Where You Should Spend Your Marketing Budget In 2014

Superfast Recruitment

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Where You Should Spend Your Marketing
Budget In 2014
By Denise Oyston

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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Web: www.superfastrecruitment.co.uk

Email: support@superfastrecruitment.co.uk


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Now a question that we often get asked by people is “Where should I spend my hard money
and recruitment marketing budget to give me the best bang for my buck really when it comes
to promoting my business online and you know, in other areas as well?” Well, as one year
ends and another year is about to start, the priorities are changing and that‟s the subject of
today‟s podcast. So if you want to stay tuned and listen to where will be the best places to
spend your hard earned marketing cash in 2014 then stay with us.
So let‟s think then about this question of where would be a good place to use my marketing
budget in 2014. What‟s going to work? What might be old hat now and which areas are
growing? So what I‟m going to do is cover a number of key areas here that in my experience
and so you know how the conversations have been moving in the last few months and I
belong to a couple of sort of mentoring groups around online marketing and marketing in
general and seeing the trends there, what is a good place to actually invest your money and
what‟s happening in the market?
Have a Marketing Budget
So, first thing is actually have some money to invest. And I always call marketing…
marketing is an investment and even in our business, we‟re in a marketing business to me it‟s
an investment because it‟s going to produce a return for me. So obviously you want to make
sure that whatever you invest your money in gives you the best return. So first thing is, is
actually have a marketing budget. I think the last few years the recruitment sector has been
depressed along with the recession that has been going on. Obviously you know, the two are
very linked and that has meant that many people have been doing it themselves or trying to
really create their business very much on a shoestring and that‟s you know, it is what it is.

However, in 2014 the opportunity is improving. There‟s a definite upswing. If there is ever a
time to invest in your marketing then it’s now because what‟s great is with that upswing is
that people have a choice and choice is a big level up because what happens then is people
don‟t necessarily come to your recruitment company, they‟ll go to a recruitment company
that really appeals to them. Maybe one that‟s higher up on Google, maybe one that looks
better. So that‟s where actually having a defined marketing budget will make a huge
difference.

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And it‟s an interesting thing for us as we noticed that more and more people ask us about
marketing consultancy because they want to know are they doing the right things, they want
some help and they want some additional resources to help them.
Outsourcing Some of the Elements of Your Marketing
So I think one of the key things that you‟re going to see on where it‟s a good investment of
your time is outsourcing some of the elements of your marketing. Now depending on the size
of your organisation you may only may not have a marketing… any marketing support. So
great thing to do is outsource some of the key areas that are going to be important to you
which is obviously going to be your social media, your content strategy, we‟re going to come
onto all those as well because to be honest it will be a lot cheaper to get it done by an expert
even though intuitively making that‟s not the case but it is because they‟re going to do it a lot
faster and they know what the doing. So that‟s one area where you want to consider, you
know, if I invest in this what‟s my ROI, what‟s my return on investment going to be? So
outsourcing marketing, you‟re going to see more of an upswing in that and that‟s going to be
a really good use of your resource.
Stand Out

Okay next thing it‟s about standing out and it was okay maybe a few years ago to have a
„shoddy‟ website now that‟s not the case and you need to ensure that the website that you
have is responsive as well; what that means is it will resize depending on what device you
are viewing it from.

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So you know, even at this point as I‟m recording this in November/December 2014 then we
are having our website upgraded. We‟re having some new design, a much more „slicker‟
interface and it‟s going to be responsive. Now as I say responsive, it means basically that you
can view it on an iPad, you can view it on smart phone and you can really view it on any
device and that‟s really important because more and more people are viewing websites online
and particularly, you know, if you‟ve got a candidate who is surfing on the way back home
on the tube or whatever or their on their iPad they‟re probably going to be looking at your
website – best that they can actually see it and they can navigate it and it‟s nice and clear.
“Upgrade” Your Brand
That brings me onto branding. If you have not upgraded your brand in the last few years-I‟m
not talking about wholesale changing because that‟s not what I would recommend doing. You
need the next; I always call it, the next iteration of the brand. Show that you are an
advancing company, that you’re a company that stays relevant and stays current – very
very important because you know that your candidate or clients is going to look around 3 or 4
different websites and if they see yours and it‟s looking very unloved and very tired, and very
80s then they‟re probably going to go to the next website.

In this day and age you can have a great looking website that is very functional on a content
management system for probably less than the cost of that placement that it‟s going to bring
you probably within a matter of days.
Use Your Time Well
Okay so we‟ve talked about, marketing investment and we‟ve talked about your website,
your online presence. The other thing I just wanted to say about… sometimes it does
fascinate me that people are very happy to fiddle about on Facebook or to be adding things
onto LinkedIn when really they could be doing so much more with their time because it‟s not
the best use of time. If you think about what you are paid per hour and what else you could be
doing in the business rather than adding things onto social media or whatever then that‟s
something that I would always challenge and I challenge our clients to think about that as
well.

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Whether it‟s us that people outsource to or another company, it doesn‟t matter. It‟s like
what’s the best use of your time? There are certain things in our business that I don‟t do
because it would take me a lot longer. Yes I do love all the techie stuff but we have a great
member of our team -Trini and what she does is, you know I‟m recording this podcast and
then I just put it into Dropbox and she does everything else with it. And suddenly as if by
magic it appears on our website because that is her skill, she loves doing it, she‟s in her flow;
I‟m in my flow talking about marketing. So just think about that when you‟re thinking about
where you‟re using your resource next year.
Reputation Management
We talked about websites so what‟s next? This is a key point. I‟m actually going to talk about
it another podcast because it‟s so important and that is about reputation management. I think
that‟s going to be a big, big thing in 2014. You know the online arena. It‟s doing nothing but
increase and what is important is what are your clients and candidates and other people are
saying about you? How can you control that? And there are ways to do that. So, reputation
management, making sure that you have a really dominant presence on the search
engines, and part of that is around having all your own social media profiles. I‟m going to
talk about that in another podcast because I think it‟s so important that I‟d like to cover that in
a little bit more depth.
Content Marketing
Okay, next key area to spend your resource is content marketing and recording this podcast
for us is an example of content marketing. Content marketing is fantastic. I was just actually
watching a video late last night where someone was talking about content marketing and
talking about positioning and by having a lot of content, really good quality content online
that either you have created or someone has created for you with a flow is really
important. It engages people, it creates you as a thought leader and it really positions
you as an expert in your sector.
Content Strategy

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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Now part of this is to do with the; “know-like-trust process”. If you‟ve listened to any of our
webinars you‟ll know what that‟s all about. It‟s about engagement. It‟s the fact that-and
actually it‟s something that we‟ve known for years anyway, that people like to know us, then
they like to like us then they trust us and then they probably commit and start to spend money
with us. We‟re all well versed in sales. You know we are very well versed in sales as
recruiters, you all know about the sales process and sometimes it can take anywhere between
7 and 15 points of contact. I think I mentioned that in one of the previous podcasts before
somebody converts. So having a really focused content strategy can make a huge difference
and I always recommend to people, you know, invest in that element of your business
because what it does is it creates that inbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing
Now inbound marketing I‟m not quite sure who came up with the term. A company that had
made it very famous is Hub Spot. They talk about the inbound marketing process and it‟s the
A.C.C.D. process that they call it and that is; you attract… so you attract people to you…
maybe you offer a free report or you offer some really great content that people would value.

So you start to communicate with them. Maybe you have signed up for this podcast and you
know every time that you plug your iPhone in, or your iPod it‟s going to update and you
could be listening to this wherever you want to listen to it and that‟s giving you information.
So all that time, you are getting to hear my voice; you‟re getting to understand a little bit
more about marketing. And you know one day, you might think “Maybe I’ll buy a product
from these girls.” Or “Maybe I’ll engage them to help me with my marketing.” So that‟s
about inbound marketing.
So over time, you attract people to you. You start to convert them and then you can
obviously close that connection with someone so that they eventually part with money
and then you wow them later on see you become dynamic to them and become dynamite to
them and they love you for it. So that‟s around content marketing and that‟s a big, big
strategy and it‟s a great way to be able to leverage yourself online.

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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Email Marketing

Now part of that content strategy is also email marketing and I think that is can become even
bigger in 2014. A lot of people don‟t use it how they could and I think particularly with
recruitment companies, they really do not leverage the database that they have and
reaching out and making that connection with people. So that leads me onto something really
important and that is a marketing automation.
Marketing Automation
It started to happen really over the last two and three years. We‟ve talked about automating
marketing. You know some of you may be on someone‟s list and what happens is, I upload
content and then I can pass that out to people and there‟s a nice little sequence that people
have that they are taken through and that is the real holy grail that we are all striving for. So
we can put some of our lead generation onto autopilot so we can start to have this inbound
process, we attract people into our sales funnel – our marketing funnel and then they start to
get warmed up to us and then it makes it so much easier when somebody picks the phone up
and calls you and says “I have been looking at some of the stuff that you’ve been doing…
really interesting… can we have a conversation? I get that you understand my issues. I know
that your local recruitment company or a recruitment company that focuses on engineering
or rec to rec or whatever that might be.” So that is what we‟re all striving to do and that is
when I do you see that that will only increase next year.
Now obviously as recruitment companies there are all sorts of database software that you
have and you can communicate. I know Bullhorn; there are endless pieces of software. And it
goes, read it on a forum, on UK Recruiter a couple of days ago that there is over a hundred
pieces of software. Now they don‟t always do the email side of it so that maybe something it
that you need to consider.

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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Ourselves, we‟ve just signed up for new marketing automation system that is also CRM
system and yeah it‟s been a significant investment but yeah, we know that that will absolutely
provide us with a great vehicle to be able to keep in contact with our clients. So that if we
know people are interested particularly for instance on LinkedIn, well we can provide them
content on LinkedIn. If they‟re not interested in social media, then we don‟t provide anything
on social media and vice versa. So we can really provide an excellent service for our clients
when we start to use marketing automation.

Now there‟s something to think about as well with this particular an element and that is you
need to make sure that you have the right strategy in place, that you have, you know,
the right platform that will work for you and your environment. So that‟s where, you
know, if you‟re thinking about investing in some form of database software, test them out
first. Go and have a conversation with some other recruiters, see if it works for them. Then
it‟s about the people, so the people need to be involved in how this marketing automation is
going to work and that really need to link back into your marketing communication plan. And
then obviously you‟ve got the content that goes into your marketing… your marketing funnel
if you like and your marketing automation that you are going to be doing. And that… yeah it
may take some time, again you can outsource it, and that may take some time but however,
that will be a huge plus point for you because you know what, a lot of people aren‟t doing it
still and there‟s a huge amount of leverage that you can make from this.
Imagine if you have a database of clients or candidates and you just need to start to re-engage
with them because once they start to hear from you again, they warm up to you and they are
much more likely to convert then actually happen to pick up the phone and go and approach
people cold. Because it’s all about that adding value and being front of mind when
somebody needs you so if you‟re sending out regular communications through your
automation system then that individual is going to convert at some point and it may not be
straight away but it will be when they actually need you.

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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So, I mean if you look at some of the big e-commerce houses and take a note from them as
well, they are amazing doing this sort of thing. Booking.com as well, you know, we‟re on
their list so you get the premier in and people like that. Is that really good at keeping in
contact? You may say, “Well, it’s different in recruitment.” No, it‟s not. We‟re all human
beings. I have a bit of a passion for Liz Earle which is a type of make up and some cleanser
and everything else. I love the fact that I always wait until their free offers come up because
then I can get it without paying postage and packing. And so I always go through my emails
“Where is the last one from Liz?” So I can get to get this or I can get a nice little freebie or a
nice little make up bag… Irrelevant… I probably have about 50 in the house now anyway.
But anyway, I digress short story to tell you that. So that‟s marketing automation.
Advocate Marketing
So we‟ve talked about actually spending money on marketing. We‟ve talked a little bit about
reputation management. I‟m going to talk about that again later. Talked about content and
this sort of automation and how you can really start to ramp up that inbound marketing. And
the last one I want to talk about is very old fashioned. I saw a really great name for it now.
It‟s called advocate marketing. Basically that‟s referral marketing for those of us that‟s a bit
longer in the tooth. So good old referral marketing and the truth is, for any business that is the
area that you want to really be moving towards so that a large percentage of your business
comes through referral. Either clients who are completely blown away that they talk to their
friends down the local golf club or tennis club. Or they recommended to somebody else in the
department or they then move companies and they start using you. And this swell builds
because of the great customer service they get from you and how you are known to deliver.

And then with candidates, you know, you place a candidate X who then tells her friend that
actually you want to go talk to… to Jane at ACME Recruiting because she‟s awesome and
that she‟ll sort you out. So that‟s ideally where you want to get to and there‟s a super book by
a guy called Michael McLaughlin who wrote the one of the guerrilla consulting books and
something he always talks about is what you should strive for in your service based
business is that 60% of your business comes from referrals and that will be again the holy
grail yet get to have that happen.

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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And you know, you can strive to move towards that sort of level but referral marketing is
like, “Well, how could I increase the amount of referrals that I get?” Well apart from doing a
great job is actually to ask for them. Maybe set up a partnership relationship maybe with
somebody that is aligned to what you do so that you can have a conversation with them and
they then would be a great advocate for you, hence the term advocate marketing. That will
say “Well, actually you know, if you want to use a recruitment company then you really
should talk to Andrew at Andrews consulting or you really should have a conversation…
Here’s the telephone number.”
Now you can set that up so, you know, ideally… I don‟t know about you, but if I find
somebody that is really good at something then I am a great advocate for them and I tell
everybody about it. “Well you need to use such and such… oh you know…” I‟ll go back to
my Liz Earle story, “Oh you need to use Liz Earle.” but I will be the biggest fan of
somebody. Because it‟s great isn‟t it to be able to… you know, when you found somebody
that‟s good at something that they do. You can actually share it with somebody because
people really value it.
Now you can have formal or informal arrangements. You could have a situation where you
use a referral fee and lots and lots of recruitment companies use this with great success. Now
it may be that some of your budget, some of your marketing budget goes into “Well, how am
I going to finance this?” Obviously, ideally something like a referral system that you pay
for, is self-financing because if you’re bringing in more business then it’s paying for
itself because the acquisition costs are a lot less and it may be that you decide, “Well, okay
for every referral that XYZed brings in then we will pay them X.”
So you know that referral marketing, that advocate marketing as it‟s called, I do see that
happening more and more particularly when it comes to this know-like-trust and the
engagement and the fact that as the market is growing a people have more money to spend,
they are now deciding “Yeah, we can afford to use a recruitment company.” They‟re going to
ask their pals and they‟re going to ask their friends, “Well, who would you recommend? What
do you think about XYZed? I’ve never really heard of them.” And if you then have all your
ducks in a row so, you know, somebody recommends you to an individual, yeah it may be a
referral but what do you think they‟re going to do first? Are they going to pick the phone up
straightaway? Well they may or may not. My suggestion is they‟re going to jump onto
Google and they‟re going to type your brand name in or they‟re probably going to go on to
LinkedIn and search for you and have a look at you and see how you‟re performing on
LinkedIn. You know, maybe what‟s your profile is like and everything else. So that‟s what
they‟re going to do. They‟re going to go and check you out, hence the reputation
management, why that‟s important.

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Now you may wonder why I‟ve not talked about LinkedIn. Well, yeah LinkedIn is obviously
there. It‟s something that is really important. I see probably they spend on LinkedIn being
very similar for recruiters in 2014. A part from it natural sort of organic growth but I do see
these other areas really making a huge… a huge difference and it will be where I will be
recommending to people to spend their hard earned money and resources.
So this is Denise in December signing off and I hope this has been useful thinking about
where you might want to prioritise spending your money in 2014. So it‟s about, you know,
having a marketing budget in the first place, maybe get somebody to help you with your
planning, think about your reputation management, where you are appearing on Google,
think about content, think about emails because then you can leverage two things there with
emails.
You can build your database and you can communicate with current database, marketing
automation and then finally referral and of course good old LinkedIn is obviously something
that you‟re still going to continue to spend money on. So this is Denise, you can obviously
get this podcast on iTunes, you may be listening to it there or if you head over to Super Fast
Recruitment just go have a look on the blog at one of the last posts and you‟ll be able to
download this transcription, you‟ll be able to read it online as well. So this is Denise saying
bye for now.

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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ABOUT US
The Super Fast Recruitment team is different to most
marketing companies that help recruitment business
owners get more candidates and clients. Our
background is sales and marketing. In fact we have
spent many years building sales teams and working
with recruiters on a different side of the fence. This
gives us a real appreciation of the vital role that
recruiters play in the current marketplace and how we
can help them transform their business growth.

WHY SUPER FAST?

What we deliver:
Marketing consultancy, services and education that assist recruitment companies to attract more candidates and
clients consistently. Here is a small selection of what this can achieve for your organisation.






Increases the number of visitors to your online presence
Creates engagement with candidates and clients
Increases the number of warm leads flowing into your business
Brands you as an authority in your sector
Provides a ROI of a minimum of 5:1

Why us?
We have launched brands and products that have turned over £350 million in revenue. We have a combined
successful track record in sales and marketing of over 50+ years. We can demonstrate consistent results in the
services we provide.
We have personally delivered sales and marketing training to over 6000 people globally. Over 250,000 have read
our sales and marketing content on line (excluding what we have written for our clients).
How we work?
We call ourselves a ‘boutique’ agency. For us, that means that we work with a smaller number of clients where
we strive to provide an exceptional and personal service. We have some ‘package’ options that we provide and
the majority of our work is bespoke. Some clients like us to be at the end of a phone for them as their
outsourced marketing director and we are happy to provide that service. We work on both a project and retainer
basis.



We have a combined experience of 48 ++ years working successfully in Marketing, Sales and Learning
and Development

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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Our two directors have been responsible for marketing and launching products that have generated
over £350 million in sales


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Want to get in touch?
If you have read this far we sense you are interested. We may or may not be a fit and a match for
you and your recruitment organisation the only way to know is to have a conversation.
You can contact us in a number of ways.
support@superfastrecruitment.co.uk
Our office: 0845 257 0073
Denise Mobile: 07919593516
Sharon Mobile: 07887 717294
Skype: deniseoyston or s.newey

Phone: 0845-257-0073

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