All Eyes on Recruitment
Most people think Marketing = Advertising. On top of that, the goal is to advertise in order to gain more sales. That’s the perceived goal: market to make more sales. End of story...?
In the last few months, I’m certain everyone has witnessed the labor market turn virtually upside down. Without beginning to go into depth about why that’s happening, I would instead like to explore how most clients we work with changed their goal from ‘help bring us more work’ to ‘help bring us more talented employees, so we can service our clients and customers’.
So how do we do that? Well, if your brand has been telling its story all along, it really shouldn’t be that challenging. An effective story has a hero (which is actually your audience) being helped along with by your guide (your brand) overcome a problem (which your audience can easily relate to). In a typical world, the storytelling is aimed at the problems your audience faces when they engage in your brand’s category and how your brand acts as the guide to solve those problems. In the atypical world, which is the one we seem to live in right now, our niched-down audience isn’t just our customers, it’s also the people who choose to help solve the problems for your customers: your employees.
How does this look in a pragmatic application? Let’s look at Good Shepherd Preschool and Daycare for example. Our audience is prospective employees of Good Shepherd, so if we want to appeal to the right audience, we need to tell them a story - a genuine, authentic, and true story - that attracts others who can identify with our guide. Watch the video below to see what we mean.
How about another example? Sunnyside Communities is on a roll with hiring, and they need employees who are interested not just working in nursing, dining, or housekeeping, they are looking for employees to work in those fields who also want to work at a retirement community where their efforts are going to make a big difference in their residents’ lives and they will work for an employer who values them and gives them opportunities to advance their careers. Again, watch the video below to see what we mean.
Position yourself or be positioned - one of the greatest expressions in marketing I’ve come across. If you aren’t positioning your brand as a fantastic career opportunity for prospective employees, be careful, because your competitors might be one step ahead of you and doing just that. My advice: stay a couple steps ahead and make sure your brand isn’t the one being positioned.
