HR marketing data is indispensable in employer branding and talent acquisition. It plays a crucial role in employer branding and recruitment marketing for several compelling reasons.
Firstly, it provides invaluable insights into the job market and candidate preferences, allowing you to tailor your employer branding strategy effectively. By understanding what potential employees are looking for in a workplace, you can highlight those aspects of your company culture and values that resonate most with your target audience.
Secondly, HR marketing data helps identify trends and patterns in recruitment. This information is key to staying ahead in a competitive market. For instance, if data shows a growing interest in remote work or flexible hours, incorporating these elements into your employer branding can make your company more attractive to top talent.
And thirdly, HR marketing data aids in measuring the success of your recruitment marketing and employer branding efforts.
By analyzing HR marketing metrics such as reach, engagement and conversions, you can gauge the effectiveness of your HR marketing strategies and make data-driven decisions to improve them.
In this episode of the Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast with me Susanna Rantanen, I’m taking you with me to the intriguing world of HR marketing data!
This episode is a must-listen for anyone in employer branding and talent acquisition who wants to harness the power of marketing data.
It’s educational, inspiring, and packed with practical insights. Whether you’re a novice or seasoned professional, this episode will enrich your understanding and application of marketing data in your field.
Empower HR Marketing Data with These 7 Concrete Value-Adds
Listen to the Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast on your favourite podcast app
Subscribe to this podcast on your favourite app, and you’ll never miss a new episode about modern employer branding!
Better yet, if you love this podcast, make sure you rate it on your favourite podcast app!
SOUNDCLOUD | SPOTIFY | APPLE / ITUNES | YOUTUBE | GOOGLE PODCASTS | AMAZON MUSIC
Why Regular HR Marketing Data Analysis is Worth Your Time
I am a marketing data geek. I love to see those numbers draw pretty curves and see progress and audience behaviour visualised right in front of my eyes.
Is there anything professional much better to witness as the impact of your work summarised to you in visually, in data?
Is there anything professional much better to witness as the impact of your work summarised to you in visually, in data?
Susanna Rantanen
The more consistently you collect HR marketing data, the more visible your progress becomes. You’ll witness what works and what doesn’t and how some actions have made an enormous impact when others have been like a drop of water in the sea.
Regardless of you having spent hours of your sweat and tears on all of them.
Makes you see how all your hard work materialises in those charts, pies, lines and bars, pinpointing you the results of your marketing work.
With regular HR marketing data analysis, you become clear about what type of content drives results, where your audience finds you, how social media algorithms can help you, and what triggers your audiences to activate in ways valuable to you.
With regular HR marketing data analysis, you become clear about what type of content drives results, where your audience finds you, how social media algorithms can help you, and what triggers your audiences to activate in ways valuable to you.
Susanna Rantanen
And that’s the experience I’d love you to also have with HR marketing data.
Understanding the Basics: Goals, Objectives, and Metrics
As some of my listeners are newer to HR marketing data than others, I’ll start with a wrap on the basics: goals, objectives and metrics.
In the context of employer branding and talent acquisition, goals are your ultimate aspirations, such as ‘becoming the employer of choice in your industry’.
Objectives are specific, measurable steps to achieve these goals. Such as, ‘increasing job application rates by 20% in the next quarter’.
Metrics, on the other hand, are the data points you track to assess progress towards your objectives, like ‘the number of applications received’ – which is a recruitment marketing metric.
Or follower growth on your employer brand dedicated Instagram account, indicating your content is working. It tells you what you post makes people want to follow your account.
If those followers represent your target audience, then your employer brand content marketing is working and pulling in the kinds of audience who are curious to learn more about your place of work.
When you then regularly assess which content resulted in audience growth and which content gets the most engagement from your audience, you know what type of content you need to create even more to drive you towards your objectives and, eventually, your HR marketing goals.
When you then regularly assess which content resulted in audience growth and which content gets the most engagement from your audience, you know what type of content you need to create even more to drive you towards your objectives and, eventually, your HR marketing goals.
Susanna Rantanen
Understanding these distinctions is crucial. It’s like navigating a ship: your goal is the destination, objectives are your course, and metrics are the compass guiding your journey.
The Power of Regular HR Marketing Data Analysis
Regular data analysis is not just a task; it’s a strategic advantage. It’s like having a conversation with your market and audience.
By analysing data trends, you can understand what resonates with your audience, refine your employer branding strategies, and make informed decisions.
Regular analysis helps you stay agile, adapting to market changes and candidate preferences swiftly.
Data in employer branding and recruitment marketing: Driving results
In employer branding and recruitment marketing, data is your ally in crafting compelling narratives and pathways for your target audience.
What I find so exciting about data is that it gives us the eyes to monitor the execution of our long-term employer branding strategy and help us navigate towards tangible results.
In the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™️, we use content to invite our target audience on what we call the Candidate Journey of the Information Era™️ with our organisation.
With regular data analysis, we try to figure out how to keep those target talents on this journey with us and get each of them to move forward on the journey, to validate whether we are the right employer for them, or not.
Learning How to Use HR Marketing Content Strategically
HR marketing content is used as a vehicle to enable the audience self-select:
- “I find this organisation attractive and appealing and keep following and engaging with them through their content.”
- Or; “I’ve learned enough and realised I am not drawn to their mission, purpose and ways of work. And I don’t see myself as part of their organisation.”
Especially with employer branding being a long-game, data is such an important tool because we are not getting to our goals, the final destinations as quickly as with recruitment marketing. The nature of employer branding is so different to recruitment marketing. HR marketing data really helps with navigation and staying on the right course.
This is also why I built this journey-approach in the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™️, to help us focus our efforts only on those employer branding actions that systematically move the ideal external target audience forward until they are ready to approach our career opportunities.
But with that, I want to make a notion that the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™️ also fits with employer branding goals that are internal and directed at existing employees, supervisors and management.
What Concrete Value of Regular HR Marketing Data Analysis Provides?
Let’s talk about the concrete value we gain with regular HR marketing data analysis in employer branding.
#1 Uncovering Talent Audience Insights
Data helps us understand the psyche of your potential candidates.
By analysing engagement metrics on various platforms, we can identify what content resonates with our audience.
- Are they more responsive to stories about our company culture, employee testimonials, or career growth opportunities?
- Which of your content and stories captivate your audience?
- Which platforms are they engaging the most with your content, because tracking social media engagement can reveal the types of content that captivate potential candidates?
This insight allows you to tailor your content strategy, making it more appealing and relevant to your target audience.
#2 Optimising Your Recruitment Channels
HR marketing data analysis can reveal which recruitment channels are most effective for your organisation.
Are your top talents coming from LinkedIn, job boards, or employee referrals?
By identifying the most fruitful sources, you can allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring a higher ROI on your recruitment efforts.
#3 Measuring Employer Brand Perceptions
Do you know how your employer brand is currently perceived in the market?
Surveys, social media sentiment analysis, and employer review sites like Glassdoor provide valuable data.
Tracking changes in these metrics over time can show you whether your employer branding efforts are improving your reputation and what areas need more attention.
#4 Enhancing candidate experiences
Data can also be used to enhance the candidate experiences.
Analysing the candidate journey from initial contact through the application process to onboarding can reveal bottlenecks or pain points.
By addressing these issues, you can create a smoother, more engaging experience, which is crucial in attracting and retaining top talent and keeping your reputation intact. Candidates are quite vocal on socials sharing their experiences, good and bad. If your recruitment process regularly creates negative experiences, it easily overpowers all your employer branding efforts because real experiences matter more than words.
#5 Predictive Analytics in Talent Acquisition
Advanced data analysis, like predictive analytics, can forecast future hiring needs based on industry trends, company growth patterns, and turnover rates.
This foresight enables proactive talent acquisition strategies, ensuring you’re always one step ahead in the talent game.
I found this interesting article online on using predictive analytics in talent acquisition.
Here are some of the interesting points I picked for you from this article so that you’ll know whether it’s worth checking it out.
”Effectively engaging in predictive analytics—using past and present data to foretell future events—can help organizations make hiring decisions, anticipate skills shortages, head off employee attrition and react to the next major disruptive event.”
“Business leaders who use workforce analytics say they have a better understanding of their talent needs than those who don’t, and they are more satisfied with their overall HR function.”
“HR leaders at CUNA Mutual Group, an insurance company based in Madison, Wis., recently discovered just how valuable regular reviews of their company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) metrics could be. While looking at their hiring processes, they came across an unexpected reason for why they weren’t drawing as many candidates of color as expected.”
#6 Crafting Personalised Talent Communication
I recently blogged about my predictions on four key social media and employer brand marketing trends 2024.
One of the predictions is the growing request for more personalised and authentic employer brand marketing content. The question is, how do you know what is more personal and relevant for your target audience?
Well, my sweet pea, our friend HR marketing data is available for your queries!
Data enables personalised communication with potential candidates because it indicates you their interests, career aspirations, and engagement history!
Once you are confident about catching those preferences – it takes regular analysis to recognise patterns – you can tailor your messages to resonate more deeply, making your employer brand more relatable and attractive.
#7 Tracking and Adjusting Strategies
Finally, data is vital for tracking the effectiveness of your employer branding strategy.
By setting clear KPIs in your strategy and regularly reviewing your progress, you can understand what’s working and what isn’t.
This continuous feedback loop allows for agile adjustments, ensuring your employer branding strategy remains effective and relevant.
I really want to mention here that the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™️ is data-driven.
This means that when you choose us as your strategic employer branding partner and work with us to craft your employer brand strategy, we suggest, recommend and guide you in selecting the right KPIs, goals, objectives and metrics for employer branding.
If, on the other hand, you work in talent acquisition and drive recruitment success, the Instant Employer Brand Accelerator™️ brings data-driven employer brand marketing and recruitment marketing together and guides you in turning this into a regular process, including modifiable templates for everything, from planning the entire process to selecting goals, objectives and metrics to content and social media marketing!
As we wrap up, remember that HR marketing data in employer branding and talent acquisition is not just about numbers; it’s about insights, stories, and connections.
It empowers you to craft a magnetic employer brand that attracts the right talent, optimise your strategies, and create a compelling employer brand that attracts and retains the best talent.
Embrace data, and watch as it transforms your approach to employer branding, driving unparalleled results.
Okey, this is it for this week!
What are your thoughts about data and driving your employer branding and talent acquisition with data?
My goal was to inspire and shed light on this important topic. Did I manage that or do you feel hating data now? Let me know on socials!
Thank you for tuning in to ‘Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast.’
My name is Susanna Rantanen and this podcast is for those who want to learn how to use branding, marketing and communications for personal and business success – as an HR, talent acquisition or employer branding professional, or as an aspiring thought leader or even a solopreneur in the broader HR field.
If you recognised yourself in that description, you are in the right place.
So better subscribe to this podcast and my weekly email with exclusive tips on each week’s episode topic that I only share with my subscribers.
Join us next week as we continue to explore the fascinating world of modern employer branding.
Happy New Year! Moi moi!