We can see that the staffing industry discourse in today’s market has shifted from technological pieces to marketing. In this video, Allied Insight Founder and CEO Jeff Pelliccio talks about why this shift is happening and how your staffing agency can ride this rising wave.
Some 4 years ago, all of the conversations that staffing professionals were having revolved around technology, automation, and digitization in order to drive efficiency and productivity, as well as streamline processes and create consistent engagement. One of the reasons why the focus has now shifted to marketing is that staffing agencies have had roughly 3 years to get these technological pieces in place that allow them to maintain consistency.
The expectation in today’s market is to have those tech pieces figured out and when everyone in the field has access to the same tools you do, technology can no longer offer you an edge. Moving on to figuring out the marketing piece is the logical next step. Jeff emphasizes the importance of focusing on your brand. Most agencies might think; we already have this down ages ago with our logo, tagline, and colors.
The reality is, it’s time to reevaluate your marketing efforts. Your brand is more than just your logo; it’s the message you want to send out. What do you stand behind? What about you, is it going to make your clients and candidates choose you over everyone else? How would you reinforce those positive elements of your brand to your audience? That’s the difference between your brand and your brand identity.
If you get this right, your brand can give you a significant competitive advantage. When you build a brand that stands for something and has a meaningful value proposition, that gives you an edge. Make your clients and candidates understand why it’s important to be working with you by delivering a powerful message.
People want to work with other people who value the same things they do such as equality, humanitarian issues, social issues, ecological issues, and more. Having said that, Jeff advises measuring processes and putting them into a scope that allows for any adjustments that the ever-changing market demands. When your tech pieces work well together with your marketing pieces, that’s what sets you apart in the market.
If you need help on how to use your brand or proprietary process to create competitive advantages in the market, and you’d like some assistance, go to alliedinsight.com and connect with us. We’d love to chat with you and see what we can do for you and your staffing agency.
Jeff Pelliccio 0:02
Hey everyone, Jeff Pelliccio here with Allied insight bringing you another bite sized segment to talk about those things that are super important to the staffing industry as it pertains to our given market conditions today, on today’s event, we’re going to talk about why marketing is becoming the main focus the main driver for all the conversations that we’re seeing in conferences lately.
So if anyone remembers roughly like, three, four years ago, you know, pre pandemic, all the conversations that people were having, and a lot of the topics that that were being discussed at different webinar sessions and panel discussions, were around automation and digitization, it was all about sort of like entering into that, that space with your staffing agency, that would drive more of the technological pieces, in order to make you more efficient, more productive, streamline process and create really consistent engagement.
In this instance, we have now um, you know, shifted that focus. And a much of that is because I think that there is an assumption made that you’ve now had roughly three years to kind of put these pieces together. Albeit we did just live through a pandemic. And we’re still obviously having the effects of that. But all of the technology pieces should already be in place. With having those technology pieces in place it gives you it affords you the ability to maintain consistency, and also to provide, you know, a very high level touch to all of the people that are working with your brand and your staffing agency. And so now with this, we start talking about the the marketing piece, because those expectations are already handled right.
So let’s talk about expectations for just a second. You know, if we look at sort of the Amazon effect, what is the expectation that candidates have when dealing with your brand? Well, they’re expecting automated responders, they’re expecting thank you messages, they’re expecting follow up in a timely fashion. They want to be educated about the process as they’re getting their emails and their feeds back. You know, all of these things are the things that should be able to operate from within your applicant tracking system, your ATS, or from those peripheral solutions that bolt onto your main system. And for those of you who are in a CRM as your main hub, it’s the same thing.
So whatever your main hub is, or your marketing automation, or if it’s an ATS with all of its peripheral applications, that’s what’s driving all of those technical connections and all of that interaction. At this point in time, there are brands that are near you in size and scope. And there are also brands that are you know, ahead of you, and even behind you that are all already trying to operate inside that framework, because it’s more abundant now today, and with that availability, provides obviously a lot of opportunity for agencies of any given size to compete in the same fashion. So now that all of the tech and all of the gear and stuff is where it is that you want it.
Now, it’s really about focusing in on the brand. And a lot of times when people think about brand, and marketing, and they get into this creative space, they tend to think about it as simply the identity. Like Jeff, Jeff, we don’t need to talk about branding, like we know our colors, we have our logo, we have the icon, it’s already listed, we know our slogan or tagline. So we don’t need anything. Additionally, the reality is, is that that’s not necessarily true, right? So the brand is a lot more than just the brand identity, the brand has to do with what it is that you’re delivering as a message. What do you stand behind? How do you? How do you make sure that you reinforce those positive elements of your brand, with your audience, and so
Jeff Pelliccio 3:54
and so with that said, it’s really important to make sure that you also define an outline in the same way that you did your brand identity, that you define an outline who you are as a brand. And what you stand for, knowing what it is that you stand for is the thing that starts to bridge that gap and make that human connection between you and your audience. So candidates being in the candidate centric market, candidates want to know that you share the same belief systems that they do, that you support the same initiatives that they do, and we won’t be everything to everybody, let’s just be really clear.
We won’t be everything to everybody that interfaces with your brand. But if you don’t tell them what you support, then you also are sort of nothing to anybody at the same time. So I know that it’s a bit risky, and we struggle with wanting to be able to sort of create that line and talk to our audience with regards to like who we are in the space. But you can navigate that effectively and make a situation where you’re not necessarily putting yourself into a precarious situation.
And you’re still able to leverage that in formation going forward. So again, when you’re thinking about your brand and who you are, you’re more than just a logo, you’re more than just the brand identity, you really want to focus in on those things that make you stand out as a brand and what you support. Those can be things from obviously, you know, equity and humanitarian efforts. But it can also be things that might be a little bit more close and near and dear to your heart, like sustainability and ecologically friendly and, and all of those types of things.
So as you’re, as you’re thinking about moving your brand forward, really put an emphasis the same way that you did on the color and the stylization, and the fonts and the, the the iconography and all that stuff, the vector images, put that same emphasis on who you are as a brand, to make sure that you’re expressing it, and showing not only what your brand looks like, but also what you stand for. So now, as we come into this last segment here, right, we’re going to talk about, like making your brand your competitive advantage.
So a lot of times brands are, like I said, they’ve sort of stopped their pursuit at their image, they’ve stopped their pursuit at that brand identity. And I would urge you to sort of pick it that a little bit more and really explore the opportunities to make it your competitive advantage. So as I mentioned before, it could be something obviously, that is more laced around a lot of the conversations that have been coming up over the last few years. And arguably, you know, prior to that, but there’s definitely been a greater emphasis on like equality, and, and humanitarianism, you know, both domestically and globally.
At the same time, you may also want to, you know, create a certain value proposition around the fact that, like, you’re ecologically friendly, or that you, you know, for more client centric, or more candidate centric, you know, it would be things that really are around either performance. So you know, the things that you do that you deliver that make you incredibly different in the marketplace, as we all claim to be very different in the marketplace. What are those things and what are those value adds that your clients that your employers are going to be interested in. Conversely, as we look at what the candidates are doing, we also want to make sure that candidates understand why it’s important to be working with you, we want to make sure that the candidates understand what those value ads are that you bring to the table in order to prop them up and show them why they should be choosing you versus another staffing agency. You know, as you as you continue to kind of like marched down this path. And I know that a lot of us are still recovering from much of the turmoil that took place over the last few years.
And trying to make sure that like your brand is coordinated, that your process has been updated, that your technology is in place, and all these things, you have so many different, you know, areas to sort of keep propped up. And it’s getting more complicated. The good news is this, that a lot of the people that are your peers are your competition in the marketplace, they’re all struggling to be able to find some brand elements that they can use to leverage as their competitive advantage for 2022 and beyond. So you’re not alone. The main thing, though, is that you’re going to want to make sure that you’re you’re measuring your process, and you’re putting it into a scope that allows you to do a little bit of all the things simultaneously.
So as you amend your process in order to accommodate the change in the market, as you add that technology piece in order to add efficiencies to your space and make things better, you also still want to look at your brand and try to identify what are the things that you can do in order to establish that footprint, so that people understand you as as being greater than just another staffing agency. But also understanding what those value ads are that you bring to the table that they should also put some value on as well.
Jeff Pelliccio 8:47
You know, this is these are the things that we work with as we work with our clients. And even as we do different panel discussions and webinars for different agencies or conferences. And so if you have questions about like, how you can use your brand, or how you can even use your proprietary process, in order to extend your brand further and create some competitive advantages in the marketplace, you could certainly feel free to reach out to us go to our website, Allied insight.com You can connect with us on any of the pages.
And we’ll be more than happy to jump on a call and discuss what the nuances are to your staffing agency, and how you could maybe utilize those elements in order to make yourself stand out and really be more competitive in the marketplace. I hope this has been helpful. I know that it’s sort of like a new topic that it’s kind of like, you know, really starting to transition, as I said away from all the ancillary components that you add into your ecosystem into your tech stack, and starting to really drive on the, the WHO piece of who you are and the value that you bring to the table.
And so I hope that you know, you understand a little bit better today how brand can really be a strong player in what you’re selling TJ implementation is in order to achieve those corporate initiatives throughout the year. Again, if you need anything, we’re here to help. certainly feel free to reach out to us and look forward to seeing everybody on next week’s segment, where we will be talking about more things. You know, business development related to the staffing industry with another bite sized bite. So, have a great week, everybody and we’ll see everyone next week.
