POSTED BY Jennifer Wright

We’ve heard the phrase ‘content is king’ on repeat for many years now. And we've all listened and churned out blog post after blog post.

In the ever-evolving recruitment industry landscape, having a robust marketing strategy isn't just a luxury—it's a necessity. But what truly separates a mediocre approach from an exceptional one? Three industry experts from BlueSky PR recently sat down together for a webinar on the intricacies of creating a recruitment marketing strategy that genuinely delivers.

Worried about AI encroaching on your territory? I understand. With all the buzz about artificial intelligence transforming hiring, you might be questioning your agency's future relevance. But here's the reality - with a savvy PR strategy, you won't merely weather the AI revolution, you'll flourish in it.

To blow some cash To give you a reason to lose weight and get into that little black dress To waste some time To increase your already busy workload To create stress for yourself To demoralise your team Or, perhaps some hard figures as to why you should enter a recruitment award? To increase sales (37%-77%) To improve your stock price (44%) To influence your buyers (80%) To improve confidence in your supplier status (49%) To outperform award “losers” (17% for sales and 36% for share value) Things to do before entering a recruitment award Agree the goal of winning Ask the awarding body what their marketing process is Speak to previous entrants Have a battle plan (and a resource) Agree your ROI model – what are you measuring? 10 things to do as a finalist, before the “big night” Tell your company Tell your clients Tell your competitors (ideal recruits?) Adjust email signatures Adjust mailers / eshots Adjust social media banners Get a quote from your leader Create content (blog / images / video) Have a marketing plan for the night of event Assume a hangover and get everything ready for the day after Things to do during the awards Try and stay (relatively) sober Live post on socials – use the hashtag Lots of pictures (that look good without beer goggles) Video of winning the award Video quote from the organiser of the award Get a “feelings” list from the team Engage with the organisers online Things to do after the awards Measure the ROI Survey your staff, clients, and candidates (to market your win) Create content Adjust all online channel branding Email signatures Video quote from your leader/winner Adjust job adverts Create a podcast Capitalise on your win Measuring and communicating the ROI What should you measure?

As a recruitment agency marketing manager, you already know the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO). After all, strong organic search visibility is critical for attracting top talent and connecting with potential clients. In fact, according to Search Engine Journal, 49% of marketers say organic search offers higher ROI than any other marketing channels.

We all want to save money, and cutting back on marketing can seem like a good way to do it. But if you're considering reducing your marketing spend, take a moment to think first. Marketing is an investment in your company's future. Without the right marketing strategy, the results from other investments such as an ATS, LinkedIn, or sales training may not occur. What you need to do is measure the results of your efforts, so that you know what works and what doesn't work for your business. If you are thinking about cutting your marketing spend, here are some reasons why you should reconsider:

Have you heard about the latest email rules from Google and Yahoo?

I asked: Can you summarise this report and pull out the key quotes relevant to the recruitment industry? https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/amp/marketing-solutions/images/lms-state-of-b2b-marketing/pdf/the-b2b-benchmark-report-2023-final.pdf

Are you ready to take your recruitment marketing to the next level? Let's talk about how AI can help you out!

Blogging has been around for over two decades now, and it's safe to say that it's not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, according to WordPress, there are currently over 600 million blogs on the internet. That's a lot of blogs! And around 77% of internet users read blog content regularly (Social Media Today).

Content needs to be at the heart of every recruitment firm’s marketing strategy. When produced and utilised correctly it enables your business to generate brand awareness, build relationships with candidates and clients and bring your marketing costs down.

ChatGPT is all the rage right now, with many marketers excited (76% according to my LinkedIn poll) about the prospect of AI but a few feel threatened by it.

In today's job market, one of the biggest hurdles recruitment firms and internal recruiters both face is attracting talent.

It's hard to believe 2023 is behind us. And what a year it was. Full of twists and turns, and perhaps most critically when it comes to recruitment, a year of change.

For recruiters the biggest problem right now is most likely finding candidates right? You've got how many open roles? And zero (or it feels that way) candidates.

I know, I know. You’re busy. You barely have time to write a blog post, let alone make and edit a video. In the world of recruitment marketing (all marketing actually now that I think about it), there is never enough time.

STOP looking at PR as a vanity project – have objectives and measure outcomes STOP creating content and not marketing it STOP writing crap job adverts and blaming the advert and the talent who applies STOP sending out press releases about what you do… no-one cares STOP using billers to write blogs Tracey Barrett and Lisa Jones’ top recruitment PR and marketing tips Focus on the objectives of your content strategy Content is a tactic There’s a lot of crap content out there Keeping your brand a secret isn’t a great tactic Leverage, stretch and repurpose your press coverage to get maximum ROI Think of job ads as content – not a rehash of the job spec Build your recruitment marketing strategy around your target market Stop telling people what you do – no-one cares – tell them what you know Promote the success of your marketing activities internally and take credit for the sales you contribute to Think about how you can get content from recruiters without asking them to stop billing Use PR as a business development tool Shocking stats: recruitment agency polls 58% of recruitment firms hardy ever appear in the media outside of the recruitment press 42% of recruitment consultancies are generating valuable leads and talent with their content – if you’re not one of them, you’re missing out 75% of recruitment businesses say they have lots to say but they don’t know how to create or send a press release 71% of recruitment marketers say getting recruiters to give them content is like trying to pull teeth Looking to build PR into your business development strategy? For more tips on how to leverage your media coverage read more from the BlueSky PR Blog and check out our free, on-demand webinars.

Social media as a communication channel continues to grow, with a report by Datareportal in 2021 saying, “There are now 4.20 billion social media users around the world. This figure has grown by 490 million over the past 12 months.” This is astonishing as now the vast majority of the world is on social media, which increases your opportunities to find the perfect candidate for the role you are trying to fill.

Recruitment businesses need three things in order to be successful:

Public Relations, or 'PR', for recruiters is all about the way you communicate with your target audience, promote yourself, and build a positive reputation.

In our most recent live recruitment marketing Q&A, hosted by Vickie Collinge and Dan Stobbs, we focused on the future of recruitment PR and marketing, BlueSky's @VickieCollinge and @Stobbzy are live for our recruitment marketing Q&A. They are discussing how agencies can future-proof their comms strategy. Send in your questions! #RecruitmentMarketing #Recruitment #Staffing #HRhttps://t.co/pSyvEkRPPX — Tracey Barrett (Dunn) (@BlueSkyPR) May 18, 2020 Here's what was covered: . Vickie: Hi everyone, it's Vicki here from BlueSky PR.

During the early days of the pandemic, we ran a live recruitment marketing Q&A clinic - the session below focused on recruiters social media use.

Last week we ran our third live recruitment marketing Q&A focusing on events and survey data hosted by Vickie Collinge and Dan Stobbs. BlueSky's @VickieCollinge and @Stobbzy are live for our recruitment marketing Q&A. Ask them your questions concerning virtual events and survey data.#RecruitmentMarketing #Recruitment https://t.co/0d2XzAQeYR — Tracey Barrett (Dunn) (@BlueSkyPR) April 22, 2020 Here's what was covered: Vickie: Hi everyone! Hi Dan! Welcome everyone who’s joined us. I hope everyone is well. Thank you for coming on board for this week’s live Q&A. Just a quick comment from me, I’m sure if anyone has seen the promo’s we’ve been putting out on social media, it was my colleague Steph King that was going to be joining me on this today, obviously Dan is not Steph but I’m afraid Steph has been pulled away on something else suddenly. So, Dan our Head of Social Media has kindly agreed to join me today and pose some of the questions you’ve been asking us over the last week or so. If anyone has seen one of these before, we’ve all been taking part in these live Twitter Q&A’s to give everyone in the recruitment industry the opportunity to ask us anything about recruitment marketing, PR, social media – questions that are really at the top of your list at the moment. And we’re answering them so we can give everyone as much support and help as we can during these difficult times.

In the early days of the pandemic we ran our coronavirus helpline live recruitment marketing Q&A on Twitter. Here's what was discussed during one of these sessions:

Last week we ran our first coronavirus helpline live recruitment marketing Q&A on Twitter, hosted by Vickie Collinge and Dan Stobbs, who answered all the marketing, PR and social media questions you tweeted in to us.

In the fast-paced world of recruitment marketing, having the right tools at your disposal can make all the difference. Whether you're looking to streamline your content planning, enhance your social media presence, or adapt to remote work, this blog post has got you covered.

If you had asked me two weeks ago how PR could’ve helped in my role, I honestly wouldn’t be sure. But after just one week working at BlueSky I can see how integral PR is to help recruitment businesses stand out from the crowd and in turn increase revenue.

BlueSky PR’s Tracey Barrett recently presented at the Recruitment Leaders Connect conference on “How to make money from PR,” followed by an afternoon of roundtables where we discussed the value of PR and content. So what did we discuss? Why aren’t more recruiters appearing in the press? Often the answer was that they hadn’t been asked and don’t know how to approach the press themselves. But pitching a journalist a story is no different than pitching a client a candidate – the worst they can say is no. However, one of the key things we discussed that that PR isn’t just about the press The press can be a good credibility tick because someone else is writing about you rather than writing about yourself – but everyone can become a publisher these days when we have access to blogging platforms and LinkedIn publisher. So if you’re an organisation that doesn’t have the comfort of a marketing person to represent you to the press on your behalf, you can start just by publishing some posts yourself. It can be as simple as using your LinkedIn publisher platform to start sharing your opinions to stir up some comment and controversy.

Having a beautiful design is great. A recruitment website that delivers on its key objectives is even better. An amalgamation of the two is the dream but takes a clear plan from the start to achieve. When most recruitment firms begin a website upgrade project, their main motivation is the desire for a fresh, new design that better represents their brand – which is clearly important. Their priorities might include improving the way the site performs across the latest browsers and mobile devices, which is fantastic. But neither of these consider what recruitment firms are looking for their recruitment website to provide them with: Candidates applying for their jobs (good, relevant, high calibre candidates) Potential clients getting in touch Recruiters wanting to join their business Achieving these starts long before you hit the page and see the site design. Imagine the people you’re targeting don’t know who you are. That they’re doing a Google search. They’re not looking for you, they’re looking to solve a problem, to answer a question. You need to know what their questions are, what they’re searching for, what to provide them with; you need relevant content, and for that content to be well optimised, in order to be found.

We all know that content is king and that everyone should have a content marketing plan – and that is very much part of a PR and communications strategy but I would argue that media also needs to be part of that strategy.

Takeaways from the Recruitment PR & Content Workshop with BlueSky PR and Barclay Jones Getting ready to kick off the @bluesky_pr & @barclayjones #recruitment #marketing workshop - #RecruitmentMarketing #content #PR # work #workshop A photo posted by BlueSky PR (@bluesky_pr) on Oct 19, 2016 at 1:46am PDT Staff leave – when you buy a business you’re buying the marketing footprint and the data. Figures from APSCo show 61% of recruiters believe next year will be a nightmare for recruiters to hire for their own teams. How do you show your client you’re a specialist? Content. Be a thought leader. The biggest challenge to recruiters is time. Is there a shortage of candidates or just a shortage of interested candidates? 91% of marketers don’t feel that they are effective at measuring ROI. 72% marketers are inconsistent, basic or limited in content marketing. Are your LinkedIn contacts / connection requests increasing since you published that piece of content? That’s your ROI. Marketers, tell your recruiters you've given them their leads, now it’s their job to convert. Are your recruiters targeted on producing marketing content? Do your recruiters know what your marketing department does? Make sure all URLs in your blog posts are trackable. Find out what your clients are interested in outside of work if you want to build a better connection and understand your client demographics. Images boost the chances of your content being read, remembered and shared. Share your content, share your coverage and if in doubt share it again – but don’t spam, remember to customise the post each time. Use click bait headlines but only if you can deliver in the body.