Did you know that there are about 300 million employment-related searches on Google each month? Your top prospects are searching online, so if recruiters are going to compete effectively for talent, you need to meet candidates where they’re at! And paid digital advertising makes it easier to maintain a visible and vital online presence.
Here are some practical tips on how to use paid digital marketing tactics for recruitment purposes.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can stay in front of your top prospects and attract more qualified applicants. This is especially true for platforms like Google Ads, which allow you to advertise in search engine results.
PPC advertising is also cost-effective, because you only pay when people click your ads. This means that if candidates don’t click, you won’t pay a cent, making PPC attractive and less risky from a cost standpoint if you want to trial this recruitment strategy.
Thanks to keyword targeting options available when you use PPC, you can ensure you’re always spending your budget reaching the most relevant candidates for your jobs. Another bonus is that the more niche job search terms are easier and cheaper to target—meaning it costs less to advertise for those specialist, hard-to-fill roles.
Need to understand how PPC affects your SEO or CRO—or even what those acronyms stand for? We can help. Check out Building Your Digital Landscape: A Digital Marketing Acronym Reference Guide.
Social Media Advertising
Get social with your candidates! Experiment with ads or promoted content on LinkedIn, Facebook and any other social media channels where your target audience might be.
Use Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads are a form of online targeted segmentation served only to people who have already visited your website—or, in this case, your job listing. When used alongside PPC and/or social ads, these ads are a great way to increase candidate consideration and push job seekers further into your talent pipeline.
Use Your Careers Website as Your Digital Front Door
Think of your career site as your (digital) front door. It should be user-friendly and simple to navigate with clear calls to action. Potential candidates should be able to quickly find open positions and easily apply. And don’t forget to make sure it is mobile-friendly!
Bonus Tip: Consider Video
Video can be a powerful recruitment tool used across all digital channels. Use video to showcase your company culture, give a virtual tour of your workspace and highlight your top employees. Short videos can be shared on social media and your company website, while longer ones can be used during the recruitment process to give candidates a better understanding of your organization and what to expect.
Example in Action
USIC is the largest utility-locating firm in the United States. The company employs more than 10,000 technicians who perform around 80 million locates annually (and growing!). The USIC recruiting team is consistently looking for new ways to attract qualified candidates due to the ever-growing workload and the need to increase its workforce.
Last year, Westcomm developed a multi-channel digital marketing campaign to highlight the many benefits of working at USIC. The “You Work Hard. And Hard Work Has Its Benefits” campaign helped drive brand awareness, build excitement and interest, and engage with potential candidates.
This campaign regularly delivers thousands of candidates to the recruiting team at USIC. Over a six-month paid campaign, we delivered millions of impressions, which resulted in thousands of landing page visitors.
Example in Action: Targeted Campaign
Don’t forget that you can be specific about your audience! USIC is proud to be a veteran-friendly work environment and wanted to promote its job openings to military personnel who were transitioning to the civilian workforce.
To achieve this objective, Westcomm launched a digital advertising campaign designed to create awareness and drive applications for open USIC positions around military transition bases. This campaign targets both the geography (location) of the bases as well as job titles (any branch of the military) for maximum exposure.
If you’re ready to engage your potential employees and build a better recruitment class, our creative team at Westcomm can help!
