By David Searns
Blogging. SEO. PPC. Social media.
These are the tools of today’s digital marketer. Okay, technically, these are a tiny subset of the tools used in digital marketing, but they are the most common ones used by staffing companies.
For the past nine or ten years, staffing companies have primarily used these tools for company branding and recruitment marketing.
- We write blogs to show people how to improve their careers.
- We optimize websites to rank for “best staffing company in ABC city.”
- We create search and social ads targeting people searching for specific types of jobs.
- And we share tons of content on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even TikTok in the hopes of being noticed by qualified active and passive talent.
Now, the staffing industry is changing. Job orders are tougher to come by. Employers are harder to reach. And selling staffing services requires more skill, strategy, and persistence than ever.
How to sell staffing services in 2023
When times get tough in staffing, staffing salespeople make more calls. Cold calls. Drop-bys. LinkedIn InMail. The volume of sales activity explodes in tough economic times.
Which, sadly, makes it harder to sell staffing services.
As an alternative, or more accurately, a supplement, to cold calls, staffing companies need to flip the script on their digital marketing and use these tools to drive inbound leads and support outbound sales activities.
Here are a few ideas to help you get started:
Blogging
- Write about topics that a sales rep could use on a sales call. For example:
- Strategies to use staffing to cut labor costs, drive workforce productivity, and reduce employment risks.
- Case studies that demonstrate the value of staffing services and ways employers use staffing more strategically in a down market.
- Industry-specific talent management content.
- Skill market top talent.
- Integrate CTAs (calls to action) into blog posts. For example:
- Request an employee
- Search our talent showcase
- Free consultation on (fill in the blank)
- Free salary or compensation package review
- Offers for content downloads
- Offers to subscribe to an email publication (not just a newsletter!)
- Turn blogs into sales training.
- When your company writes an employer-facing blog, meet with your sales team to discuss the importance of the post to an employer and how the post could be used in the sales process (e.g., shared in advance of a call, printed and used as a drop-off, sent as a follow-up to a call, used as the basis for developing sales questions, etc.).
- Turn blogs into sales tools.
- Create printed versions of top-performing posts that your salespeople can use as drop-offs or during sales calls.
- Integrate links to educational blogs in follow-up emails to prospects (as a way to illustrate your expertise).
- Aggregate a series of related posts to create an eBook, then promote the eBook via email, social media, and PPC advertising.
SEO
- Focus on creating content that addresses the questions employers are asking and the challenges they are facing in the current market.
- Write long-form content (1,500+ words) on topics designed to educate employers about ways to solve their business challenges with staffing services.
- Write about your clients (by name) since those companies are likely to be searched by job seekers.
- Add more CTAs to high-performing web pages and blog posts.
- Add response forms to long-form content pages to turn them into landing pages that address either a specific staffing service our clients offer or solutions to specific problems that employers are facing.
- Promote content downloads or email opt-ins on new content pages.
PPC Advertising
- The most effective PPC ads address relevant, timely business problems and offer something of immediate value (free content or consultation).
- Test PPC ads in a variety of different ways:
- Search ads targeting questions an employer would ask.
- Search ads targeting direct competitors or well-known employers.
- Matched audience ads targeting your prospect list.
- LinkedIn ads based on location, company industry, company size, job title, and more.
- Facebook ads based on location, work industry, job titles, interests, and behaviors.
- Retargeting ads to people who have visited your website.
Email Marketing
- Train salespeople to write shorter, more direct, and more impactful emails.
- Create an email publication that is specific to talent management challenges AND your local market (or the niche industry you serve).
- In your email publication:
- Educate employers about how staffing can be used as a tool to drive business goals, control labor costs, improve productivity, and mitigate employment liability.
- Skill market top talent.
- Create promotional emails about specific problems staffing can solve.
- Incorporate more CTAs into emails (and drive people to related landing pages).
- Get your sales team to continuously build your email nurturing list.
Want more ideas to sell staffing services?
Visit Staffing Brain Fuel, packed with free educational content to help you drive sales and recruiting in today’s economy and employment market.
