Why pour time and effort chasing the latest tools and gadgets when you can use your existing assets instead? In a Recruitment Marketing Magazine exclusive three-part series, Tanya Williams shares how to use your people, culture and communication as part of Leverage Marketing. Part 1 of this series focuses on people!
We live in a world where attention spans are less than a goldfish’s. We move at a cracking pace and are bombarded, and often overwhelmed, with so much information that it can be paralysing. There is always new technology, new software, new tools and the latest and greatest gadget that promises to give us everything we ever wanted, as well as the kitchen sink.
As business owners and hiring managers, it can be hard to separate the “could’s” from the “shoulds”. That is, all the stuff we could do versus the things we should be focused on. However, you don’t need to overcomplicate what you’re doing. That is why I created a framework for Leveraged Marketing. Let’s start with existing assets you have in your organisation.
What is Leveraged Marketing?
Put simply Leveraged Marketing uses your existing assets of people, culture and communication and leverages them to amplify your marketing and employer brand. It combines three of your departments, sales, marketing and talent engagement (HR & Recruitment), and looks at how they can play together in the sandpit, rather than being siloed. (But more of this next week when I share with you Part 2 of this leveraged marketing series.)
It’s such a simple concept, yet 98% of organisations that should be using this formula aren’t utilising it!
This strategy, however, is not for everyone. It’s most successful when you have more than 50 employees, although it can work for smaller organisations if you have a highly engaged team. But the rule of thumb says that a bigger team equals bigger results. It’s often the shared responsibility between People & Culture Managers, Operations and Marketing, so I highly recommend fostering collaboration across internal teams.
Everything in marketing starts with your people. Technology is simply an enabler.
Start with your people
In Part 1 of this three-part series, let’s start with the people element of the formula.
Everything in marketing starts with your people. Technology is simply an enabler.
Your employees have extensive networks of friends, followers and connections on social media who can be reached with the click of a mouse. If you partner with and empower your people, you can tap into new networks to help them build their personal brands and increase your organisational reach. With me so far?
Leveraging your social presence will turn one marketing manager into many, simply by leveraging your employees’ profiles to amplify your brand messages to more of your target audience. This benefits everyone!
This is why banning employees from social media is the dumbest thing you can do!
If you add up the connections and audience size of all your people across their social media networks, the numbers can get very big. Collectively, your people will have a much larger following than your organisation. These are people you’re unlikely to reach through your own organisation marketing.
This is why banning employees from social media is the dumbest thing you can do!
The power of social sharing
Because interactions on social channels are authentic, people are more trusting and engaged. It’s an effective way of building talent communities and online networks and relationships with clients, as communication is coming from peers, not from owners or marketing teams. By using the collective power of your teams digital and social presence, you become much more powerful and visible. A bit like when Clark Kent turns into Superman.
Your people can authentically share your brand and team culture. They are the ones down in the trenches experiencing it every day, at a grassroots level. People do business with people they like. Clients and candidates no longer wanted to see fancy brochures full of stock photos. They want to see the real people behind the scenes.
And the numbers stack up too. A 12% increase in social sharing from staff, on average, equals a 2X increase in revenue.
Why does it work so well? It’s a powerful way to authentically promote your Employee Value Propositions and Employer Brand. Leveraged Marketing focuses on real-time sharing, relatability, authenticity, transparency, a fresh perspective and believability.
Find your champions
One of the starting steps in the “people” element of leveraged marketing is finding your internal champions. Who are they? What departments do they live in? Are they internal influencers?
They are usually a small group of passionate, motivated, enthusiastic team players who love their job. As part of your Leveraged Marketing strategy, you need to find them, partner with them, reward them and encourage them to be your champion.
Make sharing easy
The key to gaining buy in and partnering with them is to make it easy for them. Give them quality content to use, make it accessible and allow them to have a voice. For this to work most effectively it needs to be authentic, otherwise it will just look like just another push from the marketing department.
Let them mould the content so it’s shaped with their voice. This makes a huge difference in engagement and reach.
Offer training
Train your champions and give them the skills they need to help you. Bring in subject-matter specialists to show your internal champions how to best create and share content in a way that will increase engagement with your clients and potential candidates.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do it, so let’s get it right.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope these tips and strategies help in getting you to think about how to leverage the collective power of your people.
Next week, in Part 2, I’ll share with you how brand culture fits into the Leverage Marketing framework. Stay tuned.
Learn more
Activate your employees for growth
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Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, and she is a Social Amplification Specialist with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets, find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget and amplify your internal champions to increase your visibility. Her goal is to make the hero in your industry sector. She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.