staffing firms: building, promoting and measuring your brand

Building, promoting and measuring

your brand

Lucy Wren

Solutions Consultant

Branding to Win Clients and Candidates 2


No brand?

No business.

What makes a great brand?



Common misconceptions and excuses

“My business is too small to care about branding.”

“I don’t have the resources or time to devote to

branding.”

“My firm isn’t any different from other firms.”

“I thought branding was Marketing’s job.”

“Where do I start?”


Common misconceptions and excuses

“Where do I start?”

Define Your Brand


Find your purpose

We find suitable

candidates to match

our clients vacancies


Do your research


Planning your research

1. Who will you talk to?

2. What information will you collect?

3. How often?

4. Where and how will you engage your targets?

• What drove you to set the company up?

• What keeps you at XYZCo?

• What are you good at? Best at?

• What do your clients say you are good at? Your

candidates?

• What’s special about your recruiting process?

• What three words would you use to describe XYZCo?

• What’s your overall impression of XYZCo?

• What’s your favorite aspect of how XYZCo operates?

• What makes XYZCo different from other firms?

• How likely would you be to work with XYZCo again?

Why?

• What three words would you use to describe

XYZCo?

Internal sample questions External sample questions


Turning brand into reality

CREATE A CLEAR

COMPANY

NARRATIVE

DEMONSTRATE

THROUGH

BEHAVIOUR

PHYSICAL AND

DIGITAL

ENVIRONMENTS

Create a narrative that

tells people who you are

• Why

• How

Informs messaging

across all channels

• Outbound

• Responsive

Create a set of values for

employees that help to

guide them to deliver the

brand promise

Encourage and reinforce

• Employee recognition

• Hiring criteria

Audit what is there

already

Create the ideal scenario

then either overhaul if

needed or introduce over

time

BUILD BRAND

ASSETS

Audit what is out there

• You

• Competitors

Create easy to use

assets and guidelines


Promote and engage


Branding to Win Clients and Candidates 13 13

Maximise your employees presence

Photo

Headline

Summary

Rich

Media

Cover

image

Posts /

Blogs


Recommendations

/ Blogs

Groups

Follow


Encourage employees

to be thought leaders

• Share content, join groups,

and help spread your

messages.

• Tee up an article of the

week your team can share.

• Check out Alistair Cox’s

posts for inspiration:


“Having more followers

than companies 100x our

size gives us significant

credibility within the

industry.”

Chad Saffro

Recruiter and Consulting,

CS Recruiting

Strengthen Your Firm’s Brand Take your Company Page to new heights

Make sure that it communicates:

• Your brand purpose

• How you do what you do – what makes you

different

• Your focus areas

• The type of clients with whom you work

• The opportunities you can deliver to candidates

• What candidates and clients should expect by

working with you

• What potential new consultants can expect from

you. 7 LinkedIn research per Field Guide

https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-solutions/global/en_US/c/pdfs/linkedin-recruiting-firms-field-guide.pdf


• Sums up unique positioning

to both clients and

candidates

• Grabs attention with

explanation of why it’s

different from other recruiting

firms

• Builds credibility with specific

examples of results achieved

• Further brands itself with

infographics and testimonials

on its accompanying Careers

Page.

Best-in-class staffing firm Company Page


Follow these three steps to out-hustle your competition:

For more information on the Follow button, visit developer.linkedin.com/plugins.

Step 1:

Add a free “Follow”

button to your site

Make it easy for

people who visit

your website to

follow your

Company Page.

Step 2:

Go social

Cross-promote

your Company

Page in LinkedIn

Groups and on

other social

platforms.

Step 3:

Employees spread

the word

Ask your team to

include your

Company Page on

their LinkedIn

profiles and in client

and candidate

communications.

Grow your Company Page Followers

https://developer.linkedin.com/plugins


Status updates have 3 key benefits:

• Show you’re a strategic partner.

• Make you visible and accessible.

• Extend your reach.

Break away from the pack with

stand out status updates


Break away from the pack with

stand out status updates

Make your status updates uber-engaging by:

• Using images and rich media

• Target using criteria like job function, seniority and

geography

• Leverage existing content streams – Influencers, Pulse,

and Groups.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/discover

https://www.linkedin.com/today/?trk=nav_responsive_sub_nav_pulse

https://www.linkedin.com/grp/

22

Where can you find great content to share?

LinkedIn Careers Page, Targeted Ads, Sponsored Content

23

Make a bigger splash with paid tools


24



25


Branding to Win Clients and Candidates 26 10 2014 Jobvite Jobseeker Nation Study

86%

86% of job seekers have an account on at least one of these six

social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn,

Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest.10

Decide where to play on other social media


Platform What works Considerations Peak activity Suggested

frequency

• Videos, images/quotes, and thought

leadership-oriented blog posts tend to

do well.

Professional-oriented social

network, so photos from your family

vacation are better utilized

elsewhere.

7-9am

5-6pm

Start with 2-3

times/week.

Work up to once per

day.

• Chatty content – show your

company’s informal side e.g. photos

from the holiday party.

• Highly visual content (like

infographics) do well.

You can’t target your posts by

industry, so you’ll have to find other

relevant parameters.

6-8am

1-4pm

Start with 2-3

times/week.

Work up to once per

day.

• Industry news.

• Encourage your employees to share

job postings on Twitter for their

portfolio companies.

Less professional focus and more

news, entertainment oriented; 140-

character limit and short life-span

due to high post volume.

1-3pm 2-5 times per day.

• How-to and thought leadership

presentations.

Growing a following takes time.

Best used in conjunction with

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or

embed in a blog.

Tue and Wed,

24hrs/day

2-3 a month.

Where, when and how to publish



Top tips for content

• Target. If your audience is everybody, then it’s nobody. It’s better to be too narrow than

too broad.

• Experiment. 3-month minimum time period for testing out a new platform, posting at

least a few times a week.

• Be visual. Strong visuals are the name of the game, regardless of channel.

“My goal is repetition, and to have every touch point be impressive and impactful. It’s the

accumulation of all those things that strengthens our brand.”

Carolyn Betts, Founder & CEO, Betts Recruiting

Measure and adjust


LinkedIn

How To Measure

Intangibles

Your data

Intangible Qualitative Elements

Awareness

Recall

Trust

Advocacy

Loyalty

Views of Brand

Brand engagements

Soft leads

Hard leads

Unaware of your brand

Client or candidate

Impressions

Company followers

InMails Accepted

Job Applications

Social Actions

Job views

Employee and career

page views

Conversions

Follower demographics:

Understand your audience

How you compare: Benchmark

your followership

Visitors: track your page views

and unique visitors

Status update engagement: Use

the data on what’s performing well

– and what’s not.


Company Page

analytics

Views of Brand

Brand engagements

Soft leads

Hard leads

Unaware of your brand

Client or candidate

Website traffic

Newsletter signups

CV uploads Job applications

Contact us enquiries

Placements

New clients sourced

Multiple page views Time on site

Jobs views

ATS

Website

Analytics

Conversions

Views of Brand

Brand engagements

Soft leads

Hard leads

Impressions

Company followers

InMails Accepted

Job Applications

Social Actions

Job views

Employee and

career page views

Website traffic

Newsletter signups

CV uploads Job applications

Contact us enquiries

Placements

New clients sourced

Multiple page views

Jobs views

Intangibles

Intangibles

Conversions

Keep it simple

Recap and immediate action


Define your

brand

Watch Simon

Sinek, Golden

circle, TED talk

Promote and

engage

Send a piece of

content round to

employees to

share

Measure and

adjust

Decide on your

three key

metrics

Questions?


staffing firms: building, promoting and measuring your brand

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