Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

theghost2645,

Honestly, I think the least frustrating thing for you to do is set a budget, maybe $10K to $50K for a national brand (might even be light considering how many agencies are out there), and post a project on 'Hire an Expert'.

My thoughts are, your time may be more valuable performing your day to day operations then trying to learn how to create a national brand. Let someone who has a proven record of accomplishment with this work tackle that part of your business plan.

Hope that helps ...

Sorry to put a dampener on things, but in headhunting, you become a “Top” headhunting agency by reputation, by what you do, have done, who you know and how well you are respected in the industries and amongst the executives you seek to serve.

Astute marketing can establish you with a presence as a head-hunter in the universe of other head-hunters and recruitment firms. It will give you the visibility to attract less experienced candidates when you place an advert on behalf of a client and it will help you to attract lesser clients who are looking for a head-hunter with the skills your marketing suggests you possess.

No amount of clever marketing or excellence in your web product will make you a “Top” headhunting agency. That is something you will have to earn. Introductions will be of assistance, hence the need to cultivate the well connected and the powerful, but anything which is skin deep at the level you suggest will be ripped open, exposing you as someone of little substance.

Hard work and a willingness to build on modest success to turn it into greater success will allow you to utilise more of your reputation as part of your marketing effort, but therein lays a catch 22. Discretion is the byword of a top head-hunter. You cannot trumpet your results on your website or in your advertising material. Your successes are whispered amongst your clients and to your candidates in off the record meetings. It is the most silent and unostentatious form of viral marketing you will come across.

Apart from a thriving CRM consultancy, have a guess about what one of my other business interests might be? It’s not in my bio, is it!

Best of luck

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

I get brief emails about once a month from a local recruiter that simply announce a successful placement of "Frank Jones in a CTO position at a global energy trading firm," and thanks its clients for "another opportunity to bring talent where it's needed." Their verbage is more concise, humble and sincere than I'm conveying here, but it's enough to make me *bookmark* this recruiter as a future resource for my own biz. Maybe because these success stories are the ONLY communication I receive from the recruiter.

THINK ABOUT IT. ;]