As I look through my emails, I notice a scary trend-email after email from some of my favorite brands. Unlike the normal “salesy” emails, most of the brands I follow capture my interests with their content. If you don’t know what content marketing is, it’s loosely defined as a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts). The primary goal of content marketing is not to explicitly promote a brand but to stimulate interest in its products or services. Successful recruiters do content marketing by default. For the high valued targets on your recruiting lists, you may send industry articles or share valuable content occasionally as a way to stay on the recruit’s mind. Here’s how to make candidate content marketing a permanent, planned part of your recruiting strategy.

How to use content marketing as a recruiting strategy

The task can seem daunting at first but once you set up the framework, it can run like clockwork. A successful content marketing recruiting strategy will be engaging your high valued candidates while you focus more energy on developing new targets and adding them to the list. Influencers like Gary Vee and Arianna Huffington are masters at developing content weekly, if not daily, that informs their base while consistently driving them to buy into their brand.

Develop your list

Start first by developing your list of prospects and getting them into a marketing platform like MailChimp or HubSpot. These tools are great for not only storing your contacts but also helping to develop content in the form of template newsletters and other email templates.

Both platforms offer you the ability to develop landing pages for candidates to self-select in to your marketing program. This is a great way to help the list generate more leads for you by asking for referrals from your top prospects.

Create your content

Remember-the goal for content marketing as a recruiting strategy is not to put on the hard selling tactics normally used. If you have a list for data scientist, share articles from other companies or publications with value insight into the industry.

• Newsletter: You can start by creating something simple like a once a month mailing showcasing the top articles of the month and build your program after you gain experience. Be sure to insert an article from your current firm if you can find one that is relevant. Essentially, you will allow candidates to see your firm’s publication alongside industry leaders. This tactic will encourage your candidates to begin thinking of your firm as those industry leaders you’ve included in the piece.
• Infographic: Another tactic is to share industry specific infographics. The goal is not to position yourself as another pesky salesperson but more like an industry expert. Sharing relevant information with perspective candidates can open the door to new conversations with recruiters. It’s also a fantastic way to get your brand’s content out there.
• Video: Data from Cisco shows that by 2022, video traffic will account for 82% of all global IP traffic. If you have a brand channel on YouTube, it’s easy to pop a link or embed videos in emails or other communication tools. The more authentic the material, the better.

Compared to the constant phone calls from recruiters, content marketing allows candidates to engage with you and your brand on their terms at a time they choose.

Schedule ahead

Another valuable option platforms like HubSpot and MailChimp offer is the option to schedule content in advance. This helps maintain some consistency in your schedule. It also helps you dedicate one to four hours a month putting your content together to be scheduled.

Typically, I dedicate one day a month to develop content and then work on the schedule. Creating this discipline has helped me be able to spend less time developing awesome content and more time engaging awesome candidates.

If you create and maintain a schedule, you’ll also condition your candidate pool to expect content from you.

Use the metrics

You will never know if your content marketing is effective unless you utilize metrics. The two platforms mentioned previously offer such metrics as open rate, clicks, shares and many more. If you are spending the time to evaluate content marketing as a recruiting strategy, you’re measuring what works and what doesn’t.

There’s no use in doing all this work if no one is engaging in the content. Dig into the data to see what candidates like to read and produce or find more similar content to share. This is where the gold is in this strategy.

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Leveraging content marketing as a recruiting strategy can be overwhelming at first but if you stick with it, you may find yourself having more fun with it than you thought you would. It’s a great way to get in the mind of your prospective candidates which can also help you with your more traditional recruiting strategies.

Brands who do content marketing well stay at the top of mind of its target clients. They engage their clients in a way to help them continually come back to them for purchases, not because they’re always selling something but because they’re always providing value.