David Searns | Co-CEO
What's the theme of your marketing?
The "what?" you ask.
The theme.
The central message that permeates your marketing. The value, story or unique information you've integrated into your staffing company's sales and recruiting.
The "what?" you ask.
Let me give you a little background…
Right now, I am en route to my last staffing conference of 2024.
(Our team will be at the CSP Owner's conference next week, but this is the last one for me.)
Conference marketing is a big part of our marketing mix. To make conference marketing work, we create a central theme for our messaging each year.
For 2024, our theme has been Make an Impact! And our focus has been on providing high-impact ideas to drive sales.
Why a theme?
- One idea = a year's worth of marketing.
A theme provides a solid foundation for building marketing assets that can be leveraged for an entire year.
- It keeps our marketing focused.
A theme helps us create…and stick to…one message.
- It helps ensure continuity.
Having a central theme keeps our marketing activities cohesive—and prevents us from creating marketing tactics that feel disjointed. We leverage our theme across all our marketing channels.
- Maximize the value of our investments!
By focusing on a central message, we are able to create high-impact signature content and derivative assets that maximize the value of the content we produce.
What's included in a theme?
I can't give you an exact answer to this question. For us, each year is a little different.
In 2024, our Make an Impact theme included:
Signature content (in multiple formats)
- Make an Impact eBook
- 10x Sales Acceleration workshop (based on the eBook)
- 2024 SMART IDEAS Summit central theme
Derivative content for SEO and social media
- Blog posts based on the eBook content
- Social posts throughout the year encouraging people to download the eBook and watch the webinar
Speaking opportunities
- We promote our signature content to conference planners (getting on stage makes conference marketing infinitely more effective!)
- This led to more than a dozen speaking engagements in 2024!
Conversion path design
- Using our theme to get found: Promote signature content via email, social, PPC ads, and PR.
- Capture leads: Capture website visitors via landing pages. Here's an example:
Make an Impact eBook download
- Engage prospects: Create doorway pages to attract and convert visitors, for example, blog posts with injected CTAs that promote signature content and on-demand access to recorded webinars.
- Nurture warm leads: Use marketing automation to follow up with people who downloaded content…and generate active sales leads.
Is the effort worth it?
In a word, YES!
Sure, it's a lot of work to do all of this.
However, having a strong central theme with impactful content has been the key to our marketing success for more than 28 years.
In 2024 alone, it helped us generate 1,005 inbound sales leads.
And more, if you reach out to us today! 😊
Having a compelling theme has been the #1 reason we have NEVER made an outbound cold call to generate business.
Can you do this?
In the same word, YES!
The key to success is creating a theme that resonates with your ideal clients—something that addresses a hot-button issue and adds real value.
Where do you start?
Know your customers…better than they know themselves!
- What problems are they facing?
- What goals are they trying to achieve?
- How do they perceive staffing and recruiting?
- How could they better use your services to achieve their goals?
A great central theme should focus on a topic that matters to the people you want to reach.
Once you know your topic, you can then create your overarching theme. You can map out your signature content, determine your formats for delivery, create your game plan for derivative content, and, most importantly, build your conversion paths.
Good news...you don't have to create one massive theme for an entire year.
You might find more success creating smaller themes that change every quarter. In an industry as competitive as staffing, having a new theme every 90 days gives your salespeople fresh reasons to reach out, new ideas to share, and more tools to nurture relationships and keep your company top-of-mind.
Want to learn about creating a theme for your marketing?
Give us a call or just click reply and ask us for more info!
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