Is your recruitment firm struggling to get candidates and clients interested in your content? If the answer is ‘yes’ you could be committing one (or more) of the cardinal sins of content production.
So what are the top reasons your content isn’t hitting the mark? And, crucially, what can you do to fix it?
This is a big bug bear of mine, and something that far too many companies do. They use their content – whether that be a blog, newsletter or white paper - to sell their services instead of demonstrating their expertise. Potential candidates and clients want to know that you are experts in your field, an agency that can help with their career or talent attraction strategies. Leave the selling to advertorials or a pitch meeting when you have got your foot in the door!
In the same vein, too much content doesn’t address the pain points of the intended audience. When planning content themes, it’s absolutely vital that they are based on the information your audience seeks. Think about conversations you have had with clients and candidates, what’s keeping them awake at night? What recruitment struggles are they currently facing? What advice can you give a candidate about their job hunt? The list is endless. However, the key is that your content encourages them to read on because it will add value to their current situation.
Another cardinal sin is producing content and then adopting the ill thought out ‘spray and pray’ technique. In other words you push it out on every possible channel you can think of and hope that your target audience has a presence there. Take the time to assess where your intended audience hangs out – if you are trying to get on the radar of senior HRDs, for example, consider what communities they are part of and target these. While these individuals may very well seek out content on LinkedIn, they will probably not be trawling Instagram for advice. Conversely, if you are targeting millennial candidates they may very well be active users of Instagram or Snapshot.
With so much content to choose from, today’s professionals can afford to be picky. Consequently it is vital to consider what format, length and tone will appeal to each demographic you are targeting. Short, snappy blogs may very well work for certain individuals, but others may have a preference for visual content such as infographics.
If you’re taking the time to produce content, you absolutely must measure its effectiveness. After all, if you don’t you can’t determine how successful it is, and crucially demonstrate the ROI. Ensure you are using tools such as Google Analytics and Hootsuite to determine who is engaging with your content and what themes are the most popular.
Contact us and find out how we can improve your recruitment agency’s content.