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How Should I Market A Staffing Company?

Posted by Anonymous on 1/31/2005 at 11:15 AM ET 250 Points

I've recently beeen hired as the marketing officer for a large staffing organization in NYC. My previous work experience was for a software house, so the bulk of my work was in product marketing, although there was certainly some service marketing.

In the software industry you obviously can tout your line of products and promote why one would prefer to use them.

The staffing industry (used to be called employment agencies) is a bit trickier, at least to me at this point. There are many companies doing essentially the same thing as us in the New York area.

Our product is prospective employees for clients. All agencies have the same access to this working pool and there is no loyalty from people seeking work. It's usually a one time deal, except for some people who subsist on a series of temporary assignments.

We really don't have to do much to market to prospective employees because that gets handled by our extensive associations in the industry (monster.com etc.)

We need to make us more attractive to prospective clients. The company is already one of the leaders in the industry but we want to grow it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

David

Posted by Pepper Blue on 1/31/2005 at 11:49 AM Member

Hi David,

Contact David Searns at Haley Marketing Group www.haleymarketing.com

Haley Marketing Group, a relationship marketing company specializes in e-mail, direct mail and integrated marketing programs for the staffing industry.

David is also a top expert here on this forum, he really knows the staffing industry.

I hope that helps.
Posted by rockyboy2 on 1/31/2005 at 1:04 PM Member

Just a quickie

Our customers never come back for years!
But their friends do!
Why?
Because we make sure we find you!
The right job with the Right employer!
So come on in and be a stranger
Right!

Short and sour the way New yorkers love it lol

Reverse marketting!
The rockyboy2 man Michael
Hey just a quick plug my book is available to buy on Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Rockyboy2 The Quest for the Million
Or search on Google rockyboy2
#cheers and good luck
Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 1/31/2005 at 4:03 PM Accepted

I agree with Stephanie - you can differentiate yourselves, though it may take some effort to change the offering you have. Perhaps your company focus on a certain segment or have a specialty in a certain type of employee - use these to your benefit.

There was a previous questions on how to market staffing services. You may want to check out:
http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstid=4873
Posted by Paul Copcutt on 1/31/2005 at 5:00 PM Member

David

Having spent 12 years in the staffing field from both an executive search end and contingency-agency you can get candidates to be loyal if you treat them the way that you would want to be treated.

Too many staffing firms treat candidates as a commodity and whilst the client pays the bills my first lesson about candidates was one day they may become a client.

In terms of approaching prospective clients again be different, be creative, be FLEXIBLE. Depending on where your leadership is - maximise it - become known as THE leader in that market and then both clients and candidates will come to you.

Good luck!
Posted by ASVP/ChrisB on 2/1/2005 at 1:42 AM Member

One additional idea...

If you place candidates in positions of responsibility where they may be hiring & firing, they can become a new client inside the existing client organisation.

Candidate one day, client the next! Do you work those relationships? You should because the candidate already knows you, should trust you, knows your processes, why would they go elsewhere?

If you cannot turn a placed candidate into a client, you should have a long hard look at what you did during the selection and negotiation phase of the recruitment process to turn them off you so badly!

One more vote from me for David Searns too, a highly accomplished and trustworthy marketer.

Good luck

ChrisB
Posted by ASVP/ChrisB on 2/1/2005 at 1:45 AM Member

PS... Following on from above (esprit d'escalier) those placed candidates may be great clients for outplacement projects too... Once they get inside the business and start cutting out the dead wood, that's someone else's fuel.

Sorry if that sounded heartless, but the reality is life is a carousel. With commissions payable to your agency when people get on or off the ride!

ChrisB
Posted by Roxana on 2/1/2005 at 5:04 AM Accepted

1.Seminars for HR Managers and CEO on issues important to them
2. Newsletter with articles
3. DM and calls
4. Networking (Have you announced your friends and ex-clients about your new position? Why not asking them for advice and contacts?)
5. Advertorials and articles
6. Advertising
7. Free recruitment for new clients - 1 position (only if the recruiters don't have anything to do)
8. Open house for HR Managers and CEOs- let them experience testing, share with them their results and so on, comment on interviews (on themselves or on real candidates)
9. Differentiate - offer some outdoor training nobody offers, recruitment of rare talents for part time jobs(trilingual, programmers, writers) ...
10. Branding - invent scales, reports, analysis, methods, tests for the work force (all with your company name)
Posted by telemoxie on 2/1/2005 at 9:13 AM Accepted

I'd love to talk with you. I've spent lots of time selling software, where products have clear differentiation, and a bit of time selling services, where differentiation is a bit harder.

For example, as a marketing guy, I would often meet systems integration companies who might be interested in retaining me, and they would typically say, "We're not like the other companies because..." and then they would tell me the same exact thing the last ten told me (we have a methodology, we listen to you, we have offshore sources, we specialize in (insert hot topic of today)...)

and so, while everyone else was trying to differentiate themselves by ther service offering, I would call and say, "I'm calling to introduce XYZ, we are one of those web development companies..." - and the prospect would laugh and appreciate the honesty.

Whether you are all the same or not does not matter. If the prospect believes you are all the same, and has heard the same pitch from 100 people who claim to be different, and you claim to be different, you will be percieved poorly.

Today, with everyone emailing PDFs, you can differentate yourself from 90% of your market simply by putting something in the mail - especially on professionally designed letterhead.

My personal approach is to differentiate thru persistence. The average buyer buys after the tenth attempt, the average salesperson quits after three. Your target guys receive call after call after call - mostly from folks who call once or twice or three times to try to qualify an opportunity. My goal is to cultivate relationships by phone (e.g. mailing white papers) and over time, as trust develops, opportunities will emerge.

As someone familiar with Software marketing, you may have experienced 6 month, 12 month, 18 month sales cycles. Most sales folk I have met in the service industry do not have the patience for this - they are looking for qualified opportunities RIGHT NOW.

Today the world goes faster and faster. Letters have been replaced by email - and I can't even email my daughter - everything is instant messages and text messages. Yet there is a significant (and growing) cultural difference between senior management and twenty-somethings. You need rapport with senior management - some of these old geezers are 45 and 50 years old - they are uncomfortable with the pace of the world today - you might consider a program which is done at THEIR PACE.

Such a program will yield slower results initially than networking, email marketing, referrals, web pages, etc. Yet it may be just the ticket for adding some blue chip accounts to your customer list over time.

Check out my profile, give me a call.
Posted by telemoxie on 2/1/2005 at 9:24 AM Member

p.s. 95%+ of your efforts right now need to be in programs which generate results quickly. Definately call Haley Marketing. All eyes are on you in your new position - you need to get things rolling quickly.

The good news is that there are LOTS of folk on this forum whose expertise is getting you lots of appointments and leads in a hurry. That's your first priority. Once you have gotten some hits, and are secure in your position, you might look at some longer term programs to penetrate some key accounts.
Posted by DavidatHaley on 2/1/2005 at 11:33 AM Accepted

Hi David,

What kind of staffing do you do? Marketing strategies for industrial vs admin vs technical vs professional can all be very different. Also, will your marketing focus be clients, candidates or both?

For a great discussion on positioning a staffing firm, see the following questions:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstid=212

http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_question.asp?qstid=1140

For more resources, please feel free to download any of the articles on our website (www.haleymarketing.com). You'll find nearly 50 articles on sales & marketing for staffing firms.

And please let me know if I can offer any further assistance.

Regards,

David
Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 2/1/2005 at 4:52 PM Member

If I understand the way this site works, once I feel satisfied that I've gotten my question answered as well as possible I then check the boxes attached to the responses I found most helpful and at the same time close the thread. Is that correct?

That is correct. Check the boxes of those who you felt added value to you - any you check will get an equal share of the points you offered. You can give it all to one, or split among those who you felt were of value.

You likely won't get many responses after you close the question, so do it after you think you have gotten the answer you need or all the answers you will get.

Second, a lot of you have recommended that I contact the Haley Marketing Group and because I'm new here and by nature a suspicious New Yorker, I wonder if this advice is somehow profit driven to a member here. Sorry, but it occurred to me.

The only one who would profit if you used Haley Marketing is Haley Marketing. Many of the folks who recommended him are also consultants, so by recommending him they are in effect giving up the chance for business. There is no connection or collusion with the consultants here.

This response did not add value to your question, so you should not award points (don't check the box) when you close the question.

ps - I was born in the Bronx myself. I understand your skepticism.
Posted by mgoodman on 2/1/2005 at 8:09 PM Member

My only new suggestion is that you spend some time interviewing current/recent clients and ask them about their experience with your company, how it compares to others, whether they'd use you again and why/why not, what other suppliers of theirs are particularly good/bad and why, etc. Get to know how they operate, what they value, etc.

Not only will this give you lots of ideas for things you can and should do to attract new clients, but it will also begin to build or strengthen relationships with old clients. Every one of them is a potential referral, resource, and candidate for repeat business.

Once you've spoken with at least a dozen of them, you should collect your notes and analyze what you've learned. It will help you identify strengths on which you can build and weaknesses that need to be fixed.

Don't think of the interviews as sales calls. If you do, you'll miss the opportunity to learn. Think of them as research, and tell the clients that's what they are.

BTW, this basic approach is discussed in Rasputin For Hire : An inside look at management consulting between jobs or as a second career. It's a great way to learn a lot AND build the right kind of relationship at the same time.

Hope this helps.
Posted by DavidatHaley on 2/1/2005 at 10:45 PM Member

David,

We won't take your job, I promise!

We'll just make you look brilliant! :-)

On a more serious note, and in response to some of your comments:

1) I am totally flattered by the suggestions on my colleagues that you should contact our firm. I don't think they have any alterior motive, and I am sure none of them would make a recommendation if they did not believe it would be in your best interest. I've been a member of this community for just over a year, and I'm consistently impressed with the quality of the advice these folks provide. (And so you know, I'm a skeptical Western New Yorker).

2) We currently work with more than 100 staffing and search firms across the US and Canada, many of whom have marketing executives. In fact, generally speaking we have some of the best relationships with marketing professionals (you get the value of what we do, and you understnad the challenges of making the implementation work with your sales team).

3) As for specific strategies, they really can vary by sector (which creates even more need for you to plan, control and monitor the different tactics). As you've already seen this is an intensely competitive industry suffering from tremendous commodity pressures. In some sectors, the best strategy is to build relationships. In others it's to demonstrate your ability to improve the efficiency of labor cost management. And in others you have to prove your ability to recruit.

I'd be more than happy to schedule an hour of phone time to brainstorm ideas with you...and there's no charge for the input. Okay enough of a sales pitch, and please feel free to contact me if you like. You'll find my contact info in my profile or on our website.

Regards,

David
Posted by colby76 on 2/2/2005 at 5:14 PM Member

I agree with the feedback that you've received so far. Absolutely you must engage your clients and find out what are their pain points in terms of temp staffing - this also helps you to identify a point of differentiation. Your account managers need to be intimately knowledgeable about your clients staffing requirements, what it takes to get the job done in the client organization, what type of people succeed/fail, etc.

Do your clients provide feedback on the temp. resources that you provide? If not create a feedback tool and offer a small incentive to those clients who regularly provide feedback. If they already provide you with feedback review it closely and find out how you're performing, what other needs you can address, etc.

Research your competition, what are they doing differently or better? Do they offer resource staffing services only to a particular industry? Do they offer executive level temps?

Another idea is to try to get the account managers involved early in the process, what I mean here is that account managers should try to make connections with those that have insight into future demand. Is the client working on a project/initiative/service offering that will cause a spike in temporary resource demand?
Posted by marketing on 1/4/2006 at 9:31 AM Member

I just was offered a postion at a healthcare staffing agency over the marketing dept. I would like to know what avenues or strategies you can help me with gaining more hospitals as our clients. And also getting more nurses to join our company.

Thanks,

Fernando
Posted by 6Channels on 10/4/2007 at 8:43 AM Member

another kid in the block.. try thes guys..

http://www.recruitingjunction.com/index.asp
Posted by info on 7/6/2008 at 11:03 PM Member

Or you can look into our firm. We are Dillinger & Kovach and we specialize in increasing market share for staffing and recruiting firms.

Please check us out at www.dillingerkovach.com

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