HR Marketing: How to Bring the Two Terms Together and Why

There are many reasons why HR professionals are sought-after, now more than ever. Companies, brands, and entrepreneurs may sometimes find it difficult to attract professionals that fit their company culture and have the skills they need.

HR marketing could be deemed as one of the many growth marketing tactics a company can use. Its objective is to drive growth by calculated and scalable results over a specific period of time. And while the target audience is different, the goal is the same: company growth.

There is a solid reason behind using HR marketing:

The graph above clearly shows that employees leave companies for more or less the same reasons a prospect or long-term customer would leave a brand. They’re either disappointed in it or have found a better offer.

The question, though, still stands.

What Is HR Marketing?

HR Marketing could be defined as a tactic that aims to create an employee experience akin to the much-needed excellent customer experience all brands desire.

For this to be achieved, companies use the following:

• Scoring potential candidates by studying their data
• Content that can boost the company’s culture and showcase the employer’s “brand”
• Channels that can work like lead-gen funnels for your HR department

Let’s take a better look at the three tools:

Studying Data

As with every good brand-customer relationship, your data is a goldmine that can give you some much-needed information to engage and entice. The same goes for HR marketing.

Data will give you insight into how the marketing tactics you use can form and shape your relationship with your potential candidates. Moreover, data will help you understand your candidates’ profile: their educational background, their needs, and what they are looking for when it comes to applying for a position in your company.

Creating Content

The content you are going to create and distribute across the channels of your choice is paramount, as it will help potential candidates know your company culture better.

Aim to create a content marketing strategy based on your data and engage your audience by using their interests, wants, and likes. Essentially, there is no discernable difference between writing content for your prospective customers and your future employees. The goal is to use your ideal candidates’ interests to present yourself as a brilliant employer with whom the candidates need to interact.

The Channels

Again, the channels you are going to use need to be based on your data. What are the platforms your candidates use? Is LinkedIn the right choice? Your data holds that information.

Distribute your content and your available positions to the channels that will work best for you. By doing so, you will attract your ideal candidates.

Of course, you will need to go through some A/B testing. Not just to determine which platform works best for you but also to make sure that your content is attractive enough for your “candidate personas”.

Think Like a Brand

As I mentioned above, HR Marketing aims to engage the candidates in the same way as marketing brands. Therefore, to build a proper HR marketing strategy, you’ll need to think like a brand and not an employer.

So, you can ask yourself: What is your employer brand, and what are its components?

According to the above definition, an employer brand is the way an employer presents their company to their ideal candidates. An employer’s “USP” lies in what makes them different from companies in their niche that could be a great place to work for their ideal candidates.

The following factors create your employer brand:

• Your employer brand image
• Your tone of voice
• The incentives your potential employees can enjoy

In this case, your brand image is as important as ever. Your candidates’ first impression will have of your company and its culture stems from the brand image you will build.

Your tone of voice is as important as your brand image. A consistent tone of voice can increase trust and create an emotional bond between your ideal customers and your brand. The same goes for your employer brand.

Make sure your brand image and your brand’s tone go hand in hand. Inconsistencies won’t do you any favors when building a brand on LinkedIn that will attract candidates.

Lastly, always remember that a brand’s customers love to hear about the benefits they can get when entering a customer loyalty program. The same goes when it comes to a candidate becoming an employee.

So, be clear about your benefits. Do you offer a lucrative remuneration package? Is your working environment something that corresponds with their needs? Do you offer a private insurance plan?

Whatever your incentives are, make sure they’re clear, meaningful, and resonate with your ideal candidates. A parent will appreciate a company kindergarten, but pointing this benefit out won’t be useful if your demographics show your ideal candidates have no children.

All in all, you need to develop an employer brand to target the right candidates and waste no time in “scouting” and, eventually, losing time with job-seekers that would never be a good fit.

The Basic Ways To Combine HR and Marketing

Your potential new hire is like a potential new customer, and this is how your company needs to treat them.

A consistent tone of voice might be just what you need to build trust – always in tune with your demographics and your brand’s image – but there’s more to combining marketing and HR.

Remember that you’re competing for the prospect’s attention, both as a brand and employer. No potential customer wants to go through a billion steps to make a purchase, and the same goes for your potential new hires.

Create hiring procedures that won’t be time-consuming and will not have prospects opt-out. After all, your prospects’ time is just as – if not more – important.

Another marketing tactic that can generate sales leads is content. And as discussed before, content is essential in building a brand image.

Make sure to promote your content and actions through your already existing – and happy – employees.

Video content would work like a charm in that case. Brilliant video content ideas could include explainer videos that can show your employees’ experience with your brand or some funny behind-the-scenes videos with fun tidbits of life at the office.

Pro tip: Videos that show off your new employees with their onboarding boxes is another idea for some unique video content that will entice more potential candidates.

That way, you can interact with prospective employees and even promote an online networking event that will make potential new hires want to engage with your company and know more about you.

Remember, companies that are faceless giants are not as sought after as they used to be. You will need to use human touch and show your company culture through the company’s day-to-day life. And to do that, there is nothing more suitable than social media.

An “HR social media marketing campaign” might sound like something too complicated, but it’s not. Just do what you would typically do when promoting a new product or some content:

• Use paid ads to promote your job offer
• Create stories that show your company culture, the available positions, and the facilities
• Don’t hesitate to turn your employees into influencers by promoting their stories through your social media and asking them for feedback or reviews. Being treated like an influencer works like a charm with customers, so why not try it with employees?

The Perks of Combining HR and Marketing

The answer is relatively simple: HR is marketing.

An engaged employee doesn’t differ too much from a happy customer, especially since an employee and a customer give something to a company and expect something in return.

A happy, productive employee is the best way to prove to prospects that your company will treat them and reward their talents in just the right way.

Moreover, happy employees are always indicative of a healthy relationship between the company and themselves, resulting in a healthy company culture where everyone is on the same page.

Combine that with a strong social media presence and tidbits of everyday life “at the office,” and it will help you strengthen your social media presence and engage with a large chunk of your ideal prospective new hires.

The Takeaway

HR and marketing can – and should – be combined to achieve the results a brand aims for when engaging with its potential new hires, who can get to know your brand through its content, image, tone of voice.

After all, creating an employer brand is just like creating the shape and form of your ideal candidate, much like creating a brand image is like creating the shape and form of your ideal customer.

But I’ve saved the best for last: Selling your products is the same as “selling” your company’s philosophy and values. Let me explain how.

Knowing your product and how it can change your prospects’ lives is your USP when it comes to sales.

Your company culture and values are what creates your HR marketing “USP”, helping you understand what your company philosophy can offer to your employees.

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Téa Liarokapi is a content writer working for email marketing software company Moosend and an obsessive writer in general. In her free time, she tries to find new ways to stuff more books in her bookcase and content ideas-and cats-to play with.