Marketing professionals always keep an eye on consumer behavior. It has a lot of benefits in business such as product development, designing marketing campaigns, and building customer relationships. Using consumer behavior should be part of any marketing strategy as it yields results, and addressing consumer behavior is a surefire means to achieve customer satisfaction.
Understanding consumer behavior brings new challenges for your company to a new level. Don’t just evaluate how your potential hires and clients are currently behaving. Map out how their reactions will be, and how they will demand recruitment services within a foreseeable period. Find out more in this ultimate guide to using behavioral progression as a marketing tool, tailor fit for your staffing agency.
Are behavioral progressions like behavioral patterns?
The logical progression of behavior is a sequence of actions or behaviors observed within a person or a group. When these instances are put together, there is a systematic and rational connection called a logic model. Through this model, we can identify a consistent pattern throughout. The logical progression of behavior can be influenced by past or current events, a person’s intentions and goals, and factors within a person or group’s environment.
The logical progression of behavior is not as simple as dictating behavioral patterns. While behavioral patterns are identified when looking into the progression, these may not be consistent. Looking into the logical progression of behavior is to come up with coherent explanations and predictions of how people will react in the long run.
Related reading: Color Psychology 101: Talk Staffing Through Colors
How do you use the logical progression of behavior as a marketing tool?
Behavioral marketing has always been used as one of many practical marketing tools.1 Different marketing strategies have always been based on how consumers will react to how a particular product is advertised or how advertisements go after people’s emotions or desires.
However, many of these tactics introduced by behavioral marketing are primarily focused on short-term goals. For example, social media marketing is reliant on current trends and what’s popular according to recent social media posts. The idea of “what’s next” is what will be in demand in a month’s time or what can happen within a year.
The logical progression of behavior, when partnered with marketing strategies, makes a well-calculated guess of what consumers will demand, even before they realize it. By creating behavior assumptions, you can dive further into the customer experience. Looking into their choices and decision patterns helps marketers come up with a forecast on where the customer journey will take a turn.
In a recent Entrepreneur article, Helen Reavey, founder of Act+Acre, shared how she arrived at the prediction that scalp care is the next thing. When asked why she focused on scalp care rather than skincare, she explained that skin care was already big with customers. It was only logical that they would eventually move to other parts of the body. She had no idea then that scalp care would catch on, but how she decided to focus on scalp care is still mind-blowing.
How can the logical progression of behavior be relevant for recruitment marketing?
The logical progression of behavior can predict demands far off into the future. In the above example, when people think about their skin, they don’t necessarily associate their scalp with it because it’s more related to hair care, or so they believe. Relating the scalp to haircare products may be rational thinking, but by predicting realizations that the scalp is still part of one’s skin, the marketing platform for scalp care made better sense, which is why it worked.
Apply this to the needs and wants of your potential customers and client. They are now looking for a job or a workforce to fill urgent vacancies. But once they’ve gotten these immediate needs, what will they want next, and next after that? Build into this progression of predictions, and you’ll come up with offerings for prospective clients and customers that they’ll definitely agree with down the line.
What steps can you take in using behavioral progression as a marketing tool for your agency?
There several aspects you can look into in planning out your customers’ predictive behavior. Since behavior has influence both within and outside of a person, observe these factors and take note of what causes them and what its immediate implications are. There are some behavioral targeting tactics out there at your disposal, but always keep in mind to think long-term.2 Ask yourselves: after receiving an immediate reward or achieving a goal, what concerns come next, and what, after that?
Build on current trends. When companies identify new trends in the market, they flock to them and use them in their marketing campaign. Look into the behaviors these trends introduce, and predict the next trend. This may sound challenging, but think of it: you are dictating what the next trend is with recruitment.
You won’t only be the pioneer, and your agency will be the leader.
Right now, employer branding is a big trend within the talent pipeline. Recruiters are asked to look for specific values in a candidate that fit a company’s culture and overall goals, so recruiters change their strategies to fit the employer’s requirements.
Consider it: recruiters are shifting their approach based on how company leaders see their organization. Recruiters understand how company leaders think and see their workforce. Why not empower your recruiters to be leaders as well?
Let them realize they are creating a team of employees ready to take on challenges unique to the company they are hiring for. If company leaders have this vision, so can they. This is an example of how behavioral progression brings recruitment trends to the next level. Recruiters will shed the transactional and mundane side of their work and see themselves as transformational leaders. This is a behavioral change that bodes well for your recruitment company.
See where technological innovations can take you. When Jill Wilson, CEO of Robin Games, saw a game for the iPhone, she somehow foresaw that mobile gaming would be a hit in the near future, with women the main consumers. Gaming used to require an assortment of gadgets and hours of playing time but now being able to play for only minutes at a time on a mobile device changed the game entirely. Her prediction came true, and now, mobile games are everywhere, with 63 percent of mobile gamers being women.3
Technology is constantly evolving, and so are attitudes toward it. Many advancements happened in recruitment during the pandemic. The use of applicant tracking systems to skim through resumes pushed applicants to put pertinent information at the top part of the first page of these documents. Social media as a recruitment tool led to the rise of LinkedIn accounts.
Jobhunters are now adjusting to these advancements.
So should your company.
The challenge here is to beat technology at its own game. Where are these advancements taking you and your potential hires? Keep asking, and the right questions will soon lead you to solutions for reining in future behaviors. For example, if LinkedIn accounts are becoming central in the recruitment process, can they be used to gauge an applicant’s tech-savviness?
Related reading: 3 Little Known AI Technology Dangers That Could Be Hurting Your Recruitment Process
Look into relevant social issues, then fast forward. The #MeToo Movement and Black Lives Matter did not only demand companies to be more inclusive. They also had to find ways to promote their brand to align with the public’s perception of what an inclusive organization should be. Realizations of self-worth and value for mental health became the driving force of the candidate-centric job market as offshoots of the pandemic and the Great Resignation.
Social issues at a global scale are also key in changing people’s behaviors, so keep your ear on the ground for these phenomena. The pandemic pushed recruiters to digitize talent acquisition efforts, and eventually, these changes will become permanent because of the efficiency they introduced.
Now that the new normal is flourishing, what‘s next for the recruitment industry? Are traditional means becoming obsolete, or is the new normal leading professionals to long for a personal touch during recruitment, such as meeting the team personally and being in an actual office?
Overall, analyzing trends and behavioral psychology are effective marketing tools. But to be the one to dictate how your target customers react and what demand they’ll have in the future is a great advantage in itself. Leveraging the logical progression of consumer behavior as a marketing tool is a power your company can harness easily, and will help pave the way for even more satisfied customers.
Related reading: Good, Better, Best: B2B Marketing Lessons to Bring Into 2023
LOOK INTO THE FUTURE OF RECRUITMENT MARKETING WITH ALLIED INSIGHT.
Allied Insight is a digital marketing firm specializing in bringing out what’s unique in your company and using that as your value proposition. Our various services include establishing your company’s social media presence, improving your online content, and lead generation. Allied Insight is also your best source for all things staffing, and we are eager to share our passion with you.
Explore the possibilities of today’s job market. Contact Allied Insight today.
References
1 McGinley, Corrinne. “Behavioral Marketing: What It Is & How Is It Beneficial? [+Examples].” Hubspot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-behavioral-marketing . Published last February 2, 2023. Accessed last February 9, 2023.
2 Mailchimp. “What is behavioral targeting.” https://mailchimp.com/resources/what-is-behavioral-targeting/ . No publish date. Accessed last February 10, 2022.
3 Entrepreneur Staff. “Want to See the Future? Six Founders Share Their Secrets for Making Savvy Business Predictions.” Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/want-to-see-the-future-six-founders-share-their-secrets/429519. Published last July 5, 2022. Accessed last February 10, 2023.
