Does your recruitment marketing strategy generate hot leads?

June 7, 2024

 

Alex Oliver

4 min read

Imagine you have two candidates with identical experience and qualifications. The first is highly motivated. She’s familiar with your organization and ready for a hiring conversation. The second is open to changing jobs. She somewhat knows your brand, but she generally likes where she’s at. She’s also not sure about the risks of starting a new job in an uncertain economy. She can be won over, but she’s not quite there yet.

Who is the better candidate?

In reality, these aren’t two different candidates: they’re the same person. The only thing separating them is time. And an effective engagement strategy.

What is a “hot lead”?

Hot leads are candidates you know are highly qualified and have expressed strong interest in joining your organization. Having a lot of hot leads is every talent acquisition team’s dream. They make the hiring process easy.

The truth is these candidates are “hot” because all the groundwork has already been done. They’re sold on your brand and ready to make a move, and you’re a fan of their skills and experience. The hiring process for these candidates is often fast. Make them an offer, and you’re reasonably certain they’ll accept.

This can only happen when organizations have an effective, ongoing recruitment marketing strategy to keep candidates engaged until the right opportunity presents itself.

What an effective recruitment marketing strategy looks like

An easy way to turn potential candidates into hire-ready candidates is through behavior-based campaigns, like those in iCIMS’ candidate relationship management software. Behavior-based campaigns automatically share content with people in your talent database based on what they interact with individually—creating a highly personalized experience. Logic trees are set in advance, so the process runs on its own. This makes it possible to engage many candidates over time, without the need for recruiters to manually follow-up with every single person.

They can also be customized for specific roles or departments. For example, niche roles that are hard to fill, such as engineers and orthodontists, might get their own campaign. Higher volume roles, such as line cooks or retail associates, might get another.

Once a candidate interacts with your campaign enough, they pass the threshold to be considered a “hot lead” which means they are labeled with a “highly engaged” engagement score in CXM.

To supplement email campaigns, advanced recruitment marketing platforms should also support a wide variety of channels, such as chat, video, and more.

Content that turns cold candidates hot

Just like in consumer marketing campaigns you get in your own inbox, a major driver for success with behavior-based recruitment marketing campaigns is to create quality high-touch, personalized experiences. People want to feel like they have an inside track into your company.

Here are a few ideas for engaging content:

• Recaps of company events, such as picnics and teambuilding exercises
• News about major milestones and product launches
• Personal stories from current employees, including accomplishments and career journeys
• In-depth looks at specific departments and individual roles
• Employees sharing their perspectives on organizational culture and values via video
• On the ground interviews at industry events and conferences
• Messages from executives and team leaders
• History of the organization, including past products and branding

Note that not every candidate in your talent pool is going to turn “hot” right away. For many, this takes time. Candidate engagement is a process, not a destination. You’ll likely find that many people receiving your campaigns won’t engage or respond for some time. That’s okay. Keep these candidates warm by sharing content about your brand until they start to engage. Once they do, send them more specific content that aligns to their skills, experience, potential future department and interests.

Technology to put your recruitment marketing campaigns into action

The right recruitment marketing strategy – one that focuses on turning talent into “hot leads” – can help you increase applicant conversion, hire faster and ensure new hires are excited and motivated.

If you’re ready to build scalable, automated campaigns, check out iCIMS CXM, the new standard in candidate relationship management software and start creating hot leads of your own.