As a member of several leadership best practice groups, it has been overwhelmingly apparent over the last couple of years that business leaders are trying to understand and prepare for “digital transformation.” It’s a buzz word, yes, but if it didn’t pique your interest in 2019, with COVID-19 and the resulting systemic change in how we do business in 2020, you will be left behind if you don’t get on board.
If you aren’t marketing digitally, good luck. If you dabble in it, it won’t be enough. The “one-off” approach is dead; sophistication is here to stay. To succeed in the staffing and recruiting industry into the future, you need a holistic digital strategy, and here is why.
1. Strategy
Everything is getting more competitive online. 5 years ago, the percentage of people doing paid advertising and the percentage of people leveraging LinkedIn was a fraction of what it is today. With the increase in competition, how are you going to stand out? How is your brand unique? How are you going to leverage the data you capture? How are you going to refine your campaigns to maximize ad spend? How are you going to automate processes? All of these individually will provide minimal results but together, working in harmony, it is rocket fuel. Rather than using random tools in parallel, create an omni-channel strategy where resources are supported, designed and orchestrated together to achieve results.
2. Branding
Our CEO, Tony Sorensen, has always said, “Your website should be your best salesperson.” I am going to one-up him and say that today, “Your digital presence should be your best salesperson.” A standalone website can’t do the job of telling your story anymore. You have to nail your messaging and then you have to promote it consistently everywhere—your website, your social media channels, your email marketing, and on down to every blog you write. If the message is fragmented, stale or inconsistent, buyers will recognize it and your credibility will take a hit. You would never go to a client meeting in sweatpants, would you? The same principle applies to your digital marketing efforts. Anytime someone schedules a time to talk to me, the first thing I do is evaluate their digital brand across every platform I can think of, from website to social to blogs and videos to individual employees’ pages within the company. Create a brand of value that solves your clients’ pain points and meets them where they are.
3. Technology
This topic is my personal favorite. Marketing is no longer a billboard or a magazine ad. Marketing is highly sophisticated and weaves throughout your entire organization. There are so many tools out there today that make your processes more efficient, more consistent, more dynamic, more scalable, and provide a much better user experience. Things like chatbots, automation, AI, mobile apps and BI all play a part in marketing better, but most companies do not use the tools they have at a fraction of their capacity and usually don’t set them up in a way that they are working together in unison to drive true business growth. Companies big and small, simple and complex need to understand their tech stack and how to leverage it to grow their business. Now is a great time to be considering all of those things.
4. Sales Enablement
There is literally zero segmentation between sales and marketing anymore. The days of old where the marketing team gets an inbound lead and passes it over to sales to close simply doesn’t exist anymore. My friend texted me the other day and said, ‘Always Be Closing’ is dead; the next 5 years is going to be, ‘Always Be Connecting.” The last few years have seen the rise of the Chief Revenue Officer because sales and marketing have the same objective – to drive revenue. A buyer’s journey never ends. Companies of the future are using technology to systematically market and sell, from before you know a potential client exists, to adding value to a trusted partner, to make sure you get the next job order. How are you working with your sales teams to market past the traditional “marketing qualified lead”?
If you have question about your digital marketing efforts, our team is here to help. I would personally love to talk strategy with you (I thrive off of it!) and help you determine how to successfully grow and fuel the future of your business. Contact me here
