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Digital Inbound Marketing Series for Staffing & Recruiting Firms
Part One
Introduction: What is inbound marketing?
The days of relying solely on trade shows, direct mail, print ads and cold calls are over. As human behavior continues to adapt to the “digital age”, the marketing game is rapidly emerging to allow for something that for decades executives have craved: low cost, high quality business leads and measurable results.
Though outbound marketing still remains valuable, the evolution of new media communications and inbound marketing is proving the highest short and long-term return for businesses across all industries worldwide. Rather than draining your budget on traditional marketing channels with dreams of catching your candidates’ or clients’ eyes, holding their attention and then persuading them to buy, inbound marketing flips traditional outreach upside down. As a staffing or recruiting firm, you want job seekers and hiring managers to come to you. By developing a strong digital marketing infrastructure, you will consistently show up in the heart of where your audiences are searching and eventually the leads will begin to pour in.
Understanding Inbound Marketing: The Octopus Approach
In explaining inbound marketing, let’s explore natural survival instincts that have been in place for centuries. Take the octopus, one of the most fascinating animals of the sea. As a large creature, it’s not easy for the octopus to attract prey without seeming overbearing.
Rather than creating a scene by awkwardly chasing after food that is much faster than itself, the octopus understands its surrounding environment and changes color to fit in with algae- a plant that thousands of sea creatures feed off. With very little movement, the octopus waits patiently for hungry creatures to come feeding, and the rest is history.
Photo: Octopus blending in with surrounding algae
Like the octopus, your ultimate goal should be to position your website or blog among the digital surroundings that your target audiences (job seekers and hiring managers) are feeding off. Keep in mind, the difference between a well thought out inbound marketing strategy and the above analogy, is that once you do manage to capture the attention of your audience, it’s not wise to attack them. There is nothing more annoying as a customer than to find out that you’ve been tricked and blatantly sold to. Inbound marketing should be permission-based, meaning your audiences choose to come to you and then decide to stay for a while. To do this well you will need to invest some time and resources into studying the behaviors of your audiences, learning how online technology and search engines operate, and understanding the different inbound marketing channels available.
This marketing series will explore, piece-by-piece, some of the more vital channels available and how each can be adapted by staffing and recruiting firms to enhance digital inbound leads. The series will cover topics including, audience mapping, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, community building, digital public relations, lead generation, streamlining process through technology and tracking.
Stay tuned for part two of our series, “Audience Mapping”.
Other great inbound marketing resources:
Inbound Marketing VS Outbound Marketing: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/2989/Inbound-Marketing-vs-Outbound-Marketing.aspx
Lead Generation Is About Being Found
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2009/02/24/lead-generation-is-about-being-found/
Wayne Gretzky was an Inbound Marketer
http://pauldunay.com/wayne-gretzky-was-an-inbound-marketer/
