How to Drive New Clients, Not just Job Applicants to your Web Site

 

Analysis on analytics with many of our new clients shows that the usual visitor to the web site looks and smells like a job applicant. How do we know? Because the path of travel is HOME>CAREERS or HOME>CONTACT US. For most companies this is great, especially those that are trying to recruit new applicants. However, it’s typically not the desired long term result. Sure, maybe you have an open job that you want to get filled, but do you want 80+% of your site traffic to be job applicants? Probably not. In fact, it’s probably accurate to say that most companies are looking for more new clients than new job applicants. If this is true, your web site should be designed with activities that drive new client traffic, not job applicants.

There are a few quick ways to address this dilemma.

  1. Give your site sex appeal for new business prospects and talk to them as defined by your buyer personas. Make sure the messaging fits tight to your prospects pains and desires instead of why someone would like to work at your company. There can be a separate landing page for applicants.
  2. Give prospects opportunity to engage in a discussion with your company. By discussion, we mean with your web site because they found something that resonates with their current needs.
  3. Design and implement an inbound marketing and lead generation strategy that drives prospects (not just applicants) to your web site.
  4. Optimize your site for search for the benefit of new clients, not applicants. Create landing pages that segment applicants and prospects.
  5. Socialize your value proposition and unique distinction by spreading the message through social channels and syndication, driving prospects back to the appropriate landing pages.
  6. Build content that resonates with your prospects. Use your inbound marketing blog, white papers and content downloads to get prospects to act.
  7. Educate the masses. Give away materials and content that are of value to your target market. Give them a reason to come by and visit your site. Capture their information when they stop by.

All of these concepts take effort and a great deal of thinking. However, it’s a strategy that shows true in metrics and measures around site traffic, lead generation activity and ultimately new revenue.

One way to start measuring your impact and turnaround of site traffic types is to use the echogravity inbound marketing dashboard. It’s free and will give you a start to thinking about what you need to measure to start driving prospects to your web site instead of just applicants.