3 Essential Elements of Recruitment Marketing

Attract, engage and inform

Before we dive into three essential elements to include in your recruitment marketing strategy, it’s important to have a good understanding of what recruitment marketing actually is. Recruitment marketing utilizes marketing strategies and tools to promote your employer brand, with the goal to attract, engage and inform potential candidates. 
 

This marriage of recruitment efforts and marketing strategies makes perfect sense. Attracting the top talent to your company is not much different than advertising for customers to purchase your product or service. Your goals are to best showcase your brand, who you are, what you stand for, how you’re different and what you can offer in order to get individuals to pick you - or in the case of hiring, to apply for the open position. 

We have outlined the top three marketing elements you should be using in your recruitment marketing efforts. 

Your brand is much more than a logo, although your visual identity is essential in establishing recognition with candidates and consumers, building trust and communicating what you stand for. A successful brand knows its story, and then effectively tells that story to its constituents. A mission statement and vision statement is a great place to start, but it doesn’t stop there. Other important elements to solidify when creating your brand story include: 

-    Brand personality: Are you professional and conservative in tone, or fun and approachable?
-    Your brand at its best: Who are you when no one is looking? 
-    Target audience: In the case of recruitment, who is the ideal employee you’re hoping to attract? 
-    Key messages: What are the key things you want potential employees to know about your brand and what you stand for? 
-    Brand differentiators: What makes you different, better or more unique than your competitors? 

Social media is a key marketing tool all employers and recruiters should utilize for recruitment marketing and brand building. Social media allows companies to more directly connect with potential candidates and end-users compared to job boards, websites, and traditional advertising. 

Once you’ve established your brand story and key messages, developing meaningful content (known as content marketing), to post on social media is helpful to start connecting with your ideal candidates. In addition to posting information about open jobs, social media is best used to visually and authentically showcase your employees, impressive work or awards, community giving and other elements that communicate who you are and what you stand for. 

Social media advertising can also be used extremely successfully for job post advertising. Compared to traditional advertising, social media ads can be cost-effective and allow for hyper-targeted campaigns. Build your ideal candidate persona to target geographic area, interests and hobbies and education level. 

If you aren’t using social media to target both active and passive candidates, you are missing a large group of potential employees who actively use social platforms to look for jobs, get information and network. 

It is also important to consider the other social platforms aside from LinkedIn, which mostly has active job seekers. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even Snapchat are important social network platforms to tap into depending on the type of candidate or job you’re looking to fill. While Facebook tends to skew older in terms of demographics (50+), platforms like Instagram and Snapchat appeal to younger demographics and millennials, which could fare better if you’re looking to fill entry-level jobs. 

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant content to attract and retain your target audience. An essential tool in your recruitment marketing efforts, content creation is key to strengthen your employer brand and build awareness among potential candidates. 

When developing a strategy for content creation, think about what you want to say to your customers and potential candidates and what you want them to walk away with. Remember, it shouldn’t be a sales pitch about who you are, but provide them with valuable information or resources. For instance, a health insurance company might share quick and easy recipes for weeknight meals or a video that shows people how to do quick stretches at work to maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

Blogging, email campaigns and social media are all great vehicles for sharing content. Make it a goal to share content at least twice a month in order to keep momentum with your audience. 

Joe O’Connor is CEO of ViziRecruiter.