Whether you’re a business selling products to customers or a business providing services to clients, you’re constantly marketing toward consumers. Marketing towards this group of people (known as your target audience) is the core of every business because it’s how you make money. There is, however, another group of people that you should be marketing to, and that group is job-seekers.
Even if you’ve just started your small business, you are likely going to expand and need more help— and this is where hiring employees come in. However, you don’t want to hire anyone. You want the best talent to work for your company, and recruitment marketing helps you find these people.
Your Target Market/Audience
Your target market is a group of consumers that you plan to market to via various marketing campaigns, while your target audience is a more specific group within your target market that are the recipients of specific advertisements. In simpler terms, your target market is the broad group of people who would be interested in your products and/or services, whereas your target audience narrows down your target market to a specific location or demographic.
Marketing toward job-seekers can be viewed in the same way. Here, your target market would be those who are seeking a job— specifically, a job in your company’s industry and with the proper qualifications. Your target audience of job-seekers will be narrowed down to the people who live in the same area as your business. As with consumers, this will require market research to determine who these individuals are.
Your Online Presence
Being a successful business owner in today’s world requires you to have a strong online presence, meaning that you must have a business website (whether you sell products online or not) and you must be active on social media.
Having an online presence helps you better utilize digital marketing techniques, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. When consumers conduct Google searches or searches on social media, your business is more likely to come across their search results— all thanks to having an online presence.
The same is true when you’re marketing toward potential candidates for hire. On your website, there should be a “Careers” section that lets job-seekers know how to get in touch with you about an open position, including having a link to an application.
Career pages allow you to utilize SEO marketing techniques to attract candidates that are tired of the general job search sites like Indeed.com. Social media is also a powerful tool when it comes to recruitment marketing.
Your Brand Identity
Another crucial part of a successful small business is the brand identity it creates. A brand identity is sort of like the personality of a business— it’s what resonates with the consumer that evokes an emotional response that drives them to do business with a particular company.
The bottom line is that if consumers can build a lifestyle around your business (or make it a crucial part of their existing lifestyle), then you’ve successfully created a brand identity. You’ll want to be able to do the same thing when you’re recruiting employees.
Creating an employment brand involves answering why someone should work for you. Start by sharing your company values and showcasing your work culture. Again, you’re marketing toward job-seekers, and the NAS recruitment marketing guide can help you better understand how to market toward qualified job-seekers.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many similarities between marketing to consumers and marketing to job-seekers. When marketing toward consumers, your goal is to market to those who are the most likely to buy from you, and the same is true when marketing to job-seekers.
You’ll want to talk not only market towards those who you think would be interested in your business but also to those who are the most qualified to work for you.
Unfortunately, many small business owners don’t use recruitment marketing techniques or don’t see a need to market to job-seekers. They’re okay with simply posting job openings on large job-search sites in hopes of coming across a qualified candidate. While this method works for finding new hires, it’s not always the best method for a company’s employee turnover rate.
Many people are just searching for a job until the next one comes along, but recruitment marketing techniques are more likely to bring you candidates that will be a part of your company for a longer period.
