Candidate Retargeting Through Content Marketing (Part 1)

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Content marketing puts the power of storytelling through resources and information in the power of the individual recruiter and company. Capturing the attention of candidates through your employer brand isn’t easy. Developing a successful employer brand requires several pieces of a puzzle to be completed in a fluid manner.

According to various survey’s you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention on your website before they move along. This is the same with an employer brand. When developing a marketing strategy it must be centered on capturing the candidate’s attention and ultimately having them fill out of a job application or join your talent network. If you fail to capture their attention there are other traditional marketing practices that employers are able to tap.

Using Content Marketing to Re-target Candidates

Retargeting is the practice of serving display ads based on prior engagement. While there is more than one form of this technology, the most frequently used is site-based retargeting. Retargeting allows employers to continuously target those who have visited their career site in hopes that they’ll return and fill out an application to ultimately be hired. Retargeting helps recruiters because it allows them to stay at the forefront of a passive candidate’s mind.

Retargeting candidates is a cost effective way to keep your brand at the forefront of a candidates mind. When working with retargeting you’ll want to create engaging ads and use witty content marketing to draw them back to your career site.

When developing a successful retargeting campaign it’s important to develop ads that create a compelling storyline so passive and active candidates will be encourages to click and return back to your site. From there you’ll create a specific landing page based on the ad that’s used to convert prospects into candidates. The goal of a strong retargeting campaign is to constantly remind job seekers about your brand, repetition works.

As a recruiter it’s your responsibility to attract candidates to your career site or talent network and by doing so you’re able to sell them on open positions and why your company is the best place to work. Using traditional marketing methods such as retargeting to keep your company in the back of candidate’s minds will allow you continuously develop a flow of both passive and active job seekers back to your site.

Has your company used retargeting on candidates? How successful did you find it?

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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