Recruitment events are one of the most effective tools to create lasting industry relationships, acquire clients, and get your brand name out there. Over 44% of marketers report a 3:1 ROI from event marketing! And now, in the post-pandemic world, even more opportunities arose when it comes to recruitment events.
When you think about recruitment events, a lot of things might come to mind – prospective clients, networking, exchanging knowledge. It’s no secret that recruitment events are a great way to pick up on new concepts and ideas regarding various sectors and are a perfect place to stay connected or expand your network. Good networking skills are a staple of the best recruiters, but what else can you do to optimise the recruitment events you attend?
We put together a list of 4 ways you should be using recruitment events to grow your business:
That’s an obvious one, right? But if you are going to spend the time to go to an event in the hope that you are going to be able to network and promote your services with potential clients, you need to make sure that the right audience will even appear at that event. Do you have an outcome in mind you’d like to get from this specific event? You need to find events that cater to the industry that you recruit for so that you are able to get yourself in front of the right people. But above all, you need to be an expert in everyone who is attending – know what they are after, what their businesses are like, what challenges they’re currently facing… This way, you can approach each and every one of them in the right way, blowing them out of the water!
Getting back out and connecting with people face-to-face is far more productive than chasing down new business leads through a series of e-mails or LinkedIn messages. Having a casual conversation allows you to gain immediate feedback on what you have said and makes it possible to read the person you’re speaking to – their body language, tone of voice, and so on. Genuine relationships are better built in person – after all, where else can you get a feel of someone’s personality, put a situational joke in, or simply chat about more than just business? And you never know when those connections can come in handy! Even better - at industry events, you are able to network with a room full of people rather than just 1 business in a closed meeting or online call. It makes it easy to get your brand out there in front of a lot of people in a short period of time. After all, you can never have enough friends in the industry! And the word of mouth is the best marketing tool – over 88% of consumers trust the recommendations they heard from another person more than an advert or a suggestion from an employee of the company they’re hearing about.
When doing our business development/relationship building the vast majority of recruiters will use the same methods of finding new roles to bring on. Once they have found the role, they chase down the hiring manager. Result? The hiring managers will likely be inundated with LinkedIn messages, e-mails, and calls from recruiters. You’re probably the hundredth message in line, asking the exact same thing. So why not make yourself a bit different and try to go to the places where these business owners and hiring managers congregate? Find the spaces where they go to network, share ideas, or socialise within their profession. Getting out of the office to attend these events shows clients that you think outside the box compared to your competitors, which will help you to increase your client pool and grow the business.
If you’re looking to grow your business, attending industry events is also an opportunity to peak into your prospective clients’ minds – talk about upcoming projects, trends that are evolving in the industry, and directions they want to go into. Having that inside knowledge is a powerful tool when pitching your brand to them – you can get ahead of all your competitors by talking about those new trends and opportunities and how your agency falls in with them. What’s more, it paints you as an industry expert who knows exactly what will be happening on the market in the upcoming months and can adjust their strategy accordingly. For a client, it doesn’t get better than that!
Don’t let the business cards you’ve collected at an event sit and gather dust when you’re back in the office. Sure, you might have made the best first impression, but remember your prospective clients met 20 other agency owners that day – so if you don’t reach out to them ASAP, you’ll simply be forgotten. Make sure that you send personalised invites to everyone you spoke to on LinkedIn, and suggest a follow-up call if appropriate. In most cases, the greatest value you’ll get from these events is the contacts you make – so don’t let them get cold!
So if you want to engage with clients that your competition is potentially not speaking to, recruitment events are a great way to network within your industry. And with our top tips, you should be more than prepared when it comes to making the most out of any event you go to!
If you want to prepare a killer sales pitch from start to finish to woo everyone at an event, have a read of our eBook below.