Why You Should Absolutely Outsource!
Of course, I’m big advocate of outsourcing work, after all, it’s the back bone of my business. If firms didn’t outsource their SEO to me – I’d have to get a proper job!
But I get it, you’re scared of out outsourcing. So many questions.
“How can I let go, I’m a control freak”, or “How absurd to think that an outsider can understand my business” or “Outsourcing means there’s no safety net – at least in-house means accountability”, I could go on. But I won’t.
The reality is, you have every right to be scared. There are SO many horror stories out there about errors made by or caused by an outsourcing outfit it could really make your skin crawl if you let it.
But think of it like this….
YOU are an outsourced service. YOU are an outsourcer. Yes…YOU and your business.
Where would YOU be if your clients didn’t outsource their requirements to you? You’d be in the same place I would – up shit creek!
The truth is you and I, we’re pretty similar. We are a necessary “evil”(I use that phrase lightly of course) and we (usually) are a service easily farmed out to someone else.
Think about your selling points, WHY do clients utilise your service.
· To save time
· To save money
· They’re too busy
· They’re not the experts!
Well, those are the exact same reasons you would work with me. You’ve got a business to run and recruitment digital marketing can be a slow, laborious and time-consuming task.
You want to make money, not waste it. Bad marketing is like a bad hire – it will cost you in the long run.
Recruitment is very hands on, fast paced, reactive – refer to the above point.
You are an expert recruiter. You know your shit. That’s why you clients pay you £1000’s in fees. You are not (usually) a marketing expert, and SEO expert and so on. You need the expertise a real marketer can bring.
You might argue “Well I have a Social Media Expert in-house”…do you? Or do you have someone that has a degree in Zoology who can string a sentence together and knows how to post to Instagram stories??
Because my friend that is NOT an expert. My 16 year old daughter can do that – I wouldn’t pay her £18k/pa plus because of that.
“Well I have an in-house marketing team” – that’s great, but what are you paying them for if the firm down the road are out-ranking you? Essentially, I work WITH in-house teams to deliver value, I’m not looking to replace anyone, but rather absorb some of the workload and turn that in to real results.
Finally, outsourcing your digital marketing does not mean losing accountability. This is not a sales pitch – none of my blog posts are, however I will say this; Every single client I work with has their own log in to the back end of my system.
I believe in being 100% transparent, so you can see at every step of the way exactly what I and my team are up to. That’s all I’ll say on that for now.
If you know someone that needs to see this, give it share, email them the link etc.
On that note – join me on LinkedIn, Insta or add me on Facebook and let’s see what we can do together this year.
Peace!
Local SEO Case Study
Client Vertical – High St Generalist
Client Location – Leeds UK
Service Provided – Local SEO
Background
The Client is a high street generalist agency, predominantly high volume, low margin recruitment.
Typical roles are industrial biased – warehouse ops, production, pickers/packers and commercial temp desk.
The local, temp market place in which the Client operates is hugely competitive. The labour market is abundant and competition for client base is fierce. As is the norm in this field, margins are low but volume is higher.
The Client, as a relatively newly established outfit, was struggling to compete in an already inundated market. 100% of their consultants’ time was spent servicing 2 or 3 large clients. The fear was one of if/when these contracts were finished, where does the next client/vacancy come from.
The Client was ranked on page four of Google SERPS for keywords including “temp warehouse jobs Leeds” and variations of. Dominated by the larger corporates, they were unable to improve their rankings and were missing leads due to SERP results.
Solution Provided
Following initial consultation, it was decided that – as most of their work was in their local area, and they seldom chased business regionally or wider – a local SEO campaign was best, it was also the most comfortable in terms of their initial SEO budget.
Their on-site SEO (all the technical things like links, HTML/Alt tags etc) needed considerable work.
They had previously had a local SEO firm “look after this”, it became apparent they had employed the services of a “gig” SEO-er (someone who peddles their wares on freelancer websites) who was paid £150 to “SEO the website”.
In fact this individual had caused the Client’s site to be penalised by Google.by using “black hat” SEO techniques.
The first part of my job was to right the wrongs this person had made.
Then it was on to all of the on-page technical aspects were completed, penalties were eventually lifted and through the length of the campaign the emphasis was on creating sustainable, authoritative back links and conducting blog outreach. Directory submissions, Google+, Google My Business optimisation and reputation management.
Results Delivered
The client saw an immediate increase in traffic to their website. We targeted around 15 specific, long tail keywords and after the first 10 weeks, unique visitors per month rocketed from 20 to around 195. After month 4 the keyword groups were generating an extra 300 hits to the website and approaching the 12 month mark we are seeing search volume of around 8000.
The client has now moved to hover around the bottom of page 1/mid-section of Page 2 for their chosen keywords, which, whilst not yet in the “map pack” the Client will be re-contracting with a more aggressive SEO campaign to really tackle that prime space competition.
The Local SEO campaign has resulted in an impressive ROI of £8.70 per £1 spent, so they’re now in a position to reinvest a proportion of those profits into a higher-grade SEO package.
It is expected that this client will increase their temps out figure by threefold in 2019.
I can help you replicate the type of ROI this client achieved – all you need to do is make a move.
An Open Letter To My Former Self
“If I knew then what I know now…” is something we’ve probably all at some point said.
As I made the transition from recruitment extraordinaire to successful digital marketer it is 100% a phrase I have used several times a day!
Yes I’m successful – my clients win daily – but I’m a huge advocate of #alwaysbelearning. I think that’s where a load of people typically go wrong. They get comfortable, complacent even.
“Recruitment? Invented it mate!”….but you didn’t. And you certainly are not RE-inventing it!
What you CAN do is think more outside of that old skool, KPI heavy box. That mind set does sweet FA to differentiate between you and most every other firm out there.
I’m talking utilising that wonderful thing called the internet.
As traditional print advertising (who?!) continues to slump off to the recess, recruitment digital marketing HAS to be a fundamental part of your sustainability or (preferably) growth plans.
Yes it’s fair to say that back when I started out recruiting the whole digital marketing thing was like a dark art black magic kinda thing, social media wasn’t about, and we had to do things the old way (the only way at that time!). So I guess it’s less a “if I’d have known then…” situation, more of a if I was starting out now situation.
I’m going to go ahead and stick my neck on the line and say recruiters these days have never had it so easy! There, I said it.
Newbies will never know the hardship of the good days when phone was king and social networking was taking clients out to strip clubs!
Where they absolutely do have the upper hand is online marketing. These younger recruiters have often time grown up with an iPod or iPad (other handheld devices are available) in their hands and using it and social media are second nature, they don’t even have to think about it.
Of course it’s not all about those just entering the profession.
Established firms and solos also have the same toolkit available to them and it’s great to see so many agencies getting involved and being present cross platform.
With all of the tech out there and the growing use of AI (artificial intelligence – a post on this coming soon) there has never been a better, easier an more effective time to be a recruiter.
If your agency is just starting to click in – kudos – but you need to ramp it up.
If you work for a firm who won’t or isn’t able to adapt – GET OUT. Controversial? Perhaps. But you’re in recruitment to make paper right? See the pound or dollar signs? I’m here to tell you that isn’t going to happen if the people you work for refuse to adapt. Their agency will die and you’ll end up having to go elsewhere anyway!
Gen Z are here and studies support the fact that they are the most tech reliant, relationship-centric group of people on the planet.
This generation IS the future of the Labour market. If you don’t operate in a way that is wholly congruent with their workings, they’ll just partner with a firm does.
The implications of a non-digital, non-social strategy are wide reaching. I bet you don’t use a roller-deck anymore – so why aren’t you utilising digital?
So, back to the context of the title of this post…
If I was starting out now, I would 1000% have a well thought out, well researched, expertly executed digital marketing strategy from the get go.
It would be my main consideration. I would create a personable approach and market myself as the brand, not the firm I worked for.
I would be savvy, and keep up with not just the most recent recruitment trends, but also social media marketing trends, the latest SEO tips, how to dominate PPC and how to do basic web development.
Then I’d realise there literally not enough hours in the day – so I’d definitely partner with someone like my current self, someone who knows recruiting and digital marketing. If he could dance he’d be a triple threat!
If you know someone who needs to see this hit share.
Happy to answer any questions, drop me a line at dj@kaizen-digital.com.
Thanks for reading!
D
