With staffing and recruiting being such competitive fields, it’s likely that your agency has already taken the digital content marketing leap and started a blog that’s designed to attract potential employees and employers to your business. Publishing those weekly or even daily blog posts is probably how you achieve a steady flow of visitors to your website.
But, when was the last time you thought about publishing longer content, like a 3,000-word blog post or a case study, in order to attract and convince employers to become long-term customers? If the answer is never or it’s been a while, read on to discover five reasons your recruiting agency should be putting white papers, case studies, in-depth blog posts and ebooks in your content marketing plan.
Plus, we’ll give you some tips on how to execute a long-form content strategy that’ll help you stand out in a highly competitive market.
Why Should Staffing Agencies Use Long-Form Content?
- Long-form content helps position your staffing agency as an industry leader.
If a hiring manager or business owner wants to know more about the latest compensation and benefits rules or finding and retaining the best healthcare staff, who should they turn to? The answer should be your recruiting agency.
With long-form content, you can thoroughly cover topics that are interesting to your potential clients – and doing so will create a sense that your staffing agency is an authority in these areas of interest. Being seen as an industry leader with authority in your field is a long-term branding goal that’s well-served by producing long-form content on a regular basis.
- Long-form content educates employers and increases trust in your staffing agency.
What happens when you solve a problem for a friend or family member? You build trust in your relationship. It’s not much different when you’re building a relationship with a business that’s thinking about using your agency to help them hire their staff. Solve a problem, gain trust. Educate them about something they want to learn about, gain trust.
By writing ebooks, white papers or in-depth blog posts that answer questions thoroughly and solve problems for employers, you increase the trust they’ll have in your recruiting firm.
- Long-form content tends to achieve a better SERP rank.
If you want potential clients to find your website without spending your entire digital marketing budget on paid online advertising, strategically producing content that makes its way to the top of the search engine results page (SERP) is the way to go. According to a recent study conducted by Backlinko, “the average Google first page result contains 1,890 words.” Long-form content is a proven winner when it comes to SERP ranking thanks, in part, to Google’s desire to fully answer searchers’ queries. Google rewards websites that they see as authorities on the subject being searched for, which means the more information you produce about a topic, the better your results are likely to be.
- Long-form content is shared more on social media.
It may seem counterintuitive in an age where research suggests that attention spans are declining, but according to an analysis conducted by Buzzsumo and Moz, long-form content is actually shared more than short-form content. In particular, their study indicates that what people are sharing and linking to is research-backed content that’s authoritative or opinion-forming. - Long-form content is better at converting visitors into leads and leads into customers.
Consider these stats from the DemandGen Report 2017 Content Preferences Survey, which demonstrate the percentage of buyers who said they are willing to share information about themselves in exchange for various long-form content:
If you want to convert more website visitors into leads for your staffing firm, long-form, gated content is the way to capture those leads.
In addition, the purchase path of a B2B (business-to-business) buyer, such as an employer looking to staff his or her business, tends to be longer than that of a consumer. B2B decision makers often seek out more in-depth content to answer their questions before they are ready to make a purchase or enter into a contract. That’s why long-form content that focuses on the consideration and decision stages of the buyer’s journey is a must-have for converting leads into buyers.
Which Types of Long-Form Content Are Ideal for Staffing Agencies?
When choosing which types of long-form content to use, it’s important to consider what your goals are for the content. Do you want the piece to show that you are an authority on a specific subject, like manufacturing or executive recruiting? Are you designing content that’s meant to move prospective clients along the sales funnel? Are you trying to capture leads? Knowing your goals is the first step. Here’s a breakdown of long-form content types that are a good fit for staffing agencies and how they can help your recruiting agency reach its top content goals.
- Case studies
Case studies are an excellent choice for content that’s meant to persuade prospects in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey. According to the DemandGen Report 2017 Content Preferences Survey, 78% of buyers said they accessed case studies while researching their purchases.
Case studies will allow your staffing agency to set itself apart from the competition. Demonstrating how your firm has been able to save other employers time and money goes a long way with business owners and hiring agents who are at a point in the sales cycle when they want to be sure you can produce the results they are looking for.
- In-depth blog posts
If attracting more employers to your website is your goal, a series of keyword-targeted blog posts that are data-backed and thoroughly researched can be the way to reach your goal. When you want to increase visitors without paid advertising, the game is all about rising to the top of the SERP. In-depth blog posts are also good for building trust among visitors to your site – and a surefire way to move them along through the buyer’s journey.
When generating blog post topics for your recruiting agency, think about the major challenges employers face and any industry knowledge you might be able to share with them. Topics that are extensive enough for 2,000+ words are easier to come by than you might think. For example, broad topics, such as How Technology is Changing the Labor Market and Employee Training in 2018, can be covered in a wide scope, as well as down to the last detail. - White papers
When you have a specific topic that your audience is likely to want detailed, original research on, a white paper may be the best choice. Expectations from your audience can be high regarding white papers, but that is why white papers excel at increasing the author’s/publisher’s authority on niche subject matter.
White papers are typically used to present an argument for or against a particular solution to a problem, or they can be used to present the findings of original research, such as a survey of job seeker preferences. White papers are seen as high-value content by decision makers. That’s why they’re near the top of the list of content that buyers are willing to give up information for. When choosing a white paper topic for your staffing agency, consider trends that are at the leading edge of the industry and topics where the right answer isn’t widely agreed upon.
- Ebooks
If you’re looking to generate leads for your staffing agency, producing a gated ebook is a good option. Presented in a visually appealing format, ebooks can be about any topic your audience finds valuable. You can even repurpose a series of blog posts into an ebook.
Employers may appreciate having a topic of interest, like the various ways they can painlessly create an employee training process, in a convenient package that they can download and read right away or read later and keep on-hand for when they need it most.
What Long-Form Content Best Practices Should a Staffing Agency Follow?
Long-form content doesn’t work just because there are more words. In fact, if you jump into writing ebooks or white papers and other wordy pieces without providing value, it can actually harm your reputation instead of making you the thought leader you envisioned. Quality and value matter most when it comes to adding long-form content to your overall content strategy. In addition, there are some best practices to remember when you dive deep and start creating these high-value pieces. When we create long-form content at Virtucom Group, we remind ourselves of these five tips:
- Choose a topic that’s big enough for long-form, and, if you can, make it one that’s evergreen.
- Make sure your topic is tailored to answer your buyer persona’s questions and address their pain points. This is important for every piece of content you create, but the value of doing so is amplified when you spend the time and effort to produce long-form content.
- Do the detailed research needed to back up your arguments. Facts and figures are expected in long-form content.
- Attention spans may be shorter these days, but long-form content doesn’t have to mean boring content. Use storytelling throughout to keep your audience engaged.
- Add visual elements. Images, graphics, block quotes and lists are all good for making long-form content easy to read and skim through.
When Should Your Staffing Agency Hire Expert Writers to Execute Your Long-Form Strategy?
You have expert recruiters working for your business. They’re knowledgeable and they understand the rapidly changing staffing industry. They’re capable business writers, e-mailing clients and employees on a daily basis. But are they content writers? Without trained, in-house writers you may not be seeing the content marketing success you desire. And that’s just one reason to consider partnering with a professional content writing services company. Does your team have the time to juggle the responsibilities of creating content along with their regular recruiting tasks? It might be putting more of a strain on your staff than you realize.
If you’re interested in seeing how a copywriting agency can help you implement a long-form content strategy, you can set up a free 30-minute consultation with one of our trained content specialists. Whether you want to know how we can write for your industry, how we create content strategies for staffing agencies or how we are able to scale while only using trained, in-house writers, instead of freelancers, our content specialists are here to answer any questions you might have.
