THE RECRUITMENT INDUSTRY ONLINE AS A LEADING DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY WITHIN THE RECRUITMENT INDUSTRY ENCENDO UNDERTOOK A STUDY IN MAY 2015 INTO THE ATTITUDES AND SPEND OF RECRUITMENT COMPANIES IN IRELAND TOWARDS DIGITAL MARKETING. encendo.co adam@encendo.co +353 (1) 53 11 611
THE STATE OF THE RECRUITMENT INDUSTRY Our research found that the largest cluster of organisations are based in Dublin City with 65% of respondents within the Dublin City region, and a further 7% in the rest of Dublin. There are also 3.6% recruitment brands based outside of the Republic of Ireland but with an active marketing interest within it. Other larger areas include Laois (7%), Donegal (3%), and Galway (3%). The majority of recruitment organisations are lean organisations of 10 or less employees; and 65% of respondents are in fact from firms that employ between 2 25 people. 57% of respondents are one branch organisations, and of multi branch brands 85% of them had their budgets controlled by Head Office. 25% of respondents are from organisations with 50+ employees. These findings somewhat mirror general CSO figures for SME numbers in Ireland. IT / Programming jobs are the most catered for areas, with an increase of 21% in adverts *1 being posted in this field. This was followed by HR / Recruitment, Sales, and Finance. The service industry seems to be less catered for, with 10% or less focused on roles from chef, to restaurants, to travel and tourism. As many as 69% of recruiters *2 anticipated an increase job competition in their markets during 2015, particularly in engineering, IT, operations, marketing and sales. 7% JUST ME 53% 2 10 EMPLOYEES 20% 11 25 EMPLOYEES 20% 50+ EMPLOYEES WHICH INDUSTRIES DO YOU SPECIALISE IN?
SPEND ON DIGITAL MARKETING Many recruitment companies see digital marketing as an important part of their marketing mix continuously monitoring and managing their web analytics. As many as 33% of recruitment firms monitor their analytics every day, and 20% at least once a week a proactive approach to understanding their online business performance. clients 5% candidates In general 10 20% of marketing budgets are spent on digital marketing, although there is still an 11% of respondents who did not know what their digital marketing spend was. When considering the findings that show that the norm is a 20% or less spend on marketing overall against revenue, and digital spend is a 10 20% of that, then overall digital spend seems to be a 1 2% against revenue. A low investment in a measurable and actionable marketing channel. Monthly digital marketing spend can range significantly across a spectrum from 27% claiming they spend less than 500 to 35% saying they spend more than 1,000. We also found a significant 41% did not know how much of their revenue could be attributed to digital marketing. 50% 6% 39% 70% 18% 12% 40% ON AVERAGE WHAT IS YOUR MONTHLY AVERAGE MARKETING SPEND FOR EACH TARGET AUDIENCE 30% 20% 10% It s not surprising that 96% of respondents are expecting to increase or stabilise their digital marketing budgets this year, a sign of buoyancy in the industry and a will to look towards digital marketing to support ongoing activity. Social media, website improvements and SEO are the main areas of digital marketing which are likely to see increased investment, with email (surprisingly) and 3 rd party sites likely to be left behind. According to Jobvite utilising social recruiting has seen a significant increases in effectiveness, with 44% increase in candidate quality, 44% in candidate quantity and 34% increase in improved time to hire. 1 10% 10 20% 20 30% 30 40% 40 50% 50 70% 70 90% I DON T KNOW WHAT % OF YOUR OVERALL MARKETING BUDGETS IS SPENT ON DIGITAL MARKETING APPROXIMATELY WHAT % OF YOUR COMPANY S TOTAL REVENUE DERIVES FROM YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING SPEND Of those who would not be increasing investment (45% or so) they cited as restricted marketing budgets, digital skills gaps and the ability to measure ROI as the main barriers for investment.
LEAD GENERATION A recent study from LinkedIn found that even though passive candidates express an interest, 90% of this is not being captured. This is a significant gap in potential lead generation considering that as much as 75% of prospects are prospects rather than actively looking at that stage. Our findings seem to show that although there is keenness to invest in digital, understanding the impact digital is having on revenue, or how to optimise digital channels, is more challenging. Lead generation is the main goal of websites in the recruitment industry, with 80% or so focused on both candidate and client recruitment. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Yet, relationship based marketing methods like word of mouth and customer referrals are seen as the number one most effective tool for sourcing new leads. Networking also featured strongly; with social media following closely behind. The average sales cycles takes 1 2 months (52%), with most businesses preferring to do business directly with business owners or senior management (84%). HOW EFFECTIVE DO YOU THINK THE FOLLOWING MARKETING METHODS ARE FOR CREATING LEADS 0 : LEAST EFFECTIVE 10 : MOST EFFECTIVE Although only a handful of brands were looking to increase investment in email marketing, email ranks as the 3 rd highest source of candidates, and a primary tool in customer retention. TV, radio and pay per click ads were seen as the worst performing channels. BUSINESS SENTIMENT Business is improving, and all feel that the business environment is either tough, but getting there (58%), or strong and growing (42%). None of the respondents feel that there hasn t been a surge in the market. ONLINE 3 RD PARTY SITE ONLINE BUSINESS SITE OFFLINE CONTACT WITH SALES REP I DON T GET INVOLVED IN SALES WHICH ARE YOUR PREFERRED SALES METHODS WITHIN THE BUSINESS OFFLINE CONTACT WITH OWNER OR SNR MGT 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
WEBSITE Lead generation is one of the biggest areas of marketing focus for recruitment organisation with the greatest majority of them looking at both clients and candidates as key target audiences (81%). To this end all organisations have a website, and although 77% believe that their website is responsive our own research has shown that as many as 64% of websites don t have a truly responsive website perhaps highlighting a misunderstanding of responsiveness in the industry, or a mobile site presence without it actually being responsive. YES 36% RESPONSIVE WEBSITE NO 64% MODERATE 37% STRONG 5% GOOD DESIGN POOR 59% 64% OF WEBSITES DON T HAVE A TRULY RESPONSIVE WEBSITE Even of those with websites regardless of their responsive nature we found that over 59% of them had poor design features, with disappointing user journeys and poor use of social to increase reach and amplify the message. Only 33% of sites had clear Social Media Share buttons, although as many as 55% of sites had invested in Jobs Boards. These findings lie parallel to the results from our marketing survey. Word of mouth and referrals are currently seen as the most effective channels. It appears the recruitment industry is still reliant on these methods as the top way of bringing in clients and candidates. Digital marketing, on the other hand, is seen as a challenge for a number of reasons, and many seeing the digital marketing channels as producing poor return on investment. However, when considering both sets of findings we would suggest that recruiters find themselves in a Catch22. One of the unique strengths of digital marketing is the ability to measure bang for buck and have a transparent vision of how your activity is influencing your business. But this is dependent on clear attribution and tracking. MODERATE 35% YES 45% STRONG 7% STRONG USER JOURNEY SOCIAL SHARE BUTTONS POOR 59% NO 55% YES 74% YES 32% USE OF JOBS BOARD BLOG NO 26% NO 68% It also significantly dependant on the quality of landing pages, user journeys and such likes to optimise conversion opportunities during the journey. HOW GOOD IS YOUR WEBSITE? No matter how strong strategies and investments might be in digital marketing activity, your returns will always be small if your conversion funnels are not primed to cater for today s users.
USER JOURNEY DRIVING LEADS THROUGH DIGITAL CHANNELS With the development of devices, and the continuous changes in user behaviour the user journey on your site has become one of the most significant influences in optimising conversions onsite. Bringing empathy into the candidate journey takes your website language a step past the transactional relationship of a CV submission into a support structure. This improves brand affinity and retention. This empathy can be communicated in a number of ways. Clearly the text and tone used within your site is important, but so are the categories and content types you use, including the use of imagery, video, documents and so on. Clear navigation with strong calls to action for both desktop and mobile users creates a consistently satisfying experience suited to their needs at that time. With 43% of job seekers searching via mobile *2 devices a strong user journey is increasingly important, and this not only relates to building a responsive site but also the strength of the user journey for example using different calls to action on desktop versus mobile when submitting CVs. This consideration for their needs and preferences becomes evident in their interaction with your site, building brand engagement. In fact, recruiters who invest in mobile platforms saw great improvements to their business, with some quoting a 14% improvement in time to hire, 19% increase in the quality of hire, and a 10% improvement in the quality of referrals. Bringing together the best of digital channels to build strong lead generating campaigns starts with understanding your personas, and where they hang out. You digital marketing activity should keep your brand front of mind during the passive and research stage, and drive submissions during the job application stage. The hardest part is in optimising the quality and relevance of CV submissions to the job being advertised, and although this can never be an exact science, ensuring that you are advertising to the right personas dramatically increase the quality of relationships and submissions, and, of course, the return on advertising spend. Choosing the right balance in your digital marketing channels creates a two tier strategy keeping your brand front of mind, and driving leads. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION This is thought to have one of the best ROIs across industries with an e consultancy study stating that 78% of businesses find the ROI to be Good or Excellent. It is not a channel which will never require investment, but once you are respected by the Google machine your efforts are more around sustaining your positions.
An ongoing challenge will be ensuring you are ranking for the key phrases that are relevant to your business, and that they convert in the best way considering the passive research stage of recruitment it is unlikely that many will be Long Click keywords. The more niche your recruitment fields might be the stronger the chances that you will see greater returns from SEO. It is a difficult channel to get right, and it takes time. Success is dependent on a number of difficult factors, and although content is the number 1 factor here, the technical and contextual setting of this content is just as important and this can be difficult. The SEO field is also changing aggressively, with Google consistently changing the SERPs, reachability scores and algorithms, and search behaviours changing with such developments as conversational search. EMAIL Email delivers some of the strongest ROIs from all digital channels. Normally this would be because your audience already has a certain affinity to your brand after all they have given you their email address. Even if you are tapping into a third party email list you would have sought to partner with a brand who engages with similar personas to your own so there should be a stronger response. PAID ADVERTISING This form of advertising is generally priced on a cost per click, cost per thousand, or cost per acquisition model. It is a very transparent way of knowing how much you spent, and what the return on investment is. It is also a channel which can be up and running relatively quickly and can be reasonably well tuned to ensure that the impressions and clicks are relevant to the personas you are targeting. As standard paid advertising would include the likes of Google Adwords, Display advertising, remarketing campaigns, advertising on social media channels and so on. Each have their strengths and challenges, but the common theme is you can control budgets, follow results and analyse attribution. Using custom audiences and remarketing campaigns can also increase relevance and keep cost per acquisition low. Within recruitment there also exist other types of paid advertising models, particularly with third party websites like Indeed, Jobs.ie and such like. Using a combination of Google Analytics and the reporting tools such systems offer you can clearly see what paid advertising activity performs the best against your objective eyeballs on a job, CV submission, or brand reach. Email, however, is not just about newsletters. Using your content strategy and activity you can create triggered emails campaigns based on behaviours and seasonality keeping your lists engaged even when directly looking for your services.
ENCENDO We re proud to say we have genuine experience across so many industry sectors but in some areas we d be known as the specialist service provider. The recruitment sector requires an intelligent combination of specific platforms to handle back end processes and intelligent user friendly design to maintain a firstclass user experience. After working with many recruitment agencies, we thoroughly understand the sector and know the requirements. By integrating best practice design with CRM systems and applicant tracking systems like Bullhorn and Zoho, we know what it takes to produce recruitment websites to the highest standards. Project Description PCQ are a company based in Dublin with offices based throughout Europe. Their objective is to help fill the shortage of nurses in Ireland. With offices and websites in Ireland, UK, Poland, Romania and Portugal PCQ needed a digital marketing department that could turn their websites into an extra recruiter finding them high quality candidates. The Challenge PCQ needed to identify how they could attract top talent from European countries to fill the shortage both here in Ireland and the UK. PCQ do a lot more than just provide fill vacant jobs. It s there approach that makes them stand out from the crowd. Their Person Centred culture needed to be highlighted to prove to nurses that they are the best company to choose when making the big decision to move abroad for a new job and more importantly a new life. Digital Strategy and Planning Splitting the website into individual countries allowed us to deliver a clear unique message to each country. As always our focus remains solidly on driving relevant traffic, strong conversions to sales, and amplification of message for brand awareness. Working with paid advertising, email marketing, social media, and SEO we have continuously improved the quality of traffic. This, and improvements in the online sale funnel, has driven a consistent growth in conversion rates and sales for PCQ. 320% 52% 710% 107% Increase in Visits Increase in Pageviews Increase in Conversions Increase in Facebook Likes Web Development Multilingual Getting a translation correct is important, online tools while they seem to do a great job can confuse your target audience and send an incorrect message. 1 CMS, 5 Sites PCQ needed a place where they could manage all site from a central hub. Our multi site platform fitted the bill perfectly. It allowed PCQ to easily manage all their sites and deliver a unique message to each country depending on the culture of that particular country. In many cases a 1 site fits all does not work. Telling the story People relate to stories, in the new PCQ websites they focus on the telling the stories of individuals that have already successfully being placed in new jobs and living a new life in Ireland or the UK.