Choosing a Good Technology Platform

3 Minutes of Wisdom - Jason Leverant

There are tons of awesome technology platforms out there that your firm could take advantage of. BUT, just because you could, doesn’t mean you should. Learn more about how to choose a good technology platform from Jason Leverant, President of At Work Group.

Continue reading

We Don’t Want to Sell on Social Media

3 Minutes of Wisdom - Brad Smith

Brad Smith - a social media guru from Haley Marketing Group talked about what Staffing Companies need to focus on when it comes to Social Media. Identifying your audience, platform they engage in, and consistent content strategy and posting are just a few of the important points Brad made on this video.

Continue reading

Mergers and Acquisitions with Staffing Firms

3 Minutes of Wisdom - Matt Lyon

Matt Lyon, Corporate Development Officer of TalentLaunch, with a unique strategy of acquiring companies, shared a couple of things he learned about doing mergers and acquisitions with staffing firms. He emphasized that the financials don’t always tell the story.

Continue reading

3 Important Things to Focus on from a Marketing Perspective

3 Minutes of Wisdom - Adam Bleibtreu

In our conversation with Adam Bleibtreu, CMO of Creative Circle, we learned that there are three important things we need to focus on from a Marketing Perspective- First, as a Staffing Company, you need to have a differentiator; Second, be authentic and honest with your candidate; Third, fail as quickly as you can.

Continue reading

Could Marketing be More Important Than Sales? Welcome to the New World.

Let’s face it. Over the past few years, the Marketing function has become more critical to the success of a staffing company than sales. This is a bold statement, I know. A staffing company is, essentially, a sales organization so how is it that marketing has become more critical to the growth plan?  Well, we’ve been hearing buzzwords like “digital transformation”, “automation”, and “social recruiting” for years now. Plus, more marketing technologies are emerging and the need to both understand and manage these platforms is becoming more important as people want to be communicated to on their terms. Throw in the pandemic accelerating all of this and now the entire selling and recruiting landscape has completely changed, not just for the staffing industry, but for all the clients as well. 

The entire sales methodology has shifted. When we look at the outbound sales function, it is a state of the art website that is being recognized by the search engines that must be aligned with the sales efforts. Remember, “sales” is outbound or push-orientated and “marketing” is inbound or rather pull-orientated.  It’s no doubt you have your salespeople making phone calls not really to get anyone on the phone that minute, but rather to leave a compelling commercial that will intrigue a hiring authority to explore the company further, most often driving them to their website.  Once that is reviewed and the value proposition is clearly communicated, then and only then will the hiring authority reach back out to the salesperson (hopefully!). A good majority of a salesperson’s activities are now social media-related tasks whether it’s direct outreach on platforms like LinkedIn or it’s keeping in front of them via a posting schedule. And should be responsible for the execution of this sales work? The marketing leader, namely the VP of Marketing or CMO. 

When we look at the recruiting function, where do I start? A marketing leader should play a huge role in the recruitment strategy in their staffing company. The marketing leader should be working with Recruiters to have a certain persona on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Marketing should be assisting recruiters with writing job board ads to make the ads more attractive, thus acquiring a higher percentage of candidates. Marketing leaders should be working Operational leaders and IT to ensure the quality of the information in the ATS is high and work with Recruiters to more fully utilize the database for more efficient sourcing.  Most importantly, marketing leadership should be managing the marketing campaigns, including candidate engagement platforms, like Sense and Herefish, and texting programs to ensure that staffing firms are getting the utilization and conversion rates from their investments. 

I am just touching the surface here with the responsibilities of this VP of Marketing or CMO.  I have not even addressed all the senior level executive responsibilities.  Think through the sales & recruiting functions and work tasks. This marketing leader should be touching all of those responsibilities. We are even seeing our clients, who are small owner-operator businesses, hiring full-time marketing leaders to lead and manage a bulk of this work. 

Guess who is managing and advising the entire company on job boards and job board usage?  You guessed it, the CMO.  Specific to job boards, all bets are off.  First, the job board metrics are way off due to all the craziness that has been going on in the economy and the job market.  Any when I say “the job board metrics are way off”, I mean that the price keeps going up and up and up and the results continue to go down and down and down.  A staffing firm cannot solve this issue by thinking about and utilizing job boards the way job boards were utilized pre-pandemic.  The smarter staffing firms are using programmatic advertising.  And guess who on the team is figuring that all out?  Again, it’s the CMO.  

I have been blogging here about the Chief Marketing Officer.  This title is going to be different depending upon the size of your staffing organization.  It may be a Direct of Marketing or a Vice President of Marketing or a Marketing Manager.  Regardless of the title, I really believe this role has become more critical to the success of a staffing firm than the Vice President of Sales.  At the Visus Group, we help staffing firms figure out these functions and roles and responsibilities and work tasks to adequately respond to the rapidly changing world of selling and recruiting. Marketing has rapidly become a very critical function in most firms, but finding the right leader to take the helm can be a challenge. We can help. The last thing you want to do is find yourself behind the competition. If you’re thinking about this role or hiring a marketing leader, contact us.

All Lead Generation Tactics Are Not Equal

by Visus Group Partner Jay Mattern, CEO of  TerraFirma Marketing

All Lead Generation Tactics Are Not Equal

If you are utilizing outbound marketing to generate leads, how can you stand out from the crowd and generate optimal results? And by results, I mean getting readers/subscribers to do more than just open an email. Here are seven tips that will help you convert more leads into sales.

1.Stay True to Your Brand

Too often, email campaigns are generic and fail to convey the solicitor’s branded message. While it’s important to tailor your message to the reader and address their needs, your brand still needs to come through loud and clear. Even if your email is short and to the point, it should always be created in your brand voice and reflect your messaging strategy. 

2. Learn how to get and direct attention. 

The email’s subject line is certainly important but getting them to go beyond that will require a purposeful design and compelling content. How can you use design to direct the reader’s attention? By using the elements of motion, size, color, and positioning, you can subtly yell at the reader — “HEY, LOOK AT ME!” Here are some specific ideas:

  • Placing an element higher in the email is more recognizable than a lower one.
  • An element that is in contrast with its surroundings is more recognizable than one which blends in.
  • A larger element is more recognizable than one that is smaller.
  • Bold and/or italicized font stands out when used sparingly.

3. Never forget that conversion is the primary goal.

You should always be asking yourself “what do I want the audience to do?” Ideally, you want them to respond to your Call to Action – to click on the CTA button. That’s what we mean by conversion. The ultimate end of your sales and recruiting process is undoubtedly more involved, but the immediate objective of an email or ad is always to motivate the reader to want to learn more. You need to open that door.

4. Triple-check everything.

Have you ever clicked on a CTA (converted!) and actually wound up on an “Error 404 – the requested URL was not found?” Or the click actually did nothing. It is imperative that you check all of your links to make sure they all work as promised. This is your first opportunity to deliver on something you promised, and a poor impression here takes you out of the running.

5. Make use of urgency.

It’s well known that we tend to want what we can’t have. When something is rare, exclusive, or limited, it immediately makes it more desirable and more in demand. Use this same approach in your email marketing efforts. Limit your offer. Make it clear that immediate action is necessary, whether it’s due to a timeline you set or a seasonal/business cycle. Convey a sense of urgency.

6. Get to the point.

The best lead generation emails are written understanding that the reader’s time is scarce and you’re competing for their attention. No one will take the time to search for your message. It’s your job to package and present it.

  • Use bullet points to highlight key ideas. This will help the important takeaways easily stand out from the rest of the text.
  • Strategically utilize imagery (a picture is still worth 1,000 words).
  • Most important is a clear and inviting Call to Action. It should be just that – a “call” to the reader to do something.

7. Use landing pages.

To get the most from leads you generate, you should use a unique landing page designed specifically to convert the lead to the next step and move them into the lead funnel. A well-designed landing page will prevent the lead from being distracted by other messages or information that reside on your website and will focus them specifically on what the next step is.

Given the significant shift towards digital marketing and automated marketing solutions, getting a message through to a prospect or candidate is becoming increasingly more difficult. Your message must truly stand out and present itself uniquely in order to successfully engage the prospect. With deliberate focus and attention, you can optimize your email marketing results and more easily turn leads into results. And that is the ultimate goal.