5 Steps to Support a Successful Branding Strategy
Many organizations now understand the importance of an employer branding strategy to support talent acquisition, but creating an effective one is still something many companies struggle to develop today. To create a successful employer branding strategy, you need to proceed step by step:
1. Align Your Strategy With the Firm’s Sources of Value
An effective strategy will be shaped by the short and long term needs of the company, taking into account everything the company wants to accomplish and the skills needed to do so. Fortunately, aligning employer branding personalization strategy with organizational needs is fairly straightforward. Start by answering a few questions and focusing on the critical success factors, such as:
- Why do you exist as a company and what goals do you want to pursue in the coming months?
- What do you want to become and why should you be chosen as a good employer?
- What new products, services or goals are in the pipeline?
- What talents do you need, which people could help you in your business?
You also rely on data and analysis from the world outside your workplace. Analysis of online conversations, qualitative and / or quantitative research will help you to grasp useful insights and to guide your communication strategy.
Objective: focus on the critical success factors of your business.
2. Align Communication Processes
Once the sources of value supporting the communication processes have been aligned, you need to develop a communication positioning strategy to support employer branding. Corporate communication, today more than hands, cannot be imprompt and casual. To align communication processes it is necessary:
- investigate the main digital trends;
- develop a valid positioning matrix;
- translate the objectives into communicative meta themes, within a precise digital landscape.
Through such an analysis, you better understand the orientation of the industry and the candidates you are trying to pursue. Not only that, such an approach gives you useful information on the factors that motivate candidates to seek and accept – or decline – a new job position. Finally, it allows you to dictate the rules to position yourself as a viable employer on digital channels.
Objective: positioning as a good employer.
3. Align Performances
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics used to evaluate the achievement of a goal. If your goal is to reduce total hiring costs by 20% over a six-month period, cost per hire would be an essential KPI. The KPIs defined will vary according to your goals, but they must always be achievable, precise, actionable and timed, specific to each digital channel you have considered.
Objective: define a performance model to assess the ability of your content strategy.
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4. Implement the strategy
Communicate to convert visitors into leads. This is the basic action in the concretization phase. Once you have created a meaningful value proposition for your employees and future collaborators, you just have to communicate it. The implementation of employer branding strategy follows the principles of ‘ inbound. The development of a content strategy according to the principles of inbound marketing means generating qualified traffic, to attract potential target customers, towards the offer of company value.
Determine the most targeted digital channels to communicate with your ideal collaborators and candidates. Remember: Not all channels are suitable for all businesses, so identify where your ideal candidates spend their time. Develop communication content and materials, such as videos, photos, articles, and so on that help you tell what your company is.
Goal: Make your internal communication smooth and simple.
5. Create a reporting
A weekly, monthly or quarterly measurement plan ensures that you evaluate and compare what is happening around your business, so that you can make more informed and specific decisions later on. The data generated by the performance measurement must be critically analyzed and compared to obtain the most relevant insights in order to improve the communication activity.
Objective: it monitors and validates the leads and the performances obtained from the communication activities.