As the number of businesses in your niche are constantly growing, the top talent now has a wider range of career options. This means that discovering and hiring qualified candidates is more difficult than ever for recruiters. Developing a team of varied yet complementary personalities, interests, and skillsets is one of the most complex aspects of any business and one of the most challenging.
In order to earn their trust and inspire them to select you over your competitors, you must coordinate your marketing and recruitment efforts. This is where recruitment marketing comes into play.
What is recruitment marketing?
Recruitment marketing is the process of using marketing strategies to promote your employer’s brand across the recruitment life cycle in order to attract, engage, and nurture relationships with qualified candidates. Let’s take a look at it in more detail. The recruitment marketing funnel is divided into four parts.
Marketing Funnel| LOCALiQ.
Stage One: Increase Awareness
There‘s a high chance that the perfect candidate might not be aware of your company or vacancy, so deploying targeted advertising can improve your chances of reaching them. Lookalike audience targeting, interest-based targeting, and broad audience targeting are all options for top-of-the-funnel targeting. You can start by using Facebook’s Broad Audience Targeting. This allows you to contact people who have expressed interest in companies comparable to yours, even if they have never visited your website.
This audience will then be shown everything relevant to them. Then, when you start developing new dynamic ads, you may tell Facebook that you’d like to define a broad audience and that you want the platform to optimise who sees your ads. However, your care home must first present itself as a possible employer on platforms where potential prospects spend their time. In order to get potential candidates to apply for open positions, care homes will need to generate engaging content that candidates will want to read, listen to, or watch in order to distinguish your company as a desirable employer. Because in-person opportunities to network and meet potential candidates have been substantially reduced with far fewer in-person trade shows and events, content is quickly becoming a key channel for reaching out to them.
Stage Two: Generate Interest
You’ll need a content strategy that is both consistent and related to your employer’s branding efforts. The last thing you want is to lose candidates because they’ve forgotten about your company or because your content doesn’t resonate with them. Planning out a solid content calendar with specified deadlines will ensure that your story is delivered thoughtfully and that you can continue to develop interest among passive and active candidates.
Stage Three: Nurture the Decision
It is now time to reel them in. Candidates have repeatedly expressed interest in your care home, but what sets your opportunity apart from the rest of the pack? You’ll want to share more specific information about your company as a possible employer at this point in the funnel. Now is the time to advertise your open roles, benefits, perks, and anything else a candidate should know before applying. For example, LOCALiQ offers an “Employee Staff Referral Scheme” where employees can recommend a candidate and be rewarded for every successful candidate hired.
Stage Four: Drive Action
Candidates may seriously consider your company for their next career move, but there are several obstacles that prevent them from applying. First and foremost, creating role-specific resumes, cover letters, and portfolios that may or may not be examined takes a tremendous amount of effort. One solution is to make the application and decision-making process easier. Remove any unnecessary qualifications and application criteria and provide them with all of the details of the position you’re offering, including salary information.
How to develop a recruitment marketing plan
You must first define your employer’s brand before even considering developing a recruitment marketing strategy. Employer branding is critical for controlling and influencing your reputation as a preferred employer, and it should be integrated into every area of your recruitment marketing strategy. Start constructing your plan with these six recruitment marketing techniques once you’ve nailed down your employer branding with a clear mission statement, core values, and employee value proposition.
Set Goals: Are you looking to hire more employees or increase the number of candidates?
Define roles: Set specific qualifications and expectations.
Establish criteria for target candidates: Outline the ideal candidate for the position.
Identify recruitment channels: Is social media or events the most effective?
Allocate resources: Document expenses and results of paid or organic services.
Create a content calendar: Keep track of team assignments and deadlines.
The candidate’s journey is long and winding. With so many different channels for applicants to conduct research and so many more employment possibilities to pick from, it is critical to stand out and have a presence in the places where top talent is looking. Here are some of the best recruitment marketing methods to explore in order to help your company acquire top talent.
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Because most job searches conduct their research using search engines such as Google, search engine optimisation (SEO) is a vital component of any recruitment strategy. This technique entails optimising the pages of your website so that they appear in search results for specified keywords and phrases. This is an effective strategy for any marketing campaign, but for recruiting, you should concentrate on optimising searches relating to jobs in your industry.
You may also utilise SEO to help potential applicants who are already interested in your company, locate the appropriate page on your website. For example: If someone wants to know if you are hiring, they’ll most likely search for business name jobs in the location.
For searches like these, it is critical that your employment page and job openings appear near the top of the page. Otherwise, potential applicants may believe you are not hiring, and you will lose out on valuable potential employees. You may use SEO to find out what words and phrases people use to look for job openings in the care home industry, or more precisely, with your company.
Then you can work to improve your keyword rankings, making it easier for top candidates to find you.
Learn more about local SEO here.
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
Another technique to boost your exposure in search engine results is with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. This advertising model allows you to post ads in search engine results for specific keywords. For example: If you are a care home in Newport, you might bid to have an ad appear in the search results for care home jobs, in Newport. Your bid is determined by how much you are willing to spend for each click on your ad, and if it is high enough for that keyword, your ad will appear above the standard search results.
You will then be paid your bid amount if a searcher clicks on your ad and visits your website. However, you won’t have to pay a thing if your ad isn’t clicked – making PPC campaigns one of the most cost-effective recruitment marketing techniques.
Website content
Both SEO and PPC efforts are intended to drive traffic to specific pages of your website. Those pages, however, must deliver compelling information about your company and job opportunities once they arrive. Your career-focused pages should include information on your company culture, values, and work environment, as well as information about your care home.
The main employment page can also be used to link to pages about your company’s history, mission, and other vital information. For example, LOCALiQ have a specific page for all career opportunities as well as including employee testimonials!
When potential employees come to this page, they have fast access to all of the information they need. If they then decide they want to work for the company, they can easily search for employment positions and apply with just a few clicks.
Job posting websites
Many people utilise job listing sites in addition to search engines to look for job career opportunities online. These sites can make it simple to search for open positions by job title, industry, and company, rather than having to go to each employer’s website to locate them. As an employer, you may post job advertisements for free on these sites, and given the potential exposure it could give you, there is no reason not to.
In addition, most job boards allow employers to sponsor their job postings in order to increase the number of people who see them. These paid listings work in a similar way to PPC campaigns and are designed to show up for the users they’re most relevant to. Running paid advertisements on employment-focused sites is one of the most successful ways to attract as many applications as possible with digital recruitment strategies.
Reminder: Google has recently added a “Jobs” feature to search results pages, with listings pulled in from sites like ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, and more.
This means that when you submit job postings on those employment boards, you’ll get a boost in search results. In many cases, the “Jobs” section appears above standard ranking, providing you with even better visibility than your listings on those sites.
Social media marketing
For a multitude of reasons, social media has become a vital marketing channel, and recruitment is no exception. LinkedIn is especially useful for this because it is the only social media platform dedicated solely to professionals. Many companies utilise it to locate and hire top talent within their industry because users’ profiles are essentially online resumes. You can also use LinkedIn to advertise open positions at your company. When users look for opportunities on the platform, they’ll be able to locate yours and learn more about your care home, by visiting your company’s page.
These listings function similarly to job postings on job boards, and LinkedIn also offers paid promotion options to help employers reach potential applicants. Beyond LinkedIn, you can utilise other social media platforms to inform your followers about job opportunities. Although social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram don’t have specific tools for job listings, you can use your website to publish links to employment-related content. Keeping your profiles updated with company news, events, and photos is arguably one of the most useful ways to use social media.
Many job searchers look at the social media profiles of companies they’re interested in working for to get a better understanding of what it’s like to work there. They’ll be more confident in their decision to apply if they see an active page with photos of company events, occurrences around your care home, and links to other company news and successes.
Reach new audiences with Facebook advertising
Another advantage of using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for recruitment marketing is that you may target a new audience with Facebook advertisements who may not be familiar with your care home. You can use Facebook advertising to target individuals based on their current job titles, education levels, interests, and locations, and you can run advertisements on both Facebook and Instagram. This will enable you to target ads on both platforms to the types of employees you are looking to attract in your location.
Manage your company’s reputation on review sites
The brand reputation of your company is incredibly crucial. Job seekers want to know how much your present employees love working for you, and reviews provide them with that information. As a result, it is critical that you keep track of your employer reviews and reply appropriately. Review replies are almost as significant to prospective employees as the review itself. In fact, if a company actively manages their employer brand, 75% of job seekers are more inclined to apply for a job.
Employee reviews may appear on consumer-facing review sites like your Google Business Profile and Yelp, in addition to the top employee review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed, so keep an eye on all the locations you might be receiving employee feedback.
The approach for responding to employee feedback will be similar to responding to customer reviews, with a few exceptions. Employee reviews have the advantage of influencing your care home to make changes based on employee feedback, even if they are negative. If you notice a recurrent theme among negative reviews around micromanagement or time-off policies, you may collaborate with your leadership team to identify improvements that will make current employees happier and help you attract top talent.
Find out how to generate more online reviews for your business and how to effectively manage customer reviews here.
Use live chat to interact with potential employees
Live chat is a great feature for your customer-facing website, but it may also help with your recruitment marketing plan. You can communicate with potential employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week, when you add live chat to your employment site or page. Applicants may have queries about how to contact you, how to locate suitable job positions, or simply where your care home is located.
All of these inquiries may be readily answered through live chat, and you can even collect lead information to follow up with later. Providing information and answers to basic inquiries quickly and readily could mean the difference between your ideal employee submitting an application or leaving your site entirely.
Use video marketing to engage applicants
More than 80% of people say they want to see more video content from companies they interact with, and 95% of the message they view in a video is retained. So, offer the customers what they want and use video marketing to get your message across.
More than any other type of content, video allows you to interact with potential employees on a deeper level. You may utilise video marketing to show off your company culture, educate potential employees about what you do, and emphasise employee testimonials so they can get a sense of what it is like to work for you.
Make it simple for people to contact you
Candidates will most likely come across local listings such as Google Business Profile and Yelp when searching for your care home. While most company listings are aimed at consumers, potential employees may use this information to contact you, check your website, or even seek directions to your care home. It’s critical to ensure that your company is displayed correctly so that candidates see the correct information when it’s time to contact you. This is an important recruitment marketing approach that is sometimes disregarded. You don’t want your top applicant to get lost on their way to an interview because Google Maps directed them elsewhere.
Are you ready to use digital marketing to strengthen your recruitment strategy? Let LOCALiQ help your business develop a recruitment strategy. Not only can the team help you find the best techniques for achieving your recruitment objectives, but they can also run and optimise your campaigns so you can focus on getting the right people in the door and into the appropriate jobs. Talk to one of our experts today.
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