Every year technology forms a bigger slice of recruitment marketing budgets, and marketing technology or martech, is said to be the single most significant area of investment for marketing resources and programs.
As powerful tools emerge, recruitment business leaders can conduct better, faster and more in-depth data analysis to personalise their marketing efforts and win more business. It’s no wonder technology is such a big focus for them.
MDs and CEOs responsible for signing off the business case for tech investment must have the business case for digital transformation investment bottomed out to secure buy-in from the business and their decision-making peers. Not least because if they don’t, revenue may dry up faster than you thought.
Although all CEOs understand the need for their business to evolve in order to meet ever-increasing customer expectations, their knowledge of the recruitment technology stack required to do so and why it’s a worthwhile investment is more limited than they would like. Getting hold of that knowledge to secure buy-in from the business and be confident in your decision making can be challenging. With that in mind, here are five steps that staffing business leaders can follow to drive digital transformation in their staffing business:
1. Understand Business Priorities & Where Technology Will Yield Results:
All business leaders have areas of focus areas that demand constant attention. With concerns like growth and revenue, retaining top talent, building trust, creating new revenue streams, winning new business and retaining top clients, keeping key stakeholders happy, there’s a great balancing act to pull off. Most companies don’t have a digital marketing strategy that is aligned to wider strategic business operations. If you want to get digital transformation projects approved, kicked off and rolled out, we need to understand your business priorities, make a business case for the potential ROI available from investment, and demonstrate how your tech and marketing strategy can directly impact growth and increase revenue. It’s not just about the new shiny toy that caught your attention recently, but what tech and process change will transform your business fastest.
2. Recognise Your Business Heritage and Strengths:
Your audiences, target markets, clients and candidates will shape the way you should approach your digital transformation. It’s much easier to sell in the importance of enhancing the customer experience to business leaders with experience or an interest in that sector or field. Most business leaders in Europe have a background in finance with only 11% coming from a marketing background. The balance is usually from a sales background – those who are great at delegating and rely heavily on data, metrics and gut feel that there will be a good return on investment and buy-in to marketing technology. What’s the best CRM for your business? How do you advertise jobs easily and process applications effortlessly? How do you generate business leads for your teams? How can tech help you nurture leads and engage with prospects and customers more effectively?
3. Be Aware of Changes In Your Market:
Recruitment technology is moving fast and Marketing needs to be the department closest to the customer and the market – as close as your sales teams. Most small recruitment and staffing businesses do not have the luxury of an in-house marketing resource. That usually starts when companies have around 40-50 headcount and billings are consistent. However, recruitment business leaders need to use this knowledge to understand and establish why digital transformation is important for the business and how best to move forward with their process innovation and tech upgrade. Consider trends in your market, hunt for examples of best practices across multiple sectors to educate yourself on why digital transformation is an essential part of your marketing strategy and will help drive business goals forward. Most recruitment websites are brochure sites that haven’t been updated for 2-3 years, aren’t integrated into your CRM and have little or no automation that helps grow your business. It’s time to upgrade if that’s your business.
4, Ensure Regular Facetime With Your Customers
Business leaders must master and look to understand customers as quickly as possible, build an effective marketing plan and execute it consistently to ensure success for your company and teams. One of the best ways to keep the pulse on the business landscape is regular feedback from your customers – in real-time. OK, it might not be face-to-face time with your customers but it is valuable airtime. They need a chance to vent and to praise. You need to get hold of that, understand and act on this feedback fast, action elements that aren’t working as effectively as possible and get over issues that you may not have been aware of previously. But, don’t come in just expecting to get a download on what your customers are thinking. It’s dynamic and is always changing… Ensure that you understand how your business is operating and how your customers’ expectations are being met so you know how to drive success going forward.
5. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help:
Navigating the tech landscape can be a daunting challenge. Especially when you are unfamiliar with what tech or gizmos are available in your area of expertise, which tech plugs into your CRM and which doesn’t. How will the tech you chose help your recruitment process not hinder it and can work with your business not against it? What tools should you replace or add to your current tech stack and what will be the best fit for your business?
It’s a good idea to ask staffing technology experts to help you understand the language, tech landscape and requirements of your business. It may feel uncomfortable to show vulnerability or a gap in your knowledge (to the business), but often, bringing this mentorship and expertise into your business can help build better relationships with customers and candidates as wel as drive revenue and profitability. Use technology to replace routine elements of the job and make them more efficient, more effective and more consistent to delight customers. You might be surprised how easily and quickly you can speed up candidate processing, feedback and interviews as well as improve engagement, prospect nurturing and customer communications.
With technology providing essential value to staffing businesses, getting buy-in from the team and knowing you’ve made the right choices is crucial to both the success of the team’s marketing efforts and securing a bigger slice of the recruitment pie. By aligning with the priorities of your customers and the goals of the organisation, maintaining regular communication and being able to act on that understanding can ensure digital transformation efforts yield the benefits and increased ROI that you’re hoping to achieve. If you’re looking for a new recruitment website, staffing technology advice or have a question, we’re here to help at www.staffingfuture.com
Staffing Future specialize in the development and deployment of staffing website designs along side industry leading technical consultancy tailored specifically for the global staffing industry. Together with integrated technology stack solutions and partnership technology, we provide measurable return on investment through innovation and pro-active management services.