It can be a difficult task to get your head around recruitment marketing, especially if you’re new to the subject. There is a multitude of responsibilities for marketers including building and promoting employer branding but essentially, driving candidates down the pipeline is the main objective. It really is the key to the whole recruitment process and the area of your business where you should focus your efforts if you’re not doing so already.

Despite the powerful effect marketing has on the rest of the business, not everyone is always clued up on the part it has to play. If you’re one of those who need enlightening, here are a few things you need to know about recruitment marketing!

Social media plays a big part

We’ve raved about social media many times before on our blog and the impact it can have considering 79% of job seekers use it in their job search. If the agency you work for doesn’t use it as a part of their recruitment strategy, then they are seriously missing a trick!

However, it’s way more than just automatically posting your jobs to Twitter and Facebook through your recruitment CRM because there’s nothing worse than only posting job ads! You need to stay active on all your channels to compete with other agencies, engage with your candidates through the content you post and promote your employer brand.

Working hard on your content pays off

Did you know that 67% more leads can be generated by having a blog? Now that’s a figure you can’t say no to! You can reap so many benefits by having a company blog and producing high quality, informative content for both your candidates and clients. It certainly won’t go unnoticed and you could eventually become a thought leader and the go to place for career advice. However, content doesn’t just stop at blog posts. Webinars, case studies, infographics, social media posts, videos, whitepapers and eBooks all fall into the content category and are worth investing your time and effort in to attract your target audience and build your online presence.

Your company culture means a lot

There is an increasing number of candidates who buy into your company culture and employer brand when looking for a job. Not only is this relevant for agencies to bring new candidates on board, but if you’re recruiting internally then sharing your company culture is even more important. It is predicted that millennials will make up 75% of the working population by 2025 and if there’s anything we know about this generation, it’s that they really value workplace culture!

Data is everything

As with any industry, data is exactly what your marketing team need in order to target potential candidates and clients. Not only will it aid you when it comes to presenting the right content to the right segment of your target market but reports and analytics will also be able to help you find out whether it’s actually working or not.

For example, you can manipulate your data to produce lists of the different sectors your candidates work in and then send monthly mailshots of all your latest jobs to the relevant mailing lists. This means you’ll be using your data to its full potential and won’t be boring your candidates with roles which are of no interest to them.

Free online software is a lifesaver

The wonderful thing about marketing is that there is a whole world of handy software out there which is completely free to use. From social media scheduling software like Buffer and HootSuite to SEO toolkits like SEMrush, Moz and Screaming Frog, there is free online software for everything you could ever wish for! Not to mention the marketers’ holy grail, Google Analytics, to aid you with reports and ROI and Hubspot’s ingenious Website Grader to tell you where your website is going wrong, both of which come at no cost!

If you want to stay ahead of the recruitment marketing game, then you should take these points into consideration and incorporate them into your strategy. You can then re-evaluate what you have in place every six to 12 months to keep up with trends and the rest of the industry.