PPC Marketing is not usually the first thing that recruitment companies consider when it comes to formulating a winning marketing strategy. However, when it comes to recruiting for specialist roles, or for more niche topics, recruitment firms can really benefit from PPC marketing. PPC marketing is hugely useful for multiple reasons. Firstly, it allows you to tailor the specific topics and responses you want to appear for. Secondly, PPC Marketing has a lower opportunity cost compared to other forms of marketing. You only pay when someone interacts with your content, rather than being charged for impressions. For these reasons, PPC Marketing for recruitment firms is extremely underrated.
The Recruitment Market: An Overview
With the country still recovering from Coronavirus, the recruitment market is undergoing a period of profound change. Whilst many members of staff were either laid off or spent time on furlough during 2020, the need to kickstart the economy has opened up new opportunities in 2021. Small and medium businesses are now looking to kick on and grow again. Larger companies are trying to return to the status quo where possible. All of this means more jobs. And more jobs means more recruitment opportunities.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean more business for your firm. People are increasingly apathetic to recruiters cold-calling them to offer opportunities. What’s more, this has become more difficult due to changes in data regulation. A less direct first move, such as PPC Marketing is now becoming increasingly popular. It allows you to connect with your candidate and still engage the right people, at a fraction of the cost and time.
It is important, however, to not ignore some of the fundamental requirements in PPC Marketing for recruitment firms. For this reason, we’ve explored these topics below and how your recruitment company can avoid making common mistakes relating to each one:
Choose The Right Budget
PPC Marketing for recruitment firms often fails because of the budget question. Most commonly, PPC strategies don’t have appropriate budgets. Undervaluing the service, coupled with chasing high-cost keywords leads to resources being quickly drained.
You should plan your budget accordingly, taking into account factors such as the size of your recruitment firm, the client you are working for, the value of the opportunity and how specific a vacancy it is. As a rule of thumb, the more specific a keyword you target, the more expensive it will usually be. However, the caveat is that traffic for these terms is usually more relevant. This gives you a better chance of converting business.
If recruitment firms are unsure, there is always the option of a short pilot campaign. This helps test your metrics and ideas. Resultantly, you’ll start to build up a better picture of what does, and doesn’t work. Following on from this, you can use A/B testing to help support these new findings, and further specify your advert offering.
Know Your Audience Well
PPC Marketing for recruitment firms relies predominantly on user intent. It’s not as easy to target people when compared to the possibilities offered by social media marketing. However, recruitment firms need to still harness opportunities to do so where possible.
The best recruiters will put themselves in the shoes of their ideal candidates. They will know what they are searching for and what their credentials are. This means that they can tailor advert content around their interests. It also means they can focus on the keywords and phrases they are most likely to search for. As a result, this leaves them well-placed to attract the right candidates to website vacancies. Attracting the right quality of candidates to your advert gives you a better chance of getting relevant CVs and applications faster. This in turn speeds up the entire hiring process, saving your firm time, money and resources!
PPC marketing for recruitment firms should also take advantage of remarketing opportunities where available. If you have had similar roles in the past, it’s likely similar candidates are still out there searching. Although this might be a longer-term strategy, it’s important to always be able to return to these quality candidates for future vacancies. They already know what to expect from the process. So, once again, you save precious time and money.
Review and Revolutionise
PPC Marketing for recruitment firms is not an instant strategy for success. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Every company is unique. Every vacancy is unique. Above all, every candidate is unique. Consequently, it’s an extremely fluid and tough environment to keep track of.
It’s always important to know what competitors are doing too. If your recruitment firm gets comfortable, someone else will be waiting in the wings to steal your thunder. Sitting still is never a recipe for excellence. Spending time researching what your competitors are up to is certainly advised. However, more paramount to this is scrutinising and reviewing your own campaigns. Adding additional adverts can attract more traffic. Changing copy or advert type can expose you to a wider audience. Setting advert schedules can help you attract better candidates at certain times. These are all small steps, but they have big impacts on campaigns.
Above all, review how cost-effective your campaign is. Are the returns on investment worth it? If the answer is no, there is a fundamental issue with your campaign setup. If you’ve been experiencing these issues, it’s possibly time to get experts involved.
The Boss Digital team are experienced PPC experts with a strong knowledge of the recruitment market. We’ve worked with recruitment companies to massively reduce their cost per acquisition, whilst getting them massive opportunities with renowned brands. If your business could benefit from expert PPC Marketing for recruitment firms, get in touch with us today and we’ll be happy to help.
