Getting to know your clients

Posted by: Meetu Mirpuri, Client Services Director 16 Jul 09 - 9:02AM | 4MAT | Email Marketing | Recruitment | Website Analytics

In the recruitment world keeping in touch with your current clients and attracting new ones has never been more important than right now. With many consultancies living close to the edge client relationships need to deliver new assignments. But how should you market your services to be in best position to secure any new work?

Calling your clients

Many recruitment consultancies are right now utilising a cycle of calls to each of their clients, perhaps promoting a few great CVs, maybe just touching base and providing a little TLC. No doubt these calls are aimed at keeping the consultancy firmly in mind should any new vacancy arise. The problem with phone calls is, though, that they're so interruptive. That quick five minute call always runs nearer to ten, and this often interrupts your client in whatever it was that they were busy doing. And it's not only you who might be calling. Other recruitment consultancies are also on the phone.

Phone pleasantries are also easily forgotten in the general noise that is the working week. So in order to have ongoing brand effect, you'll need to be calling your clients every month at least. That can be rather annoying.

Emailing your clients

If calling clients is too intrusive what about emailing? I know, why not send over a sample CV of a great candidate in the hope that the client will realise that they do indeed need that extra member of staff?!

Email is actually a great tool for maintaining client relationships but is so often used incorrectly. Sending over a great candidate might seem like a fantastic idea, but if that client really isn’t hiring then it’s adding no value whatsoever.

So what’s the answer?

When you look at the process a company goes through when hiring, the time between final sign off on the hiring decision and approaching agencies can be very short. When they do decide to hire, many will utilise a shortlist of preferred or known consultancies.

Marketing, be it by phone, email, social media, etc, is all about taking your message and targeting it to a receptive audience. So by engaging with your clients contacts and adding value to their everyday lives you can better get your message across.

Finding out more about your clients and segmenting them into groups is a good idea: how many of your contacts are director level, how many are HR managers and how many are line managers? Knowing this will help you to better craft a marketing message for that particular group. You can also now engage with each group on a much more valuable level.

Getting on that shortlist is key, and in order to do so you need to demonstrate expertise and authority, giving those clients a reason to use you above all others. Demonstrating a thorough knowledge of the industry and what’s happening within it, combined with your usual levels of high quality service, is a winning combination. This is where the segmentation of your audience comes into play. By sending industry business information or research to your directors, recruitment and HR guidance to your HR managers and targeted industry commentary or management guides to line managers, you can wrap your marketing message up in a bundle that actually helps your clients in their daily activities.