Marketing, like any other specialist function, can feel like it has a language of its own. And when you add recruitment marketing Jargon on top of that, it can feel overwhelming.
Phrases like user journey, brand personality, tone of voice and customer persona are commonly used but not necessarily explained upfront.
And that’s not even starting on the acronyms! CPC, PPC, UX, USP… the list goes on.
Here at Prominence, we love taking our clients on a journey into the world of marketing and breaking things down into simple, bite-sized pieces of information.
After all, recruitment marketing is what we specialise in, and we want our clients to be able to focus on their core business working with their clients and candidates rather than Googling “what does CX mean?”
In this blog, we’ve created a jargon-buster list to help you on your way to cracking the code of recruitment marketing.
Branding for Recruitment Agencies
Kicking things off with a big one! A brand comprises a number of elements that together represent the value and influence you have on your customers. It’s more than a logo or a collection of colours it’s also the experiences you offer, the connections you create and the promises you make.
Think of Apple as a brand. It’s design-centric, user friendly and always innovative. Through this strategy, Apple has created such brand loyalty that people queue for hours outside a shop to buy the latest product, regardless of what it is. Sitting behind the brand are supporting visual elements such as the logo, the tagline “Think Different” and a series of cool, engaging ad campaigns.
Personal Branding
Within the world of recruitment, another important term is personal branding. This is applying the theory of branding, to how you position yourself to your customer. So, how do you want your customers to think of you and what experience can you offer them? How do you translate that brand into your communications from networking and meetings to the content you post on LinkedIn?
Big Picture Branding
- Brand Awareness The number of people in your potential market who know who you are at any given point. Increasing brand awareness is often a priority for small recruitment agencies that are looking to grow.
- Brand Personality If your brand was a person, what would they be like? Are you friendly and approachable or serious and respected? How are you different from your competitors?
- Tone of Voice What does your brand sound like in writing or when you’re pitching to clients?
Visual Components of Branding
- Logo – A unique visual identifier that is often trademarked e.g. Lacoste’s crocodile.
- Strapline/Tagline A short, sharp statement that summarises a brand or product e.g. Nike’s Just Do It.
- Brand Identity/Look and Feel A collection of visual elements including logos, straplines, design features and colours.
Marketing Strategy for Recruitment Agencies
When we start working with a new client, we run a half-day workshop that goes through all of their business goals, identifies who their competitors are, what makes them stand out in the market and who they want to work with. This information helps us build a bespoke marketing strategy and a subsequent calendar of activity.
Your marketing strategy should include:
- Objectives What do you want to achieve through marketing activity? Do you want to grow your brand awareness or do you want to increase the number of candidates registering?
- USP/Unique Selling Proposition – How is your service better than your competitors?
- Target Audience Who are you trying to sell to? Do you operate in a niche sector such as financial services or just recruit contractors?
- Audience Personas – What characteristics do all of your ideal clients or candidates have in common? Can they be grouped into a few different profiles?
- Marketing Mix – What is the list of channels and tools that are going to help you achieve your objectives?
Marketing Tools and Channels for Recruitment Agencies
Content marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on creating different pieces of content that inform, entertain or inspire people. It can comprise social media posts, blogs, white papers, videos, webinars, eBooks and more. It’s not designed to be an overt sell but rather a collection of useful information pieces that can capture the attention of your customers, demonstrate your value and build trust for future interactions (e.g. LinkedIn Inmails). It’s also a great vehicle to drive customers to your website.
Social Media Marketing is a form of content marketing and covers content that is delivered through social media platforms such as LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and more. The content can be tailored to increase your brand awareness, highlight specific roles you’re recruiting for or profile team members depending on your objectives.
Email Marketing is a way to consistently engage with current and prospective clients through email communications. Emails can range from newsletters updating customers with your latest blogs or webinars, to highlighting new roles being recruited. You can also automate parts of your recruitment process via email such as interview confirmations to candidates or welcome emails for new starters.
Search Engine Marketing comprises two parts – paid and organic. Both strive to ensure your agency’s website appears as high as possible on a search engine results pages, making you more visible and driving more traffic to your website.
- Paid is also called PPC (Pay Per Click) where you invest money into bidding for appropriate keywords (aka phrases people search on the internet) in return for higher search rankings.
- Organic search is also known as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and is a series of steps you take to improve the structure and content on your website to improve search rankings. This may include reviewing the metadata (information that sits behind the website that is read by the search engine web crawlers) or ensuring the copy on your pages is easy to read with clear and optimised headings, appropriate use of keywords and is regularly updated.
Paid Advertising is where you buy space on a media channel to promote your business. Paid digital ads on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google can be cost-effective and drive traffic directly to your website. They are also highly targeted and allow you to refine your search based on categories such as geography, job title, seniority and interests. Other media includes things like radio, print and TV which require higher budgets and make return on investment hard to track.
Websites serve a number of functions including being a central CTA (call to action) on all of your marketing activity, a place to advertise active jobs and a tool to help people find your business. They should be well-planned and user-friendly, SEO-optimised and have a structure user journey that takes them from entry point to action e.g. submitting their CV or making a phone call. This journey is also called UX (User Experience) or CX (Customer Experience).
Get in Touch
We appreciate that’s a lot of information to digest and we don’t expect you to study these terms in detail. As your recruitment marketing partners, we’re here to help navigate the confusing world of clicks, likes and comments so you see real value and return on your marketing spend.
We know the recruitment markets across Australia, New Zealand and the UK inside and out. We offer insights from our wealth of marketing experience – from strategy and messaging development to deciding whether LinkedIn, Facebook or TikTok are the right platforms for your goals and audience.
If you’d like more advice on developing your recruitment marketing strategy or want to find out about our outsourced marketing packages for recruitment agencies, get in touch for a chat.
