Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Today we are starting a series of podcasts which we have lined up over the next 8-10 weeks; That is across the summer for those of you in the Northern hemisphere and for many of our listeners who are in the Southern hemisphere, this is your winter.
Why This Series?
We have had several conversations recently where people are relatively new to marketing their recruitment and staffing company and while they’ve had this great time over the last year or so where the market bounced back after the pandemic, and they gained lots of job orders; they are now realising the market is shifting again and how do they get both candidates and clients.
A couple of common comments are.
- Oh my God, do I really need to start this marketing?
- The challenge is you don’t know what you don’t know
Companies are quoting various marketing jargon words at them that they think they know, but when we talk to them all, they don’t really understand the concept, which as we have just established is fine because you don’t know what you don’t know.
Most importantly, many recruitment business owners don’t understand the relevance of marketing for them and their brand and how this will help them get more candidates and clients.
In this series of podcasts and posts we are going to dive into some of those questions that sometimes you might feel a little bit, “Can I ask this?
It sounds really simple. I don’t want to look like I have no idea what I’m doing.
For instance, let’s take todays post like; what’s the difference between a report and a blog? How does a report actually work to generate leads?
Here are several of the topics we will be covering.
- What is all this talk about business blogging; why do I need to consider it?
- What are the best email platforms to use?
- How do I elevate my recruitment brand?
- What should I be doing on social media versus what shouldn’t I be doing?
- What social channels should I use?
- Is marketing different when it comes to perm or temp?
- What software do I actually need when I start marketing; What are the must-have and what are the nice to have?
Before we dive into the content if you are new here or either new to marketing your company and offer welcome and I have a report for you to download in the form of a checklist; see what I did there 😉
This is a checklist to fill out that will give you an idea of where you are with you are as you review or start you marketing you can access by clicking here; Recruitment Marketing Checklist Download
Go and print it off and go old school.
Be honest with your answers; There’s only you looking at this.
Go through these questions to give you an assessment of, “Where am I now,” because that will help to focus you on some of the things that you need to do.
You will also find the report here-> www.superfastrecruitment.co.uk/mcl.
A page will appear, and all you need to do is pop your name and email address into it, and it will wing its way to your email.
What is the Difference Between a Report And A Blog?
Today let’s talk about the difference between a report and a blog
It’s a question we’re often asked and one we explain willingly because it is important to have that distinction of the different pieces of marketing collateral that you are going to use to promote your recruitment brand, your recruitment service, the way that you work with candidates, the way that you work with clients, and how you are the person that people should be working with.
In honesty, they are both ways of delivering content out to your market, be that candidate, be those clients, or talent that you want to attract.
Maybe new recruiters, new resources, whatever that might be.
Remember; It’s a way of adding value to that market.
My mentor always says the way to demonstrate to people that you can help them is by actually helping them, and initially, doing it for free.
Here I am, and here I have been for many, many years sharing content nuggets, ideas, marketing strategies, where to get started, so I’m demonstrating to you how to help you by actually helping you. That is the premise of both a report and a blog. They’re slightly different.
Remember too, that the reason we are talking about adding value out to our market, is because we are in the knowledge age.
People want information, they want knowledge, and they go online to get it. I am going to talk about this a lot more over the coming weeks.
Let’s face it we all go online to get answers to our problems; A report and a blog can answer questions for both your candidates and clients, and they do them in slightly different ways.
Let me talk about a blog first of all.
What is a Blog?
A blog is a piece of text content, so, words and phrases to the layperson like you and I, that you place on a page on your website.
Now, depending on how your website is set up, you will have a specific area, what’s called a blog page. Some of you call it insights, but your web designer will have created a blog page on your website.
That means that you can, a bit like a Word document, paste content onto it, you then format it and click save, and then it goes live when you publish it.
You and people visiting your website will see the content live there and generally, a blog will answer a question from people that are searching online that you might work with; that could be a candidate or client or someone looking to work with you.
People will find you on Google and you can direct people to your content by sharing links to your blog pages.
What Content Do You Share?
Now, what content do you share? We’ve talked about this before, and I’m going to talk about the many benefits of business blogging next week. For now, just imagine that this is a piece of text content that’s on your website that is also searchable on the search engines like Google, Bing, all the different search engines across the world.
You have written a piece of content that ideally will answer a question, or an inquiry, or a problem going on in either your candidate’s mind or your client’s mind.
As an example, this is a podcast you’re listening to, which is also written up in text format as a blog. Let’s just say if you’re listening to this on iTunes, say you’re a regular listener of ours, you go over to the page where you will find the transcription, this is the written version of this, which is a blog.
Let’s just say that you’re not, or you weren’t a subscriber of ours, and you were just happening to Google, what’s the difference between a blog and a report, and fingers crossed, Google may have actually shown you this piece of content in answer to your question.
That is one of the benefits of a blog. It gives more substance to your website, its answering questions going on in your ideal prospects ‘minds. I’m going to use that word prospects, so let’s talk about candidates and clients. It’s on your website, it can be found by Google. There are many other benefits of blogs as well, which I’m going to come on next week and talk to you about. I don’t want to steal my thunder there, but you just imagine, this is a piece of content that’s on your website.
How Long Should a Blog be?
As a general rule, you want your blog to be at least 800 words.
Now, before you faint at the thought of 800 words, 800 words is not a lot of content. It’s not a lot of text. The reason that you want to make sure that your posts are this length is it demonstrates, to Google, authority.
This is on your website; you are demonstrating your expertise and authority in the market. You’ve got a blog, and the blog is on your website, and it can get found by the search engines. If you imagine the meatier your blog is, the more likely it is to get found, the more likely it is to be able to communicate what you want to say.
We recommend; Don’t just be writing 100 words, 200 words.
You’re not going to get found. It doesn’t really help in building your authority. Really, 800 words is not an awful lot to actually communicate an answer to a question.
That is the difference, so that is a blog. A blog is something that appears on a dynamic page on your website. If you’ve listened to this podcast, go over to the Superfast Recruitment website, go, and find it, and you will see this written in text format, and that is a blog.
Secondly, let’s talk about reports.
What is a Report?
You may have seen a quick video that Sharon has shared online because sometimes people say, “What’s the difference between a report, eBook or lead magnet?
There is no difference, they’re all the same.
They’re basically longer pieces of content that are helping solve a specific problem for someone. The difference between a report and a blog is a report tends to be in a longer Word document or PDF format. It is a longer piece of content.
We recommend that a report needs to be at least 3,000 words. Many of you all know we write reports for our Superfast Circle members every month that they use in their marketing.
I’m going to come onto that, in a couple of weeks about how a report will actually help you generate leads.
A report is something that’s a meatier, and chunkier bit of content. It will help to demonstrate you as an authority in your market.
If you want to see an example of a report, then go over to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/smm. That’s a report that we created on social media marketing so you can get a general idea of what it is.
Reports can be used in various ways. We suggest that, for those of you that already have contacts, in your database, they’re really good clients or candidates of yours that you can send a link to someone to download a report, people love downloading reports as PDFs.
There’s been substantial research that’s taken place around our, what appears to be, obsession in downloading PDFs. That’s the benefit of a report. A, fulfilling those criteria of giving people some valuable content that’s going to help them on either their career journey or building their team.
What we suggest is if people don’t know you, then there’s an energy exchange in giving someone a report.
Here is how the process plays out; I’ve got this report. Let’s just call it The Ultimate Guide to Recruiting For Manufacturing Engineers as an example.
In order to get this information from a recognised authority, which you will be, if you are a manufacturing recruiter, then yes, there’s a fee.
That fee is your email address.
You will hear this referred to as gated content. There is a gate that you have to go through, and maybe that gate has a password, or it’s got a lock or something like that. That lock is an email address. Therefore, you have a report.
There’s a lot more information in the report, it’s really useful. You can give a good chunk of information to people that also demonstrates your expertise and also then enables you to start building a deeper relationship.
That is fundamentally the difference between a blog and a report.
Do you need both? Yes.
In an ideal world, both of these pieces of content are really pivotal in demonstrating your expertise in the market. One can help you get found by the search engines, can get picked up. I’m going to tell you several things that can help when it comes to business blogging next week.
Your report, again, I’m going to tell you how a report will help you generate leads in another podcast I’m going to do in a couple of weeks’ time.
If you have any other of these questions, drop me an email to Denise @ Superfastrecruitment [dot] [co] [dot] [UK] and I will answer it on one of these podcasts for you.
We’ve explained the difference between a report and a blog. Then, in the coming weeks, I’m going to really share with you how these will make a massive difference to your marketing when you use them in the way that we suggest.
How Superfast Circle Can Help You Make More Placements
As a Superfast Circle member, you get access to a report and blog every month you can use in your marketing.
Book your call and demonstration here if you want a quick chat to see how Superfast Circle can work for you too.
Thanks,
Denise
P.S. If you want to join Superfast Circle and want to learn more, speak to us here.
