Why It’s Important to Implement a Brand Strategy For Your Staffing Firm
Brand identity is a crucial part of your firm’s overall marketing strategy. If you want your clients and consultants to recognize your company name along with a good connotation, then implementing a brand strategy for your staffing firm is what you need to do. With it, you’ll be able to uniquely distinguish yourself from your competitors.
What is brand identity?
Many staffing firms tend to think that brand identity is only limited to their logo. However, this is not the case. Your staffing firm brand is how your clients, prospects, candidates, and consultants view you. Brand goes way beyond the logo and includes the choice of language that you use when communicating with your audiences, the personality that you want to share, and the overall differentiation that you put out in the marketplace. Brand strategy is how you identity all these traits, bring them together, and communicate them both internally to your team and externally to your audiences.
What are some steps to follow when creating a brand?
The first things we look at when building a client’s brand are their history in the marketplace, areas of expertise, their personal backgrounds, the ways in which they want to be viewed by their audiences, and the language they use to describe themselves. Additionally, we look at the areas of business they work in and their overall company culture.
We take a step by step approach to both defining and building a brand strategy:
Step 1: What is the client’s history in the marketplace?
For example, is this a new staffing firm or is it well-established? Does the marketplace know them well or not? Is there an existing reputation either good or bad that currently exists?
Step 2: What are their areas of expertise?
Is the staffing firm a generalist or are they focused on very specific areas within their disciplines, such as project management, clinical positions, senior scientists, or web developers?
Step 3: What are the company members’ personal backgrounds?
Are they proud of their affiliation to an organization or a state, like Texas, that they want to see come through into the brand?
Step 4: How do they want to be viewed in the marketplace?
Are they an expert? Is the firm focused on customer service and dedicated to the community or they are all about the careers of candidates? There are many ways that firms want to be viewed and therefore, it’s important to capture as much of this as possible.
Step 5: What is the voice of the organization?
Do they want to communicate in a relaxed tone or sound super professional? Do they come across as collaborative and advisory or do they come across dictatorially? Is there humor in the way in which they choose to communicate?
Step 6: What is the workplace environment?
What is their corporate culture like? Is it friendly and collaborative or is it very hierarchical? How does this match with all the other steps?
These are the steps that lead the logo design, differentiation, value proposition messaging, overall corporate culture, and more – making up all the components of a branding strategy.
How does authenticity make a difference in your brand?
If you notice from up above, I mentioned how important it is that all these things match what you’re saying externally with how you work internally. If they don’t match, then there is no authenticity and new hires, clients, candidates, and consultants are going to spot this lack of authenticity. As the world is comprised of very different people, there are different audiences or client bases for every brand. Today’s marketplace is a very judgmental one, in which they are judging companies from the standpoint of being true to themselves. Like I said a moment ago, there is a client base for every brand, there are staffing firms that have an almost militaristic or dictatorial approach of their way or the highway, and there are client bases that respect that. Yet, there are others that do have highly collaborative or consultative environments and that are appreciated by their client bases. With all that said, nowadays, authenticity is a must in your brand strategy.
Your staffing firm’s brand identity shouldn’t be difficult to establish. By following our step by step approach and being authentic, your firm is sure to define and build a successful brand strategy.
About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations.