Finding new clients is paramount to ensure continued growth and profitability. However, your agency needs to understand how to find the right clients for your agency and also how to win them, and this isn’t an easy feat!
If you are a small agency, building this client base is vital to achieve growth and success. If you are a large agency working with a vast client base, understanding the adaptability needed within recruitment is important for continued profitability and growth.
From finding niches and target markets to utilising social media, networking and client relationships, here are a few steps you can take to discover, engage and grow your client base.
Step 1: Find your target market
Attracting and then retaining clients are the twin aims of any recruitment agency. However, to sustain profitable growth, the key to getting clients is to also attract the employers and clients that work well for your agency.
What this looks like depends on the niche you are in, and the sort of companies and clients you intend to interact with. For example, there are recruitment agencies for temporary workers that focus on this particular sector of the job market.
Finding the right market can be as simple as understanding the area you have the most expertise in, regarding its job market, the skills needed and career developments. You can also look at previous markets in which your agency has had recruitment success, and build on them for future opportunities.
Step 2: Understand the nuances of each market
When researching how to get clients for recruitment agency growth, trying to be all things to all people is a risky strategy. Prospective clients will need to feel confident that you understand their pains and gains – the staffing issues they face and the type of candidate that would be the perfect fit.
For this reason, look at things such as buoyant growth sectors where recruitment is constant, and niches that your agency can best respond to in terms of contacts and understanding.
Consider both the business and industry areas you can match your services to, and also the job categories your agency can fulfil most adroitly, whether that’s executive searching or sourcing temporary workers.
Define your client profile
How do recruitment agencies find clients? Your brand is clearly pivotal. What do you offer that sets you apart, and what sort of clients are you aiming to attract? Once you have specialist recruitment niches to focus on, you can draw up your client avatar.
For example, what size and performance criteria indicate an organisation is likely to consistently and regularly need your services? Who are the active networkers and role models in your chosen specialism?
Which are the fast-growing organisations, or companies that seem to have difficulty filling vacancies, in your chosen sectors? They are the ones most likely to welcome the efficiency and assurance of using your candidate attraction and screening services.
Once you pin down the characteristics of your ideal client profile, the work of communicating directly with them can begin.
Step 3: Search job portals
The next step in answering the question ‘how do recruitment agencies get clients?’ is to optimise job portals as a research and marketing option for staffing agencies.
Monitoring job portals will help to ensure that you are cultivating potential clients that are growing and developing their workforce. Curating a portal that is catered to your specialism can also alert you to potential clients, who you can outreach to.
Step 4: Utilise social media
Gathering business intel on potential clients is easier if they are highly active on social media. Announcements such as expansions, contract wins and new product launches all indicate that staffing requirements are on the rise.
A potential client’s social media will give you insights into their brand positioning and corporate culture, which you can use to create an instant connection with that client prospect.
Your own social media strategy is key in terms of how to find clients for recruitment agency growth. This is how you can establish your brand and create engagement with candidates and potential clients.
Your social media strategy must include consistent and sustained posts that show that your recruitment agency is responsive, effective and industry-specific. They can also be via more personable and informal media such as Instagram, for a personable and niche recruitment strategy.
Step 5: Use your candidate & client relationships
Companies looking for recruitment agencies may well seek recommendations from recent hires or other business contacts.
So, it stands to reason that you should find ways to optimise ‘word of mouth’ with existing and past candidates and clients.
Your contacts are also an important source of business intelligence. Keeping in regular contact can provide good insights into emerging job vacancies and new potential clients, and also ways to improve your services.
Step 6: Network, network, network
Chasing down new clients and turning warm leads into hot ones creates organic and steady growth for your recruitment agency. Waiting for an approach to you is not sufficient. You must be proactive in seeking new clients and business contacts!
There are still ways that you can create new connections in person, such as by attending trade shows, exhibitions and networking events. However, some successful networking opportunities for recruitment agencies have moved online. These include trade forums, virtual events and the business social media platform LinkedIn.
Hosting your own networking event
Giving your target audience – and existing clients – a good reason to meet with you is always a great way to build your relationship with them. Rather than waiting for a great networking opportunity with companies looking for recruitment agencies, you could create your own.
Creating virtual discussions and presentations to deliver recruitment best practices can widen your geographic reach, secure more potential clients, and save your agency time and money.
Step 7: Market your agency
What other ways can you actively market your agency with a good return on investment? The list of digital marketing methods is now extensive and runs alongside many traditional promotional methods that work well.
The starting point of a successful marketing strategy is always choosing a channel that’s most likely to be the one that your target clients use for information and purchasing suggestions. This is the most fundamental answer to the question, how do recruitment agencies get clients? They regularly communicate in the right place.
Orchestrating an SEO and content marketing campaign, through websites, email campaigns, paid-for social media, targeted advertising and other marketing initiatives can offer more recruitment opportunities and outreach to new clients. Targeting these suitably to your target market can enable you to reap greater rewards.
Find ways to offer value for free
Your own content marketing – blogs and news on your website and social media posts – can go a long way to positioning and promoting your brand for free.
Offering free whitepapers and online seminars through your website and social media campaigns, can give clients and candidates insights into recruitment, driving brand awareness. Focus on your specific industry’s pain points and the solution that your agency offers to fix them. All this can serve as a springboard to sell your agency and services to them.
Step 8: Stay up to date with shifts in the industry
The commercial world never stands still! It is crucial to remain knowledgeable about industry changes and to gain insight from what other agencies are doing. Are there new market segments, job roles or skill shortages emerging that you can seize upon to grow your recruitment agency client numbers?
To stay up to date, attend conferences and webinars that discuss the job market and industry landscapes, especially those that focus on changing recruitment trends such as candidate experience, flexible working and virtual hiring processes. From this knowledge, you can shift and update your strategies and focuses to remain profitable.
Leverage AI to your advantage
The wisdom of investing in the latest technology to find those great clients is clear. Different software enables agencies to be more responsive and agile. For example, automated candidate screening can analyse applications against the job requirements, which saves recruiters valuable time.
CRM software offers centralised systems to streamline your agency accounts, leads and communications, reducing missed opportunities and aiding business growth. Automation enables you to meet client demands more swiftly and accurately – not embracing its opportunities puts you one step behind your competitors.
Using the traditional phone call method
The human touch still goes a long way. Phone calls or even in-person visits are effective in creating or cementing connections with your recruitment clients. The traditional cold call method can be a reliable strategy to garner clients and candidates, and also gain insight into consumer ideas and pains to keep your services relevant yet personable.
Take steps towards growing your staffing agency today
One of the biggest dangers in business is complacency. Even if your current client numbers are healthy, building for the future is essential. An ambitious recruitment agency stays agile, but also has a solid business plan and the correct tools of the trade.
These days, this demands using the latest CRM software to find, attract and nurture clients. Vincere’s recruitment CRM solution delivers advanced abilities to collate and analyse data that is of value to your recruitment agency.
You can then use this business intelligence – and the software – to orchestrate even more successful and sustained client and candidate recruitment. Get in contact and request a demo to see how Vincere’s software can fit into your agency.
