Digital Marketing Digital Marketing
Tracking Candidates
In nine months, WikiJob’s digital revenue has risen by 85% and attracted over a million extra visitors. What innovations made this possible, and what can graduate recruiters learn from these strategies for their own campaigns? James Rice, Head of Digital Marketing, tells us all…
Our
most successful test to date was a change to our
registration pop-up that increased daily sign-ups by close to 200%.
E
ffective marketing to graduate candidates means understanding two areas well: what you can
offer them that is uniquely interesting, and what sources consistently provide you with the best leads (whether that’s buyers, candidates or downloads). In that respect, WikiJob’s digital strategy is not that different from that of a traditional graduate employer. The following four areas in particular are ones that any recruiter should be concentrating on for a better performance:
1. Testing It’s a cliché, but you need to be always testing something - don’t stand still. At WikiJob we use a tool called VWO (Visual Website Optimiser) so that we can test variations of pages or other website elements against each other. We also test email variants (e.g. subject headers) using the newsletter service MailChimp.
Our most successful test to date was a change to our registration pop-up that increased daily sign-ups by close to 200%. Another test led to an 11% increase in applications from our company profile pages. Behind these tests, however, were lots of failed tests, and that’s the point: 95% of your experiments probably won’t make a tangible difference. But the 5% that do can be transformational. Be honest: how often do you test your key landing pages?
2. Tracking Today it is unacceptable for a recruiter not to understand exactly how all channels and media have performed in terms of providing applicant leads. Applying tracking codes to links really is not hard, especially if you’re using Google Analytics. For example, we use tracking codes on all our links from affiliated partners, meaning that we can see what’s working and what isn’t, what each link is worth to us, and optimise accordingly. We know if we’re wasting money on something. You should too.
3. Optimization Most of WikiJob’s growth in traffic is attributable to organic visits. At its heart, any good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is a content-based one, and ours is not different. Recently we made sure we were ahead of the curve by implementing a fully mobile- responsive website, before Google made it a ranking factor.
Staying up-to-date with the latest changes in search engine algorithms is not easy, but the investment will pay off. Put unique content at the heart of your strategy and think of yourself as a publisher. Look at your website and ask: “How great an experience is this for a candidate?” Ultimately, that is what Google will reward you for.
4. Partnerships Marketing isn’t just about what you and your team can do to attract candidates. An easy way to expand
your audience is to partner with career websites that share a similar demographic to you. These websites can help you capture leads, send promotional emails or get press coverage. For example, Wikijob’s online partnerships include co- registration, guest blogging with universities, affiliate partnerships with psychometric test providers, and sponsored forum posts.
The box below indicates five aspects of digital marketing to have front of mind for all your recruitment campaigns. If you can understand how cost-effective each media type is for you in terms of providing quality candidates, and keep testing to improve performance, you will be in the driving seat for outstanding performance.
5 take-aways to improve your digital marketing for candidates
1. Test your website regularly and don’t be put off by failure.
2. Track all links to your key landing pages, so you can assess the effectiveness of all your referral sources.
3. Check your website is mobile-friendly. 4. Publish continuously and distribute that content - don’t publish and forget about it.
5. Create partnerships to expand your candidate pool. n
www.agr.org.uk | Graduate Recruiter 29
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