Five Content Marketing Rules for a Recruitment Agency

Content is King! It’s a fact. Global spend on content marketing is set to increase to $313.42 billion by 2019 according to research by PQ Media. A 116% rise on where we are now.

Content marketing’s strength is driven by a change in consumer behaviour. Savvy recruitment marketers are leveraging the growth of digital to inform, educate and promote their service across a wide range of content channels.

For an industry that has always been at the forefront of technology adoption and new ways of working, embracing content has never been more important for recruitment agencies.

See below for five things you must remember if you want to have a successful content strategy.

Focus on Where Your Audience are
 Ignore advice that you should be everywhere. It won’t get you anywhere. Focus on where you audience eats, sleeps and breathes. If you’re a professional services recruitment agency, LinkedIn is your obvious choice. The majority of recruiters are adept at building laser-focused LinkedIn connection networks, so the content you release will already be targeted. Twitter is a key consideration for recruiters — make sure you follow your industry’s candidates, companies, and influencers.

Answer Questions and Solve Problems
 Your content should warm people to your brand and inform them about things that matter to them. You must solve their problems and answer their questions.

How do you do this? Simple. Create buyer personas.

Buyer Personas are fictionalised versions of your ideal customer or prospect. List out what motivates and concerns them. For example — someone who is looking for a new job will want to understand the process and how to be the standout candidate. This will involve questions around ‘how do I update my CV?’, ‘What info do I remove from my CV to stand out?’ as well as thoughts and feelings about the interview process. Adapt this content to the individual persona. Are they senior or entry level? Are they an IT contractor with 20+ roles or someone who has worked for 10+ years at their present employer. Building detailed profiles of your prospects and writing solely for them is critical.

Focus on Quality over Quantity
 If you don’t have the budget to constantly come up with a lot of good content, then don’t. Instead, publish fewer and more focused articles. Release a whitepaper every quarter instead of every month. Podcast weekly instead of daily.

Great quality content brings something new to the conversation. Your interpretation of a set of results. Your experience. The new approach you took to solve a problem which worked. Always put yourself in your buyer personas shoes and ask: ‘Does this piece of content answer my question or solve my problem?’.

Play the Long Game
 Do not expect results instantly. It won’t happen. Content is about playing the long-game. To gain a loyal audience that regularly reads and shares your content, listens to your podcasts and downloads your whitepapers, remember point two and three. Don’t fool them with shocking headlines or misleading titles, that’s clickbait. People will click once, but won’t return.

Don’t Dilute Your Message
 Your objective is to provide valuable information for your target audience. If you content is answering a question, make sure it does that. If it’s providing insight, do just that. Make sure you don’t mix messages and add facts that aren’t relevant. Instead, use the additional fact or statistic to form another piece of content which adds value for your audience.