Content is King: How To Build Your Credibility With Content Marketing

December 7, 2018

As a recruiter, your tenacious, go-getter mindset serves you well. It’s the valuable trait that fuels you when you’re putting in the work to identify the best talent, and when you’re building positive and lasting relationships with clients. When you’re creating and implementing your firm’s content marketing strategies to grow your business, it’s important to tap into that same committed work ethic.

With content marketing, it’s imperative that you remain committed to generating content, patient in evaluating results, and aware of the various, and sometimes unquantifiable, ways that content is affecting your business.

Remaining Patient When Setting Goals in Content Marketing

In most of your business strategies, your goals are created using a simple equation. By doing X, we hope to yield Y. In recruiting, you might purchase an additional LinkedIn recruiting seat for your firm, with the goal that it will increase revenue by a certain number. The time-tested equation makes for an easy ROI analysis upon the completion of your initiative.

In content marketing, that’s not a great way to set goals. Why? Because your content has a broad impact on your company. A single piece of content has the ability to improve your search rankings, drive traffic to your website, generate leads, educate prospects, engage with your audience, create brand awareness, and improve your brand’s reputation. There are simply too many variables to insert into a linear success equation when it comes to evaluating content.

A common pitfall that companies fall into is they get discouraged with their content efforts when they don’t collect quick wins from it. They then drop the ball on content creation, for a while, out of frustration.

I made this mistake when I first started creating content for my recruiting firm. I was so focused on how much traffic our website was generating, and how many leads we were converting, that I was losing sight of the long game. You, of course, should set goals for the various content metrics out there—whether that be rankings, traffic, or conversions. But don’t forget to be patient. If a piece of content doesn’t generate a lead this month, or even over the next few months, that doesn’t mean it won’t eventually. There are so many ways that content can help your brand, that you must avoid rigid evaluations of whether or not it’s working.

Instead, your primary goal should be to create good content regularly. You never know when a piece of content is going to serve as the conversion point for a lead. The life cycle of a piece of content can go for years, which is important to keep in mind when evaluating the metrics of your content.

Staying Committed to Producing Content Across All of Your Channels

In recruiting, your reputation is everything. Candidates measure your reputation when weighing whether to trust you with guiding them toward the next opportunity in their career, and your clients weigh your reputation when deciding whether they can trust you to find them the perfect candidate.

If your firm isn’t producing a steady amount of content, your reputation is in jeopardy. Before a lead picks up the phone and calls your firm or sends you an email, they will read three-to-five pieces of content. As they come across the content they read, they will be evaluating your brand.

Ask yourself this, what does our content say about us? If you only post a blog every couple of months, leads will take notice and question your commitment. If your social posting is inconsistent and unfocused, leads will notice. If you don’t have any long-form content that tackles the important questions and topics of your target audience, your leads will notice. Gaps in the consistency or quality of your content will stain how leads are appraising your firm.

By staying committed and patient, you’ll be able to supply leads with a steady diet of educational content that will both inform them about the solutions to their pain points and to the value of your firm.

Parqa Marketing is a digital marketing agency that works to transform your digital marketing efforts.

How to Generate Quality Blog Topics as a Recruiter

November 28, 2018

Now more than ever, blogging is the key to successful content marketing. Neglecting to post blogs can hurt your brand and your business’s chance of being seen. As a recruiter, consistently generating fresh blog content brings potential clients and candidates to your site. The main challenge is while you’re busy making placements, it’s hard to find time to brainstorm intriguing topic ideas, let alone write quality blogs. After reading this blog, you will have the skills and tools you need to master the process of generating excellent blog topics, even on a tight schedule.

Identify Your Target Audience

Start by nailing down your target audience – Who will be reading your blog? Knowing your buyer personas is extremely helpful for this step. Think about who they are and what they’re interested in. Potential clients and candidates will find your blog one day, and it’s important to make sure they’ll find engaging and useful content.

Industry Trends – What are People Buzzin’ About?

Are you aware of the latest trends in your industry? Do you keep up with the latest news? What is your network buzzin’ about?

Staying on top of the answers to these questions will help you tap into fresh topic ideas for your next blog. For example, a big trend in the recruiting industry right now is the positive impact artificial intelligence is having on the recruiting industry. Writing about methods and predictions related to AI would be a great topic for a potential blog in the future.

There are several resources you can use to determine the latest industry trends such as online articles, magazines, social media, podcasts, television, etc.

These first two steps are essential for a strong start and continued success in writing engaging blogs.

Topic Generation Tool

There’s going to come a time when your brain stops working, and you cannot think of any great topics to write about. Luckily, using a topic generator tool allows you to quickly and efficiently come up with topic ideas. Once you have finalized your target audience and researched industry trends, insert specific keywords into the topic generator tool you’re using.

Topic generators can help boost your SEO ranking, which plays a large role in growing your brand awareness and your business. Without a stream of fresh content, your SEO ranking will sink along with your social media presence.

Not all topic generator tools are built the same, but all have the same end goal of providing you with a variety of ideas. Below is a list of tools I recommend using to generate quality blog topics.

Don’t be Afraid to Reach Out for Help

If after all that, you’re still truly stumped, don’t hesitate to ask your fellow co-workers, family, and friends for suggestions. Asking others for ideas is especially helpful, as you never know what their unique views can bring to the table. Word of mouth travels fast, and someone may have heard about a topic in the industry that could spark an idea for your next awesome blog.

While writing blogs can be a challenging process, coming up with good topics can save a lot of headaches. If you’re having a difficult time growing your brand and are interested in expanding your blog content, partner with us today.

To learn more about how content marketing can grow your business, check out our recent webinar recording.

closed laptop and phone with earbuds sitting on desk

Is Your Online Brand Aligned with Your Personal Brand?

November 27, 2018

There is no doubt that a recruiter’s reputation plays a significant role in landing a search. There are thousands and thousands of small recruiting firms in the United States that have built their companies one handshake at a time.

Hopefully, as their reputation in a given market grows so does their business. While the need to create a trusted partnership with a potential client will never go away, the market is changing, and recruiters in companies both large and small need to develop their brand online.

Your Personal Brand

Hubspot released a report in May 2018 that stated, “77% of consumers research you and your company online before engaging with your brand”.

Let me give you an example of this in action. Versique, Parqa’s sister company, recently acquired a recruiting firm with a very well-established leader in their market. He had an outstanding company and was doing excellent work for his clients. Several years prior he had placed a CEO in a company, and that CEO called him as he was retiring and was looking for help to fill his replacement.

The experience he had with this recruiter was phenomenal, and the CEO referred him to the Board of Directors. A few weeks later this recruiter received a call from the CEO informing him that the Board of Directors chose to go a different route because they couldn’t find any information about his practice online. At this point, he knew the market was changing, and he had to do something different. He saw what Versique was doing to build online credibility not only to drive net-new leads, but to secure the reputation of its recruiters online; many of which have 15+ years in the industry.

This is a real-life example of how a skilled recruiter, with an excellent reputation and the benefit of a referral, couldn’t close a deal because the Board of Directors could not learn more about him online.

When I hear Parqa’s clients and potential clients say they can’t afford to spend more on digital marketing, or even entertain digital marketing at all, I tell them this story. Can you afford not to land a CEO search that on paper ten years ago would have been a slam dunk?

There are two critical components of digital marketing that every recruiter and company HAVE to focus on at bare minimum in 2019.

30 Minute How-To Guide: Check out this webinar to learn how you can build your brand on LinkedIn ➢

1.Visibility

Visibility comes in many forms, but by definition is the “state of being able to be seen.” Some examples of building online visibility are:

Making your website optimized for search engines to rank higher in organic searches.
Writing content that targets your core audience and provides them with the information they find reputable and relevant.
Generating leads by advertising with Pay Per Click campaigns.

2. Brand

Once potential clients can find you online, they are able to assess your credibility instantly. Your online brand must match the brand you present to a client face-to-face. This can and will be a little different for every recruiter based on your style and your niche in the market. Someone that recruits for C-suite executives in the banking industry are going to have a very different brand than someone recruiting mid-level managers for marketing agencies. Here are a few examples of how you can enhance your brand online:

Build out your LinkedIn page to show relevant work experience, testimonials, and a professional picture.
Make sure your website is creatively designed to intrigue your target audience. An accounting and finance recruiting company will probably want to have a lot of data-driven content, while a recruiting agency specializing in demand generation may wish to have a lot of bold colors and interactive design
Build practice area pages on your website so that people can drill down to a specific vertical that you specialize in and understand better why you are the best choice.
Have a very professional flow to your website so you look organized and professional. Make sure your website’s brand ties to the flow of your social media outlets.

Alright, now you’re a master of aligning your personal brand with your online brand, right? Still have some work to do? Give us a call. Parqa specializes in providing recruiters with digital marketing services that enable firms to compete in today’s digital business landscape.

Watch Parqa’s Free 30-Minute Webinar: Growing Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn For Recruiters. LinkedIn is the go-to social network for recruiters, it’s never been more important to make sure your personal brand stands out online. Learn how to grow your business, and gain traction on LinkedIn, in this 30-Minute How-To Guide for Recruiters.

9 Stats That Prove the Importance of Website Design

November 20, 2018

It’s almost 2019 – hopefully you realized that your website, content, and overall design has a profound impact on the perceived credibility and quality of your business.

But just how much does your website’s design, layout, and content really impact your visitors’ experience and their likelihood of purchasing your product/ service?

THE ANSWER: a lot more than you might expect

Why the Design of Your Website is So Important?

Below are 9 stats that prove the importance of having a website that’s easily maneuverable, well designed and laid out, has quality content, etc.

“38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive”
– (Source: Adobe)

It takes 0.05 seconds for visitors/users to form an opinion about your website and determine whether they’re going to stay or leave. So your website’s content and layout has to entice your visitors enough to want to stay on the site and read/ learn more about your products and services.

“88% of online visitors/ consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.”
– (Source: The Gomez report, Why Web Performance Matters)

This means that your website has to not only create a great first impression by being easy to read, easy to navigate and appealing aesthetically, it also has to entice visitors to stay on your site by almost immediately answering their questions.

“Judgements on a company’s credibility are 75% based on the company’s website design.”
– (Source: Web Credibility Research from Stanford)

It’s almost 2019, and your website serves as a window into your company, thus it needs to exude trust and credibility. Otherwise you run the high risk of handing your potential customers over to your competitors with better designed websites.

Most often this trust is emphasized on the ‘about us’ page of the company’s website… See Parqa’s ‘About Us’ page

“Users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written content”
– (Source: Eye-tracking study by Missouri University of S&T)

This is not a lot of time to soak in all the written content on your websites homepage.

The key to this is to utilize a concept called “progressive disclosure,” where people aren’t bombarded with content they don’t need right away, but they are still easily able to find it and other information by digging deeper into the website. (i.e. in the main navigation menu)[/vc_column_text]

“70% of small business websites lack a Call to Action (CTA) on their homepage and across their website.”
– (Source: GO-Gulf web development)

A great CTA button can direct users, get them to take a desired action, improve conversion rates, and ultimately help your website achieve its defined objectives.

How are visitors/ potential customers supposed to know what actions you want them to take if you don’t give them CTAs that help them better find what their looking for, or how to find more information?

…. They don’t and they can’t.

“A study found that, first impressions are 94% design-related.”
– (Source: The Effect of Aesthetics on Web Credibility, Farah Alsudani & Matthew Casey)

“That same study found that 46% of consumers base their decisions on the credibility of a website from its visual appeal & aesthetics.”
– (Source: The Real Business of Web Design, John Waters)

User Experience also plays a role in the effectiveness of your website: Learn More ➢

“47% of website visitors check out a company’s products/services page before looking at any other sections of the site.”
– (Source: KoMarketing)

“44% of website visitors will leave a company’s website if there’s no contact information or phone number.”
– (Source: KoMarketing)

I can’t tell you how many times clients come to me asking to look at their website and give them feedback, and they have no dedicated contact form page, no phone number and/or email address prominently displayed and easily visible/ clickable on their website. And they wonder why people don’t contact them through their website or why their website doesn’t generate leads.

The more time, energy, and money you put into your website, and better understanding the types of visitors that are coming to your site, the harder your website will work for you to generate leads/ purchases.

So, What Does All this Mean?

Your website is a magnet for judgement—and this judgement isn’t limited to the website itself—it carries over into the way users perceive the company as a whole.

All of these stats build on one another, any snag a user/ visitor hits on your website – whether it’s related to design, loading time, content or navigation—can be detrimental to your chances of turning that visitor into a lead/ customer.

“A bad website can greatly tarnish a company’s credibility—but a quality website can help a company extend its sphere of influence and create leads.” – Sweor

The difference between obtaining a lead and losing a lead may be as simple as making small adjustments that change the way users perceive your website the first time they interact with it.

“88% of online visitors/ consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.”

Source(s):
https://www.sweor.com/firstimpressions
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/compelling-stats-website-design-optimization-list
https://econsultancy.com/site-speed-case-studies-tips-and-tools-for-improving-your-conversion-rate/

The Truth About B2B Web Design and Why You Should Invest in It

https://web.archive.org/web/20130209052518/http:/scholarsmine.mst.edu:80/thesis/Eyes_dont_lie_unde_09007dcc80993a1e.html
https://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/ewic_hci09_paper66.pdf
http://www.komarketingassociates.com/files/b2b-web-usability-report-2015.pdf
https://books.google.com/books?id=8Ij4DAAAQBAJ

How to Create the Right Blog Image

November 13, 2018

When you’re scrolling through social media, what catches your eye the most? For me personally, it’s the images. Striking, exciting, adventurous photos catch my eye – no matter what the topic is. In fact, a post that includes an image has a 650% higher engagement rate than a post that’s made up of only text. So clearly, it’s crucial to include images – but how?

Make it Appealing

Stock photos can be boring – we’ve all seen the two coworkers shaking hands, a group of people chatting & pointing at a computer, or fake doctors wearing stethoscopes around their necks with their arms crossed. They’ve been used hundreds of times and won’t necessarily catch the attention of a social media scroller. Instead of using basic stock images from anywhere on the internet, I recommend using websites such as Unsplash or Pixabay. On these sites, you can find stunning, high-quality images for free – and if you want to give a shout-out to the photographer, their information is included! But these images can be used free of charge with no worries of penalties or copyright infringement.

Adding Accents

Programs such as Canva or Lunapic have excellent programs that can help you edit photos. From filters to shapes & lines, these programs help create an eye-grabbing image for websites & social media. The best part – you definitely don’t need to be a designer to use them! These programs are free to use and have a very simple user experience.

When adding accents though, don’t overdo it. A few simple lines or shapes, and 1-2 fonts are all you need to make an image pop. Also, be sure to use high contrast to your benefit. Overlaying a darker filter over an image opens the door to use light text – and vice versa.

Brand Consistency

Once you start determining the style of images that match your brand & feel correctly, stick with it! By no means do they need to be boring templates every time you create one. But there should be some sort of brand consistency. Accent colors should correlate with your logo, prominence of your logo should be consistent & overall feel of the photos should match. When a person sees your images week after week, your brand should resonate with them.

Sizing is Key

I’ve seen so many images on the internet where the words are falling off the pages, and the image is cut in an odd spot, or there’s extra white space. I find there’s nothing more off-putting to the naked eye than an image that isn’t correctly sized. Be sure to research what size is needed before publishing – and then check yet again once live! For example, Facebook has a different size requirement than Instagram, and yet another size is used for every website on WordPress. Just be sure to double check your work so you aren’t kicking yourself after it’s been live for 3 days.

As you can see, adding an eye-catching image to your blog can make an impactful difference to the engagement of your blog posts.

Are you having issues coming up with images to match your brand? Talk to the Parqa team today to help make your content with imagery speak directly to your audience!

Why Recruiters Should Target Candidates with Their Content Marketing

November 5, 2018

The last time the national unemployment rate was this low, Planet of the Apes was raking in the cash at the box office. No, not the stunning, CGI-dependent reboots or the laughable Mark Wahlberg fail. I’m talking about the original Charlton Heston classic, with its delightfully cartoonish hair and makeup and brilliant political allegory.

Low unemployment has created many opportunities for recruiting firms. Hiring is never easy for companies, but in this job market it’s nearly impossible without the industry knowledge and network that savvy recruiters possess. To take advantage of the low unemployment before it inevitably shifts back to normalcy, recruiters should absolutely be creating smart and informative content that is targeting business owners. At the end of the day, without clients to provide staffing solutions for, there’s no way to make money.

However, far too often I see recruiting firms neglecting the opportunity to create compelling content for candidates. And that’s a big mistake—, especially in today’s labor market.

Many Candidates are Unaware of Their Value

Being in the recruiting world, or even recruiting-adjacent such as myself, it’s easy to forget that other people are unaware of the current labor market. As recruiters, you eat, sleep, and breathe labor, so the trends and happenings of the industry are always top of mind. Business owners aren’t quite as in the know as you are, but with hiring being a vital element to their business success, they also maintain a strong understanding of the labor market. You’d be hard-pressed to be speaking with a prospective client and blow their minds by telling them about the low unemployment rate. Anyone that has had to hire in the past year is well aware of the challenges.

Candidates, on the other hand, not so much.

They’re busy working and growing their careers. Unless they work in the HR sector or are passionate about labor trends, they won’t know that they currently are more valuable than they have ever been in their careers. When talking with professionals across a vast number of industries, I’m always shocked when I discover they have no idea how low the unemployment rate is or how competitive hiring has become.

This ignorance of the labor market presents tremendous opportunities for recruiting firms to be pumping out informative content to inform these talented candidates. Especially firms that place permanent hires, as you’ll be drawing largely from a passive candidate base. By furnishing educational content that details how rare the current market is, and how advantageous it is for job seekers, you can build trust with candidates and begin to warm them up to the idea of changing jobs.

Candidates are Easier to Reach Organically Than Clients

As a recruiting firm owner, you naturally want to dedicate their content marketing resources to attract clients. More clients lead to more business—I get that. But in terms of attracting organic eyeballs to your content, and your website, going after candidates is a far easier task.

For one, there’s simply more of them. It doesn’t take an economics expert to notice that there are more worker bees than business-owner bees out there. Let’s say your firm specializes in engineering recruitment. If you’re writing a blog targeting engineering firm owners, there’s a finite number of them within the reach of your market. Depending on where you’re located, there may be anywhere from 10-100 firms, so you’re hoping that an owner at one of those firms reads your blog. How many engineers live within the reach of your market? 1,000? 5,000? 10,000?

Secondly, candidates spend more time online seeking information. Millennials have overtaken baby boomers as the largest generation in the American workforce. Of the many stereotypes out there about my much-maligned generation, one that is undoubtedly true is we depend on, and regularly rely on, the internet for our information. From finding the best Vietnamese restaurant to scoring tips on finding a new job, the internet is the first place we seek out information.

The combination of more eyeballs and an increased likelihood that candidates will seek out your thought leadership online creates a tremendous recipe for increased traffic to your website, which can help you get clients. With a sound and optimized website, the organic traffic to your candidate-targeted blogs will directly improve your organic rankings for other pages on your site. The better your organic rankings, the more likely you are to gain an organic client lead.

Content Marketing Tailored to Recruiters

You might be thinking, “This all makes sense. I need to write more Candidate-driven content. But…writing is hard and I’m way too busy growing my firm to sit down and write content.”

I’ve got some good news for you: Parqa Marketing can help. We’re a digital marketing agency that exclusively works with recruiting firms. Intrigued? Schedule a call with our team and learn more about how we can transform your digital marketing efforts.

Need help getting blogging? Let’s talk!

Case Study: Creating a Social Media Strategy

October 31, 2018

This case study represents the organic growth we saw from a client when implementing a custom social media strategy. Before partnering with Parqa Marketing, the company had occasionally been active on social media but lacked consistency and a true social strategy to measure their efforts. Our partnership included writing two custom blogs a month, social media management, and monthly reporting.

Case Study Breakdown

The Challenge: A national recruiting firm with 10 different specialized practice areas wanted to build a social media presence to increase brand awareness and stand out in a crowded market.

Our goal: To develop a social media and content strategy that would attract and engage new and existing audiences while building credibility, showcasing thought leadership and focusing in on their expertise.

Free On-Demand Webinar: How Content Marketing Can Grow Your Business ➢

1. Background Research

Before we started to build a strategy for the future, we had to look at what had been done in the past by conducting an audit. An audit informs us which profiles needed to be optimized, what strategies have been executed in the past, and what the client’s competitors were doing from a strategic standpoint. After analyzing this information, we were able to start developing the strategy outline.

2. Building the Strategy Outline

When beginning our research to develop the strategy, we had to start off by determining a few basics of any social media strategy. This included answering the who, what, when, where and why.

Who: Define the target audience
What: Determine what KPIs will be measured
When: Discover optimal posting days/time for our audience
Where: Choosing the correct social media platforms / where is your target audience
Why: Set the correct goals that align with the overall business objectives

These are questions that will help you build and define your strategy.

3. Understanding Your Target Audience

We broke our audience down into three different markets: clients, candidates, and brand advocates.

More importantly than identifying these markets was to discover what’s important to them. What images and content attract them? What are their pain points? What are they looking for on social media channels?

4. Testing the Content

Creating and testing content is a big part of having a successful social media strategy, it’s a process that you should continuously be fine-tuning. Understanding your audience is vital when developing a social media strategy that will resonate with the audience.

Throughout testing and research, we found that employee advocacy was a large part of the client’s brand. Their employees loved engaging with content that promoted the brand, what it stands for and shares what they do.

5. The Solution

Parqa devised a social media strategy that aligned with the client’s overall marketing goals. The strategy targeted their already active audience while also bringing creative ideas into the mix that would generate interest of new audiences.

To increase our client’s online presence, we knew we had created content that our audience would be interested in. We broke down the client’s target audiences into three main groups: candidates, clients, and employee advocates. This way we had an audience of brand advocates but also had a strategy to reach those who may not know about the brand and what they do.

The Result

137% Engagement Increased
545% Increase in Website Traffic from Social Media
100% Increase in LinkedIn Followers

Conclusion

Businesses are using social media in different ways, posting to post is merely a short activity to keep your brand presence alive, but when you implement and strategy, you can use social media to reach goals.

4 Tips to Optimize Your Business for Local SEO

October 24, 2018

Local SEO uses a variety of strategies — getting your site ranked on search engines like Google, business directories such as Yelp, Foursquare, Yellowbook, Google My Business listing, Bing Places for Business page, localized content on your website, online reviews and other strategies.

Below you’ll learn 4 of the most important strategies to improve your local SEO presence.

1. Optimize your Website’s ‘Localization’ Information

This means you should be including your address, city, county or region name naturally throughout your site (with schema markup). For businesses with several locations, this may involve creating individual pages for each location and optimizing those pages with location-specific content and keywords about your various services or offerings.

2. Claim your Google My Business Page

This should be the first online directory you take ownership of and is a first step towards helping your business display on important Google services (i.e. Maps and Google+). Only 44% of businesses have claimed their Google My Business listing, which means by starting/investing in local SEO already puts you ahead of your competition.

3. Create/Claim your Business on Trusted Online Directories

Reliable and trustworthy online directories also play a big role in the impact of your local SEO efforts. By creating/ claiming your business listing in these types of directories you accomplish a number of things including showing Google that your business services and information are present and consistent across the web, and you open your business up to being seen by more potential customers utilizing those online directories. Examples of these trustworthy directories include Yellowbook, Best of the Web, Yelp, Foursquare, etc.

Note: it’s important that your citations (address, phone number, website, etc.) are consistent across the various online directories. If there are any discrepancies Google will most likely avoid listing your business in the local 3-pack.

4. Get Reviews and Ratings

Reviews are critical for two main reasons, they:

1.) Portray the quality of your service

2.) Send signals to search engines telling that your site and services are trusted (yes, they are a ranking factor Google utilizes)

88% of local consumers trust online business reviews. The number of reviews you receive, the overall quality of the reviews and the authority of the review sites themselves are all important factors for local search rankings.

Why Use Parqa Marketing

Local SEO companies help you to position your business on search engines and other digital marketing platforms/directories so you’re seen by potential customers — on their terms.

Parqa is a Digital Marketing Agency that specializes in SEO, SEM, Local Search Optimization, Marketing Automation, Social Media and content creation. We help grow your brand and drive leads through a variety of inbound marketing tactics. See how our experts can help your business grow through search engine optimization.

Content Marketing: Your 3-Step Recipe for Lead Generation

October 22, 2018

There’s no way around it. Everywhere you look there are either marketers trying to sell you lead generation strategies or entrepreneurs trying to create them. So why all the fuss? Isn’t there a clear path that leads to more customers and clients? After five years of growing my company, Versique, from the ground to a thriving $17 million leader in executive search & consulting, I believe there is.

So, let me ask you, what is the one thing that every successful lead generation strategy has in common?

A robust content marketing strategy.

That’s because 47% of buyers view 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with you. You literally can’t have one without the other; no matter how good your ads are, how high your marketing budget, or how many cold calls you’re making each month – if you’re not distributing the right content in a valuable, relevant, and consistent way, you simply won’t drive the potential customer or client to action.

So, whether you want to call it lead generation or content marketing, we’re talking about the same thing.

Let’s dive in and look at the three requirements of a strategic content marketing strategy and how to successfully execute them in your business.

1. Creating and Distributing Valuable Content

The digital space is getting noisier and more crowded each day. With the average consumer seeing over 4,000 ads between the time they wake up in the morning until the time they go to bed – it’s increasingly important to add value with each piece of content you produce.

Yet with all our responsibilities, to-do lists, and business pressures it can be tough to strategically plan to create valuable content, let alone to distribute it effectively. Use the following list as a guide to remind you of ways you can execute on this without taking too much time planning strategy. In our final point, we’ll cover the optimal frequency of each.

Blogs
Social Media Posts
Infographics
Vlogs
Podcasts
Website Landing Pages
Press Releases
Email Campaigns

2. Creating and Distributing Relevant Content

Creating relevant content goes beyond value to adding more in-depth and specialized information in a systematic way. Here’s the best way to understand the difference:

Valuable content is worth the reader’s time.
Relevant content helps the reader accomplish or learn something they need to know.

These pieces of content take more time and strategic thought to produce but are more targeted and useful for your market. Use the following list as a guide to remind you of ways you can execute writing relevant content without taking too much time planning strategy. In our next point, we’ll cover the optimal frequency of each.

eBooks
White Papers
Webinars
Case Studies
Newsletters
TV & Radio Spots

3. Consistently Producing Content

Consistency is the key to success in both life and business. Without taking a consistent approach to content marketing your lead generation will be feast or famine – great during the months you’re producing and terrible during the months you’re not.

Use the following list to help you plan out your strategy:

What to Post Daily –

Social Media Posts: Social media posts are a great way to humanize your personal or business brand, stay in touch with your customers, and stay relevant to your target market. Depending on the platform, your posting schedule could include one to several posts each day.

What to Post Weekly –

Blogs: A weekly blog is helpful to not only get both valuable and relevant content to your target market, but also for SEO and ranking purposes as well.

Vlogs: Videos are exploding reach on every digital platform out there today. By publishing a weekly Vlog or professionally done video, you increase reach, engagement and further humanize your brand while setting yourself apart as a thought leader in your niche.

Podcasts: Podcasts are another trending avenue to show yourself as a thought leader and expand your reach within your target market.

Email Campaigns: Depending on the campaign, you may have daily, weekly, and monthly emails going out to your list.

What to Post Monthly –

Infographics: Producing a helpful infographic each month and distributing it to your networks is a powerful way to stay relevant and current.

Website Landing Pages: By creating a new lead magnet and subsequently a new landing page each month you’re able to exponentially increase your email list while simultaneously reminding your target market that you are innovative and current within your niche.

Case Studies: Publishing new case studies and customer testimonials should be considered a staple in your marketing strategy. Potential customers want to see that what you’re doing works and from others, why they should work with you.

Newsletters: Although print newsletters lack relevancy, a stunning and dynamic digital newsletter is a great way to stay in contact with your target each month.

TV & Radio Spots: It really can’t be helped. We are programmed to look up to people featured on Radio and TV as experts and specialists in their field. Maintaining a regular media appearance still provides brand value.

What to Post Quarterly –

Press Releases: Press releases around current or trending events within your company or niche is a great way to gain credibility as well as add valuable content to your marketing strategy.

eBooks: The popularity of eBooks continues to rise. By releasing a new eBook each quarter you can stay ahead of your competition and current with your market.

White Papers: Academic publishing can help you be a leader within your field, and there’s no better way to do that than a quarterly white paper.

Webinars: Unfortunately, webinars are too often used as strictly a sales tool – with the only purpose to get people to buy NOW. However, that is not the best use of this type of content. Adding as much value as possible for 30+ minutes will allow your listeners to lower their guard and be more receptive to hearing a pitch either at the end or with follow up email campaigns.

In the end, the result of a strategic content marketing campaign done well, is a pipeline full of profitable customer action, aka Lead Generation.
If you need help growing your recruiting firm and want to know how I grew mine to $17 million in revenue and 120 employees in five years, we should talk.
To learn more about how content marketing and when to use gated content to grow your business, check out our recent webinar recording.

How Recruiting Firms Can Write Meaningful Thought Leadership Blogs

October 17, 2018

Most recruiting firms know it’s essential to create thought leadership content. It builds credibility, and it’s excellent for getting found online (hello SEO)! Have you been blogging for a while and it doesn’t seem to be working? Or maybe you don’t currently blog, but when you start, you want to make sure you’re doing it the right way?

Well, you’re in luck! We have an easy way to make sure you’re bogging effectively. Five steps. Read on.

Step 1: Define Your Target Audience

Simply stated, decide who you want to talk to. Better yet, who do you want to attract and engage? Do you want to attract more candidates? Or (most often) clients?

Let’s say you want to attract more clients.

Step 2: Narrow Down to a Specific “Buyer Persona”

Who do you want to get in front of? Is it HR Leaders in the healthcare industry who hire roles X, Y, Z? What size of company do they typically work for? What headaches do they have to deal with at work? What trends are they interested in staying on top of related to their job? What makes them tick?

Let’s say your buyer persona is HR Manager Mary. She is 42 years old and has been in her role for nearly 20 years. She works for a smaller organization that is rapidly growing, but she is the only person in HR, and she has to manage all of the hiring herself. Her most significant pain point is that, while she is capable of hiring talent for her company, she just doesn’t have time. She wishes she could keep up on trends in her space (e.g., healthcare) and wants to provide the best talent to her growing organization. And she’s a family person who values time management so she can spend time with her husband and children in the evenings after work without having to be glued to her laptop.

Step 3: Find Keywords Relevant to Your Buyer Persona’s Pain Points and Industry

This may be the most challenging step – but you’re just a few minutes away from getting started. Create a list of topics and phrases that matter most to your buyer persona – try to integrate their specific industry (the industry you specialize in, ideally). For example, you may use keywords such as “healthcare industry hiring trends” or “healthcare recruiters Minneapolis” or “recruiting time management.”

It’s helpful to work with a digital marketing agency who specializes in SEO for recruiting firms to define keywords of focus that you know your potential client will be interested in, and also confirm that there is search volume for those keywords (e.g., do people search for a specific keyword phrase 200 times/month or 20,000 times/month).

Step 4: Create a Blog Content Calendar

This sounds complicated, but it’s as simple as deciding what topics you’re going to write about, and when. When life gets busy between managing searches, working with your team, and trying to keep everything running smoothly, writing a thought leadership blog is usually the last thing on your mind. By having a content calendar with deadlines and pre-determined titles, keywords, and a buyer persona, you can sit down and write. (Yes, we can help with that.)

I know it’s easier said than done, but with benefits ranging from building credibility and presence online to driving Google search results, writing thought leadership blogs is one of the critical business focuses that will help you win searches and attract new potential clients.

Step 5: Share, Share, Share

Once you write a blog on a topic that matters to your potential client, get the word out there! Post the blog to your company’s LinkedIn page. Share it from your LinkedIn Publisher. Tell your recruiters and leaders to share it in a LinkedIn post. The more reach, the better!

If you work with a team of recruiters, and your company specializes in a specific industry niche, your co-workers also have a relevant network on LinkedIn who would like to see your thought leadership content! It builds your brand, your company’s brand, and your fellow recruiters’ brands. Win, win, win!

Now that you’ve got the recipe for writing relevant thought leadership blogs get started! It will take you:

10 seconds to define your target audience, because you know it (clients vs. candidates)
3 minutes to write down a specific buyer persona (remember HR Manager Mary)
3 minutes to brainstorm keywords relevant to their pain points and how you can help
3 minutes to assign due dates for yourself (do the 10th of every month to start)
(Once you write your blog) 5-10 minutes to share it to your LinkedIn Publisher, share to your company page, and email your recruiting team to share as a LinkedIn post

It’s not something you can do with your eyes closed, but it IS something you can get ready for if you spend less than 10 minutes preparing. Not everyone can master the art of blogging. Not everyone blogs for the right audience. And not everyone blogs with meaningful, keyword-focused content. Then again, not every recruiting firm is excellent at what they do. Not every recruiting firm picks a niche and dives in, making sure they only hire the best and provide the best service. But if you are among the best in your space, then the next step is to build your brand online and become known as a thought leader in your industry. If you’ve made it here, you’re committed to improving your company – and that makes you different. Now, go spend 10 minutes preparing!