Tracey Barett, Managing Director at BlueSky PR presented at Recruitment Leaders Connect: The Year Ahead on 8th March covering the following.
“It’s expensive…it’s a cost…we can’t measure it “ Three things I hear a lot of from recruitment leaders. This presentation will show you how to set measurable KPIs that will deliver inbound leads for your agency:
Setting objectives
Promoting yourselves as subject matter experts
Measuring outcomes
10. 10PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
One article – assignments worth £100k
11. 11PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
One FOI Request – 10 new contracts
12. 12PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
One Campaign – Resource partner for new power plant
13. 13PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
Look at your content
Media
Coverage
Blog
LinkedIn
Podcast
YouTube
SlideShare
Instagram
Twitter
Client
Comms
18. 18PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
The people agenda
The
hook!
Public info
piggybacking
Opinion &
advice
Dataevents
surveys
Human
interest
19. 19PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
How can you measure success?
“We had a consultant who earned a
17k fee from a client who had
‘called up out of the blue’. When we
tracked it we found that the client
had downloaded a thought
leadership article we had in the
press from the website – and that
the link had come from Twitter
“When I joined, we were making most
of our placements from Accountancy
Age – which was odd given that we
hadn't advertised there for 2 years – it
was simply the first option on the drop
down menu!”
20. 20PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
Getting ROI
You can start with…
…community sizes, web traffic and shares…
…but you have to know what you are measuring against
21. 21PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
Measurement – The Holy Grail?
• Outputs – getting read – getting shared
• Outcomes – what is happening to…traffic/social
shares/LinkedIn profile views
• Google Analytics!
• Business Results - Building PR into the BD cycle
22. 22PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
……And finally
A recent article for one of our clients in European Oil
and Gas magazine prompted a new client to give
them assignments worth more than £100,000 in
potential fee income
…..who wouldn’t want that ??
23. 23PR & COMMUNICATIONS FOR RECRUITMENT, HR & TALENT MANAGEMENT
Questions?
Download our free white papers at:
www.bluesky-pr.com
Follow us on Twitter at:
@BlueSkyPR
Editor's Notes
Intro
We help recruiters develop great content for their blog. For their marketing channels. For the press – and then we help them communicate that great content to get them leads. Today I want to talk specifically about PR – why so important and how you can absolutely get ROI
So why bother – why does it matter. Why do you need brand building through PR
Purple Cow – Seth Godin
Its about differentiation – being that purple cow in all that other noise – ask yourself if you really have a USP – or are you just talking about the sake things as everyone else – and then ask yourelf if the way you go about he process – or the value that you add to the process is the thing that sets you aparty
He says before advertising – there was word of mouth – products and services that could solve a problem got talked about and eventually got purchased. Then there was advertising – if you advertised directly to the potential consumer – sales would go up
We’re now at after advertising – so back where we started – but instead fo that word of mouth moving slowly, we have an explosion of channels and platforms through which word of mouth starts to broadcast it . Often your target are just too busy to take any notice of advertising – but they are still desperate to find something that solves their problems
Maybe that value that you add is through your market intelligence – or your thought leadership – and how is that going to be communicated?
And this is Why. The Edelman Trust Barometer – anyone hard of it?? annual trust and credibility survey, measuring trust across a number of institutions, sectors and geographies. The Trust Barometer surveys more than 33,000 respondents across 28 countries.- so pretty robust . The survey found that social media companies have lost the trust of most of the public, with only a quarter of the UK population now saying that they trust social media as a source for news and information. Now that’s not to say that social media isn’t important – it is clearly a fantastic way to broadcast your message – the importnatnt thing is that the message you are broadcasting actually has some credibility about it t
So that credibility might be because you have appeared in the press - There has been a huge increase in trust in traditional media (61 percent), reaching levels not seen since 2012. But there has also been a rebound in trust in experts and leaders
So all these people – which is why thought leadership really matters
So all these people – which is why thought leadership really matters
So – lets look at why people sometimes don’t do PR – hear this all the time
Seen as a cost rather than as an investment . Seen as a vanity project rather than something that feeds into business devpt and deliver leads. Seen as something that is never measured – when ti shoule be. No consultant buy in because they cant see how it will make them money
Now here's a guy who had his head screwed on. Because it can deliver ROI – the trick is using it properly.
I’d like to give a few egs of campaigns tha we have run that have delivered direct ROI to the rec firm.,
BlueSky engaged with one of Rethink’s energy experts and spoke with him at length to uncover some of the more problematic positions to recruit for.
From our discussions it became apparent that the role of process safety engineer was both critical to the running of a successful energy extraction project and also worryingly uncommon in the oil and gas market. Despite the position being absolutely crucial, there were very few experts available in the sector meaning firms had to pay significantly over the odds for this expertise.
After speaking with the consultant, BlueSky engaged with one of the specialist publications in the oil sector and secured a feature opportunity to discuss the role, why it was in such short supply and the benefits of working in these positions. BlueSky also gathered all the information required for the article and drafted the piece.
After the article was featured in the magazine we received a call from the consultant who reported that he had been to a new business meeting where the client had a physical copy of the magazine Rethink’s article was featured in. This gave the client the confidence that the consultant knew what they were talking about and ultimately meant they were given the task of filling these roles.
What that meant for them
The positions resulted in upwards of £100,000 in fees for Rethink providing a true return on their PR investment. By highlighting the consultant’s expertise in the sector, the client had confidence that they were dealing with a true specialist and ultimately meant they were given their business.
n early 2016, the national media was packed with stories of ‘rip-off’ recruitment agencies capitalising on the NHS’s desperation to maintain front-line services by charging extortionate rates. We were already working with MSI Group when government legislation was introduced to reduce spend on agency staff and, consequently, the company’s CEO, Nick Simpson, was already a regular contributor to articles in the healthcare sector press.
This new legislation offered us an ideal opportunity to shout about the fact that MSI Group is an ethical recruiter which works within NHS approved frameworks, differentiating the brand from ‘rogue’ agencies.
To achieve this, we sent FOI requests to each individual NHS trust requesting data on agency staff usage. This gave us unique data on levels of compliance – 81% of NHS trusts were being forced to use ‘off-framework’ staffing agencies.
What that meant to them
This data was shared in a press release which resulted in 31 pieces of coverage – including the front page of the Times.
In addition, this data also fed into the company’s business development strategy – six months after the data was collected, MSI Group had won 20 contracts with trusts which had been found not to be complying with NHS Improvement guidelines.
Since beginning its partnership with BlueSky PR in February 2015, MSI Group has achieved 184 pieces of quality coverage across recruitment, regional, national, business and health sector press. This represents over 10 pieces per month on average, with a combined circulation of over 12 million.
Girls allowed campaign – profile of one of placed candidates = project manager
Sl lets look at how else you can use that coverage topwiden its reach A piece of coverage can just be the start
You can repurpose it into a blog post for your website linking to the coverage
You can turn it into a LinkedIn publisher post
You can post it as a status update on Linkedin
So it gets posted through all your channels but still has that mark of credibility
Bit also – look at it the other way round – look at your content – can any of that be used to create great stories for the press?
Want to finish with a great example of the power of pr if used correctly.
Our client, Alexander Mann Solution, won Gold at the Corporate Content Awards in the ‘Best long-term use of content’ category. The star submission outlined how content-driven marketing strategy is being deployed by the organisation to not only build brand awareness, but also generate a sales pipeline to drive ROI. For example, the 20-plus business wins which can be directly attributed to marketing activity and a 607% increase in web traffic to the assessment consulting portal following a targeted marketing campaign. Following the win, Alexander Mann Solutions’ Marketing Manager commented: “Thank you!!!! Couldn’t have done it without your constant efforts (and patience) to build the brand externally”.
The people agenda
That’s what your organisation knows about so talk about what you know – not what you do because that’s what you a really qualified to talk about – pay going up/down/skill shortages – what's driving those skill shortages – talent pools and puddles – global comparisons – diversity in the workplace – the future workplace – employability – lots and lots to talk about.
And people are interested – PWC Survey annual CEO report – things that keep the CEO awake at night – always attracting and retaining the right people
And YOU are in a really [powerful position to eb able to comment on and answer those questions
So don’t talk about what you do – talk about the issues
So what are the tactics we can use to effect that
Want to finish with a great example of the power of pr if used correctly.
Our client, Alexander Mann Solution, won Gold at the Corporate Content Awards in the ‘Best long-term use of content’ category. The star submission outlined how content-driven marketing strategy is being deployed by the organisation to not only build brand awareness, but also generate a sales pipeline to drive ROI. For example, the 20-plus business wins which can be directly attributed to marketing activity and a 607% increase in web traffic to the assessment consulting portal following a targeted marketing campaign. Following the win, Alexander Mann Solutions’ Marketing Manager commented: “Thank you!!!! Couldn’t have done it without your constant efforts (and patience) to build the brand externally”.
Use your data – You all have loads of data – how can you slice and dice it to compare skills/pay/gender/regions/countries
Events – if you run an event why not run a snapshot survey among the attendees to give you some data fro a press release. Or run a round table and turn the outputs into a white paper – gives you marketing collateral – and PR fodder
Advice pieces The top five soft skills needed by accountants
Opinion – What is the effect on talent? Brexit/legislation/
Piggybacking – what is in the news GPS last week, EU, budget, - set up a calendar of newsworthy events. Reactive stuff – Steve Jobs!
Public Information - FOI requests can be great – we did one for Health Trusts to find out what agencies they were using – on or off framework? ONS Stats
Human interest – interesting placements make great case studies – Bunjee jump
Surveys – Do some – the one thing you take on holiday each year
So.. How can the benefits of all these great press coverage be measured. Often PR is seen as fluffy and a nice to have rather than a bd tool but it can be measured. Its about having a robust process. Unfortunately these quotes ( which are from real marketing people) are all too familiar. Sles people will always see leads s coming from them – they just called in
First – there are longer term metrics that are hard to measure – a passive candidate is just that and the added value you give them in terms of thought leadership and content is what keep them engaged with your brand.
The other thing top bear in mind is that before you start to measure – you need to know what your goals are …and this is another thing I hear all the time
Measurement continues to be the holy grail but my top tips would be:
Look at your outputs – are they getting shred – how often – by whom – does that provide you with a lead. And make sure all the consultants are liking and sharing – its not just about appearing in the media – its also about increasing the reach
Are your LI page followers going up – whoa re they – what's the follow up engagemt strategy. What's happening to consultants LI profile views and what a re they doing about it . What's happening to blog/website traffic when you post about a piece of coverage
Business Results – what are your people doing with the coverage?
Have some form of process where your candidates are aske if they saw you in the press – some form of survey that can measure sentiment