Create GREAT recruitment marketing (without your marketing department)
Your marketing department is slammed. But, YOU can create great recruitment marketing without your marketing department. Develop awesome visual content featuring real employees, and your talent acquisition, employer branding and recruitment marketing expertise. Here are some tips that will wow your audiences (and your marketing colleagues!).
As the world opens up, employees seem to be making up for lost time at work. People are monumentally busy, and it feels like an avalanche (or tidal wave) of projects are raining down.
Although work has increased, the quality bar is still high. For example, you want to feature real employees in videos for engagement, recruitment, and to communicate your DEI efforts, and you want it to be great.
You need creative support.
Your colleagues in marketing are incredibly talented. But, your marketing department is loaded with customer-facing initiatives too. No matter how much they want you to succeed, and give you awesome creative assets that attract and engage candidates, it may not be possible for them to contribute as soon as you need.
If you’re going it alone (or with an agency partner), here are some tips that will get your project done well and wow your marketing team. In fact, they may promote your work on their channels, too.
Stick to your messaging
You have company values, an EVP, or at least a mission or purpose. Whatever is already developed and researched, hold as your north star. Think of your employee stories as supporting these messages that marketing already knows or has helped build.
Wow factor: Using real employee experiences is brilliant here. It’s the proof you need that brings your statements to life. It’s the emotional anchor of your messaging.
Show you know your audience
Marketing knows their audience very well–and that’s your company’s customers. They might not be responsible for actively marketing to your candidates or employees, and those audiences have their own nuances. They can learn about what candidates and employees want, too, but it will take them time they don’t have.
The good news is, you are the expert in understanding your audience, too. Recruiters and talent branders, you know candidates. HR, Internal Comms, and DEI, you know your employees.
Wow factor: Recruiters, you know who candidates need to hear from to further their interest in a role or company. HR and DEI, you know who is thriving at work. You have inside information that marketing would ask you for if they were running this project. You also have the relationships to get employee storyteller buy-in quickly. By selecting employees to interview and feature whom you know have an interesting perspective and varied experiences, you’re set up to create content that truly shows what’s unique about your culture.
Honor brand guidelines
Now is not the time to experiment with the Papyrus font on your logo.
Yes, your brand guidelines are sacred to marketing.
Wow factor: Ask marketing for your company’s style guide before you start the project. Respect the brand and its guard rails.
Get smart about placement
One culture video is marketing table stakes. You need more than one to be an effective marketer, and to build channels and engagement.
Think beyond repurposing one video asset. Instead, create a content library that not only uses one asset several ways, but creates other versions, optimized per channel and throughout the candidate journey.
Employee stories are incredibly versatile: see how we turned one story into several creative assets.
Wow factor: Now incorporate serving the right content at the right time to your audience. Think about what content will raise awareness (start of the journey), will make candidates want to learn more, and ultimately opt in to the process.
Involve marketing as little (or as much) as they want
When your marketing colleagues show interest, let them in! Oftentimes they want to know you’re on the right track. Ask their opinion on early drafts, so they can flag for you elements of your content that might not pass their quality standards.
Wow factor: Set up meetings with your marketing partners at key points in your content creation project. Explore our case study from Ochsner Health on how their TA team got marketing buy-in.
Pick a trustworthy partner
Marketing departments love when their counterparts choose to work with Stories Inc. to create employee story content libraries. Every piece will not only look great and be on brand, while also providing tremendous value to your audiences.
We care about visual quality and messaging; we use your brand standards. We understand your audience very well. We know how important it is to capture attention once you have it, and what candidates and employees need to hear at the right moments.
In fact, we work as extensions of your team .. and by extenstion, your marketing department, too.
Wow factor: Unlimited rounds of review!
We’ve got you (and you’ve got this!).