What are firms’ recruitment PR and marketing priorities in 2024?
As we head into the new year, hiring firms across the UK are adjusting to potential economic pressures, new priorities and a changing talent arena. To drive better results in what could be a challenging environment, many are readjusting their communications strategies for the coming months. This evolving environment is why we launched a poll recently across our social media channels that looked to identify what firms were prioritising when it came to marketing and PR in 2024.
Debunking the top 5 PR myths: Separating fact from fiction
Get ready to challenge what you thought you knew about PR and equip yourself with the truth.
PR or Advertising?
It’s the age-old struggle. In the left corner we have advertising, represented by Mad Men, while in the right we have PR, represented by Absolutely Fabulous. Obviously, in my eyes there’s one clear winner, however it’s probably fair to say that I’m ever so slightly biased. But what is more powerful, PR or advertising? Dated concept It would be unfair to say that advertising doesn’t have its place in the modern world, however to most commentators it’s seen as less effective than it once was in the past. If we rewound to even as recently as 20 years ago, advertising was still a powerful platform and was used to drive the consumer behaviour that organisations wanted. However, back then it was easier to convince buyers to do what you want and it would be fair to say that people were less savvy and, quite possibly, less cynical. Now in the modern, hardened, social media-led world it’s easy to see through often transparent campaigns, which can have damaging effects on firms.
How to measure the success of a PR campaign
One of the major gripes that many people have with PR is that it has historically been seen as overly fluffy and often challenging to prove a direct return on investment. For the financial professionals amongst you, that’s probably the number one thing you look for when investing in a service and admittedly, it has been one of the industry’s biggest weaknesses. Historically, the field has been more about creating positive sentiment and raising brand awareness rather than proving direct and measureable financial return from your PR investment. So, how do you measure the success of PR?
Using PR to win the war for recruitment talent
Unless your organisation is an Instagram or a Snapchat and you’ve developed some as yet unidentified method of apparently creating huge amounts of revenue, it’s pretty clear that people are the key to any business. Your employees and what they know are generally what differentiates you from the competition and as much as you might think your fancy CRM, or the PlayStation you have in the kitchen make your company what it is, it’s actually your employees. This makes winning the war for talent – your own talent – absolutely critical and, as we all know, the race is fast and intense in the recruitment industry. Every firm is battling for the best and brightest in the market with the vast majority using little else but salary and bonus options to attract their next critically important employee. That’s clearly not enough and at a time when many of your rivals are likely promising the world and everything in it to their potential employees, you need to go that extra mile to recruit the talent you want. However, fear not, we’re here to help – PR can make all the difference when it comes to recruiting for your own firm. How?
The impact of social media on your employer brand
As recently as a decade ago if you wanted to find out what it was like to work at an organisation you’d have to track down someone who worked there, or hope that the firm had a particularly proactive marketing manager who uploaded information about the employer brand on to the company website. However, times have changed. Now, company information is everywhere and if platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter aren’t enough, then firms also have to contend with portals like Glassdoor, which can give the full ‘warts and all’ story whether the company wanted it or not. Simply paying someone a good salary and expecting them to be happy doesn’t cut it anymore. People want a ‘nice’ employer, particularly at the ‘millennial’ end of the market. In fact, 69% of respondents to a Glassdoor survey revealed that they wouldn’t take a job with a company that had a bad reputation and an impressive 84% would consider leaving their current jobs if offered another role with an organisation that had an excellent corporate reputation.
