In the 21st century, digital marketing is one of the most efficient strategies for reaching new clinicians. Because of this many medical staffing firms, medical systems, and telemedicine firms have sought to install new digital marketing tactics in search of their ideal candidates. The problem is, that most of their initiatives won’t achieve their desired results.

Why Do Digital Initiatives Underperform?

Any type of journey that you take requires a map. Your digital initiatives are no different. Kicking off any type of campaign requires a proper plan. Imagine taking a cross-country trip without Google maps? You may eventually hit your destination, but it will cost you a ton of time and will waste a lot of money. Your digital marketing strategy gives your team direction.  Without that direction, you can guarantee you’ll burn a lot of money and time to achieve inferior results.

What Are The Components of a Sound Digital Strategy? 

1. Your digital marketing strategy should be comprised of the following:
2. An assessment of your current situation
3. A summary of your current business objectives
4. An overview of your ideal and proposed digital channels
5. A map of your recruitment conversion process
6. A methodology for tracking and reporting results 

Where Your Business Is Today? 

The starting point of every strategy begins with an honest assessment of where you are currently in terms of your business. This section is designed to create a benchmark of your current performance. The key metrics to have a clear understanding of here are: 

1. Your Current Revenue Figure
2. The Number of Prospects You Currently Attract Every Week (by channel)
3. Your Current Retention Rates
4. The Average Value of Newly Placed Candidate 

Where Is Your Business Headed? 

The second component is designed to define your growth objectives. It expounds on your current numbers and sets a goalpost for where you want to grow. Some important considerations in defining your objectives are: 

1. What is the target revenue you want to add in the next 12 months?
2. How many candidates do you want to place in the next 12 months?
3. What has to happen to increase the percentage of candidates placed? Retained?
4. What can you do to increase the value of a placed candidate? 
5. Why is it imperative that you add this revenue?
6. How committed are you and your team to achieving this new revenue goal?

Example: 

• Target Revenue: $1,000,000
• Average Value of a Candidate: $6,000
• Average Contract: 13 Wks
• Placement Rate: 10%
• Retention Rate: 80%
• Lifetime Value = $24,000
• # of New Candidates Placed= $1,000,000 / $24,000 *.8 = 33.3
• # of Monthly New Candidates Placed = 2.75
• # of New Monthly Candidates Inquiries Required = 27.5

Understanding your short-term and long-term revenue targets will decide the type of strategy you will take. Should you go aggressive and seek out new markets or different types of candidates? Should you play defense and focus on retention? Does your firm need new branding or digital transformation? 

Who Are Your Ideal Candidates and Where Can They Be Found Online? 

Most businesses assume they know their ideal candidates. They know which areas they come from. They know what they look like. They believe they know what their candidates want and the best way to approach them. While they might be right, with today’s job market and ever-changing technology the methods that worked 10 years ago may not be as applicable today. 

Better understand your ideal candidates on a deeper level by asking yourselves the following questions.

What is our ideal candidate demographic?

1. Locations
2. Areas of Expertise
3. Type of Jobs 
4. Salary Requirements 
5. Level of Experience 
6. Length of Employment 
7. Pain Points
8. Wants, Needs, and Desires 
9. Decision Criteria 

After you’ve developed a clear set of ideal candidate avatars, then your goal is to understand how they’ll find and engage with your firm. There are tons of digital marketing channels to choose from. This is a blessing and a curse. It is imperative that you identify the marketing channels that align the best with your business. As a note, your prospective clients are on the internet more than ever. New and current clients will engage you from their mobile devices, tablets, and desktop computers alike.

What websites do our ideal candidates begin their job search on?

What platforms do our ideal candidates use the most? 

The basis for these questions comes from the fact that in digital marketing, you either have searchers or scrollers (a term coined by Russel Brunson, Founder of Click Funnels). This means either you are looking to attract people who have a problem and are searching for ways to solve it or they are scrolling the internet and you have to interrupt them with a powerful message. 

Candidate Recruitment Process 

Process, process, process! This is the part of your plan that will make or break your marketing. You could have the best marketing in the world, but without the proper procedures to manage new inbound inquries, your marketing will fall flat on it’s face. In order to make sure you get this right, ask yourself the following questions: 

What happens after a new inquiry? 

What happens after a candidate is successfully contacted? 

What happens to candidates that we are unable to contact? 

After you’ve mapped out the process your candidates take to reach their final destination (job placement), the goal then becomes improving your conversion rates in terms of contact and then placement. Once those numbers are up to an acceptable standard, you should be looking to reactivating old and uncontacted candidates. 

How to Track, Measure, and Improve Your Results

If you can’t track it, you can’t measure it. The final step in successful online campaigns is setting up the proper tracking and measurement systems to improve results. As touch ed on in the previous paragraph, your final goal is to incrementally improve results. Many firms don’t realize that the data that campaigns create are a goldmine. However, tapping into the insights the data brings requires that you complete the following:

Establish benchmarks and forecast potential results

Installing the proper tracking and analytics platforms to measure conversions 

Make adjustments (optimizations) designed to conversion rates across every step of your funnel (attraction, nurturing, conversion, placement) 

All marketing is a test, and as a result, you will have to iterate your messaging and tactics in accordance with your goal in order to get the best possible results.

Conclusion

All in all, not having a clearly defined digital marketing strategy is the number one thing holding your firm back from success with digital marketing. Your plan not only has to create a clear picture of your avatar and growth, but craft an offer that highlights your firm relative to your ideal candidate, and finally, gives you the opportunity to track and improve your results along the steps of your recruitment process. 

If you’re eager to build a truly effective strategy to help grow your business, let’s chat about your strategy here.