We are marketers who listen intently to what our clients and prospective clients say to us. The one phrase that has stood out over the last month is………

How Do We Stop Being The Best Kept Secret In Recruitment? There is an answer, in fact there a few. For today let’s just focus on one to get the ball rolling.

Recruitment marketing for many recruiters seems like a strange concept? Why would you want to invest in marketing when all you need to do is sign up to a job board throw some jobs on LinkedIn and pick up the phone! We affectionately call this spray and pray marketing.

Three or four years ago you might have been able to maintain a sustainable recruitment business using these techniques and leveraging your little black book when the diary looked empty. The truth is times are changing and finding high calibre candidates and clientsin a consistent way is more challenging than ever.

An established agency we spoke to last week said that during the last two years they hadn’t grown and it felt like they had to “do more” just to stand still.  Does this sound familiar?

The truth is most recruiters are experts at what they do and not necessarily great at consistently promoting themselves with thought and precision. There is a simple answer? You just need a plan that you actually implement. If you do this we guarantee your profits will change. There is a great guy on line that we follow and his analysis with thousands of business owners he works with is that creating a marketing plan increased revenues by at least 24%.

It makes senses doesn’t it? Think about your own activity when it comes to billings. If you have a consistent process and monitor your KPI’s you will bring more revenue into the business. Of course you have to focus on the ones that work. If you are unsure what yours might be you need to check out this recruitment training. It is the same with your marketing. You need to look at what it is that you want to achieve according to your business objectives and then focus on the marketing strategies that are going to deliver for you. Here is a quick and dirty summary for you of the process and what you need to do.

1. Decide on your recruitment business objectives……..after you have crunched your numbers

2. Agree your market segments (sectors) that are your key focus. Even if you are niche still break
    this down as it might surprise you

3. Agree your value proposition (why people will choose you as their recruitment company either as
    a candidate or client). Make this central to all your communications. This is what really really
    successful companies do

4. Agree your marketing channels, budget time frame and  review process

5. Decide on the specific tactics you will use to become a though leader in your sector. This could be a website and SEO , a LinkedIn and   Social media communication strategy, videos, whitepapers etc.

6. Take action- outsource or DIY

Yes it takes time to think through this and get it right. The time is worth it though. We were lucky enough have an amazing mentor who is a branding expert. One of her favourite pieces of advice was. “Slow is fast” so many people just don’t think through what they want to achieve and what the areas of focus needs to be. You can be different. The time is right to take action on this. You can start at any point in the year and with the resources you have to hand. Rome didn’t get built in a day and neither did Microsoft or Apple. If you are fed up being the best kept secret in recruitment it starts with a decision and a plan.

Denise Oyston is a marketing consultant that specialises in helping recruitment companies attract more candidates and clients online. Super Fast Recruitment provides a range of recruitment marketing services. To find out more visit her website at http://www.superfastrecruitment.co.uk