Unless you’ve been living with the troll under a bridge in some far off land, you have been hammered with messages describing the imperatives of social media networking for staffing firms. After all, social media goes part and parcel with your branding strategy (and if it doesn’t, it should).
However, at this point, you may be so tired of hearing buzzwords like inbound marketing for staffing firms, power circles, delivery of value, Twitter, Facebook, and so on, that you have gone catatonic. If you are like me, repetition of even the best information can sound like chalk-squeaks on a blackboard after a time.
But here’s the thing: if you build it, at some point they will come….
So, how do you build it? Your staffing firm business, that is.
Walk a few miles in your customer’s shoes. No, I’m not kidding. Stop considering customers as an aggregate body. Think of them as individuals. Feel what they feel. Think what they think. Ask them questions. Chart their reactions. Wear a hole in those shoes.
We’ve talked tons in past posts about paying attention to your customers. You don’t just need to know who they are; you need to know how they behave. Gather insights. How do they interact with your organization? Do their words match their actions? Use a virtual magnifying glass. Play mystery detective. Clues could lie in the most obscure places.
For example, more often, people are willing to explain what they don’t want rather than the contrary. Few people are clear or definitive about their wants, needs or goals. The gap between the two (want vs. don’t want) reveals some subtle points that might influence your understanding and your marketing approach.
In IBM’s recent survey of top CMOs, 95 percent of these leaders said that getting closer to their customers was top priority for realizing their strategy. Hmm sounds like the shoe industry might pick up.
