Digital Marketing Tips for Finding and Keeping Great Employees

They say that good help is hard to find. They’re only half right. Once found, it is also hard to keep. It can be even harder if you are using outdated methods for talent acquisition and retention.

With the proper use of digital marketing, you have the opportunity to get your message out to more people in more places more of the time. You must be mindful of the fact that every marketing message fills two roles: First, it targets potential customers. Second, it targets potential employees.

Every external message serves both purposes of sales and hiring. Likewise, every internal message serves the dual purposes of training and retention. Whether externally or internally directed, all messaging is messaging to employees, and greatly effects how well you do at attracting and keeping good talent. Here are some tips that will help be more effective at attracting and keeping good help via digital marketing:

Create a Better Brand

By using a full-service digital marketing company such as Power Digital online marketing agency, you can become more visible, expand your reach, and increase the value of your brand. It goes without saying that these are the sort of things you want to do if you hope to increase sales, move upmarket, and grow your business.

Though somewhat less obvious, it should nonetheless be clear that these efforts will also make your brand more attractive to potential employees. A downmarket brand will attract downmarket employees.

If you want to filter some of that out and attract the kind of people who help fulfill your company’s inspirational vision, then take your branding upmarket in keeping with the customers and employees you hope to attract.

Make a Better On-boarding Plan

Try using the kinds of digital media and gamification that Millennials are used to during the on-boarding process. A good on-boarding process is one of the key differences in retaining great talent, and squandering a resource that never quite lives up to its fullest potential.

Even the best talent needs time for orientation. It is said that it takes an average of eight months to bring a new hire fully up to speed. That is a long gestation period. A few things need to happen at the beginning of the on-boarding process:

• New hire enthusiasm needs to be fed like a fire.
• Technical skills of the job need to be thoroughly taught.
• Employer expectations need to be clear and consistent.

New hires need to feel like they made the right choice. Do not give them a chance to have a job-seeker’s version of buyers remorse. Some companies have such complicated systems, there are only a small handful of people who know how to do certain tasks on the computer. The new hire can never be fully confident if they never feel fully competent. And nothing will make a new hire want to leave faster than mixed messages from the boss.

Most companies already use some type of digital resources in this process. But many of those resources are out of date. Be sure to keep the training resources updated to reflect current, not past practices and ideas.

Make a More Diverse Workplace

Uber ignored its diversity problem. Now it’s paying for it in spades. When diversity is ignored, demographically-based power enclaves are formed. When a company becomes a haven for young, middle-class, white males, for example, people not meeting that description can easily feel like second-class citizens in that company.

Some companies may be more diverse than they first appear. But all of their digital media suggests demographic homogeneity. Digital media is a great tool for changing that perception. Make images of company leadership, customers, and advertising reflect the diversity you have. Media can also be used to show diversity as an company priority.

Digital media is just as effective for attracting and retaining employees as for customers. Use it to make a better brand, make a better on-boarding process, and to make a more diverse workplace.

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