you evolve, the details of that plan can change to address new challenges, but your end goal should always stay the same. Take the time to review, monitor and measure your conversion rates and hone your content as a result. 

Managing Multiple Campaigns

Once you’re running multiple campaigns, Jade recommends using lists and spreadsheets to keep track of everything. Organisation is key to running successful campaigns, and allows you to work less reactively. Having structure in your day will help you to provide more value to your stakeholders by providing rapid turn-around times on ad-hoc jobs like creating insight documents. You can then leverage that by going to board meetings with the metrics from that piece of collateral and showing that your input helped generate X amount of revenue. Jade said that ultimately, “being organised and structured allows you to respond to those last minute opportunities that marketing gets all the time.”

Lots of people see sales and marketing as opposing teams within a company. The opposite is true; they’re allies. When marketing and sales work together, the output is exponentially better because everybody’s contributed to creating a meaningful piece of collateral that speaks to your consumers. 

Building Your Own Rewards

She also said that “You need to reward yourself for having that progress, because if you’re waiting for somebody to say, ‘That LinkedIn poll was brilliant! Did you see how many people were engaging with it?’ you’ll be waiting a long time.” Particularly if you’re a solo marketer it’s important to build in your own reward system, such as grabbing a brownie for every five tasks you tick off. Until you get a seat at the table with the leadership team, you could be the only one recognising your milestones. 

Getting Into Leadership

So, how do you get that seat at the table? 

As a marketing manager you’re probably working with at least one other person within the business. However, if you want to start taking part in meetings with the executives and become a valued member of the senior leadership team, you have to be able to present your work as valuable and insightful to everybody. 

Jade’s advice is to keep pushing. “You’ve got to be self propelling and you’ve got to have the dedication to educate others around you as well as yourself.” Make sure you’re informed of the latest developments in your industry, on social media and in the world at large. Prioritise your personal development as much as you can. Beyond that, gather as much data as you can on how your work is improving the business. If you can present your strategies to senior leadership with proof of their effectiveness, you can position yourself as a valuable partner in the business. 

Want to know more about working as Marketing Manager in the recruitment industry?

Tune into The Skill Point Podcast here to hear the rest of Jade’s insights. 

Marketing is a creative industry. But what happens when you’re struggling to find that creative spark? On Episode 16 of The Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Jess Cook, the Head of Content at LASSO and Co-host of That’s Marketing, Baby, about how to keep creativity at the centre of your work. 

Idea Generation 

Jess’s first tip is “Get on the phone with a customer.” Reflect their language back in your copy. Listen to their problems and solve them in your marketing or services. They can tell you exactly what they want from you, which sparks ideas for content, strategy and products. 

Secondly, Jess recommends looking at sales calls. She said “If you can sit in on a sales call,listen to what they say and how they talk. They’re talking to prospects every day who share their problems, so they see trends in the market that could inspire you”. 

The third place to look for ideas is in customer success. “What are our customers saying? What happened on the day they realised they needed you?” Jess asked. Find the straw that broke the camel’s back and build your content around that.  

Jess’s fourth and final source of ideas is the people in your company who have experience of being where your customers are. “Within LASSO,” Jess said, “we have a tonne of folks who used to work in an event production warehouse. I can go to those folks and say, ‘Hey, tell me about what it’s like to work in a warehouse’. They can tell me what it’s like to be our customers, and have practical experience of how our product will change their lives. 

When you put those four sources together you’ll have killer emotional insights that can inform your content and spark a host of ideas for your content.

Find a Creative Centrepiece 

When you’re launching a new product or campaign, it’s helpful to find a creative centrepiece that can tie everything together. Start with a strategy that establishes what you’re announcing, what the message is and who your content is aimed at. 

Jess shared an example from LASSO’s recent inventory product launch, where they made a launch video that was based on an insight from an SME call. “It was a 15-second video that introduced our new inventory product. We used it everywhere. It was on the landing page, in our emails, as a GIF, on our social posts… We created this short, creative piece that felt very impactful that we could repurpose through the entire new product announcement campaign.”

Having one centrepiece makes content creation easier, because you can take one idea and translate it into different forms. That builds consistent messaging and momentum in your marketing. Who doesn’t want that? 

Repurpose Content

Building a content machine is the key to successful marketing. Here at Search Stack we love using podcasts as cornerstone content, because you can stretch it into so many other forms of collateral. It’s an efficient way to reduce brainstorming time and create more content that’s already in-line with your goals. 

To learn more about sparking creativity and reducing your content creation time, tune into The Skill Point Podcast here. 

How do you know if your marketing is working? 

Measuring your return on investment (ROI) is the most effective way to find out if your marketing efforts are performing properly. 

But how do you do that? 

On Episode 15 of The Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Matt Comber, the CEO at SourceFlow, to find out more about measuring your ROI in marketing. We took a deep dive into why ROI is important, why you need a strategy and what metrics you should be tracking. 

Read on to learn all about measuring ROI in recruitment marketing!

Start with a Strategy

Measuring stuff is useless if you don’t have a plan for what to do with all that information. Setting goals is the first step to measuring your ROI. Matt said that ‘whether it’s retention, views or revenue, you’ve got to always start with the goal.’ It’s helpful to benchmark where you are now and set tangible targets for where you want to end up. That’s what enables you to see whether your marketing is successful or not. 

Matt also said that ‘measuring the ROI takes a lot of the emotion out of the decision making process. A lot of applications does not equal lots of revenue. Let’s find out why.’ This granular level of analysis shows which areas of your marketing are succeeding and which are draining your time, money and resources. It also gives you concrete evidence of how your marketing is performing, which is invaluable in meetings with senior stakeholders. 

Assess your Sources

The second thing to consider when you’re measuring your ROI is your sources. Tools like Google Analytics can be used to see where your clients and candidates are coming from, such as social media, organic search or paid ads. 

If you’ve got the capabilities on your website, it’s also helpful to track which pages people are spending time on before converting. Matt recommended taking primary sources like social media into account as well as secondary sources such as your website during your conversion funnel. That allows you to see which channels are working and which ones need to be adjusted to encourage conversions. 

‘You should be able to show me the return on investment from an event that we ran,’ said Matt. ‘It comes down to knowing where you want to be, where you are, and which tools you need to have in place to pull the right data out to get you there.’ That data allows you to visualise how effective your marketing is by measuring the conversion rates of each campaign, touchpoint or event.

Consider Self-Reported Attribution 

One way to make sure you’re accurately assessing where your leads are coming from is through a self-reported attribution form. This is a simple field at the end of your sign-up form that asks ‘How did you hear about us?’. You can use drop-down menus or text boxes to make the process easier for leads, but this is one of the most fail-safe ways of tracking when people first become aware of your company. You can then use that data to see how you’re performing. 

Track your Conversions 

In the recruitment industry it’s easy to focus on tracking successful applicant conversions. However, an often overlooked metric is your rate of client onboarding. Marketing often plays a key role in gaining new clients, by producing collateral such as visual branding, written content and practical salary guides. Businesses need to look at a holistic view of their company and ask ‘What’s my best candidate source, what’s my best client source and what’s our best piece of content for demand and lead generation?’, then use those points to measure conversions. 

Measure your ROI

Whatever your goals are, once you’ve set up a system to track and report your conversion rate, you can measure your ROI. For example, you can divide the amount of money you’ve made from new contracts by the amount you spent on the marketing campaign that your client passed through before converting. A standard formula for calculating ROI is this: 

A more marketing specific formula is: 

This should be calculated on a regular basis, such as once a month, to ensure that your marketing is still effective. 

Want to know more? 

Listen to Episode 15 of The Skill Point Podcast here. 

What’s the point of marketing? 

Whether you’re advertising your products and services or building brand awareness, the aim of marketing is to get your company in front of more people. Ultimately, it’s to grow your business. 

On Episode 14 of The Skill Point Podcast we spoke to Claire Stapley about how we can use marketing as a business development tool in recruitment. Claire is a freelance marketing strategist who specialises in the recruitment industry, with over 7 years in the industry. Read on to find out what insights she shared. 

The Benefits of Marketing in Recruitment 

There has been an overall change in mindset over the last few years within the recruitment industry when it comes to marketing. While it used to be seen as unnecessary, there has been a shift towards seeing marketing as a valuable tool for supporting consultants’ efforts in the field. 

Claire shared that “A lot of pressure has come from new consultants who are asking, ‘Why haven’t I got LinkedIn Recruiter, which is a simple piece of collateral that I can take to a meeting?’ It’s important to them because the competition is so high.”

Marketing makes you stand out in your market. With the number of recruitment firms out there, it’s important that you can make a meaningful impression with your audience. A marketer will be able to take your expertise and translate it into engaging content that brings people into your business. Gone are the days of pray-and-spray cold calls. Targeted marketing creates valuable inbound leads and saves your consultants time. 

Get Your Team On-Board 

To get the most out of your marketing, it’s important to get buy-in from important people in the business. If your management team is leading by example, persuading your consultants to put effort into their personal brands will be a lot easier. Always start with your C-suite. 

Claire also advises “talking in numbers”. If you can back up your strategies with hard figures, you’re going to gain the trust of your consultants. “Fluff stuff doesn’t resonate with a recruiter,” said Claire. “They want to know what’s in it for them.” Pitch your ideas in terms of how it’ll build their candidate base, the results they’ll get from it and the potential for growth or promotion that will come off the back of it. 

It’s also important to use your team’s feedback in your marketing. When your marketing team works closely with your consultants and sales teams, they can create collateral that helps the rest of the company do their job. Producing branded eBooks, email footers and LinkedIn banners is a great way to create brand awareness online, while personal branding creates meaningful connections with clients and candidates in your niche. Effective marketing will ultimately make it easier to sell your services, and a synergistic relationship between marketing and consultants is the best way to make your marketing meaningful. 

Creating a Marketing Compass

Your compass should always be aligned with your North Star. Figure out what your goals are as a company (such as improving gender diversity in the tech sector), then build a strategy that speaks to them. That could look like completing a salary survey that looks at the wage gap in your sector. and using it to engage candidates who are interested in moving into the space. Whatever your North Star is, always follow it if you want to create a strong brand. 

From there you can start to build your marketing strategy. Review what marketing collateral you already have, and try to keep what you can. If it’s fit for purpose, there’s no point in getting rid of something just because it doesn’t have your shiny new branding on it. Build from your existing baseline to fill out any weaker areas and create a unified company message. 

Talk to your team to figure out what their problems are too. Maybe they’re struggling to get candidates on board because nobody’s heard of them before. Then it’s time to work on your brand awareness through personal branding or advertising. If they need to build credibility in order to win over clients, whitepapers or testimonials would be a useful resource. Case studies and salary surveys can be used to engage different groups as well. Your marketing should always meet a need in your business. 

Final Advice

Claire’s last piece of advice is to be patient. She said that “You’re gonna get a lot of pushback when you introduce marketing. If you can work through that and build some great internal relationships, you’ll have a harmonious marketing team and a bought-in sales team, and it’ll feel like cloud nine.” 

To hear more from Claire, tune into The Skill Point Podcast here.

If you’d like to learn more about creating an airtight marketing strategy for your recruitment business, you can also get in touch with us at Search Stack for a free consultation. 

Email us on hello@searchstack.co.uk now!