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Are You Showcasing the Right Imagery on Your Staffing Website?

Selecting Website Imagery | Staffing Websites
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The following transcript was taken from InSights, a staffing and recruiting podcast from Haley Marketing Group dedicated to providing quick-hitting takeaways on Social Recruiting, Content Marketing and Employer Branding. To listen to the episode, click play on the player above or visit the episode page [InSights] How to Increase Applications by 250%

 

Brad Bialy: Matt, when we look at staffing industry websites, I think it’s pretty safe to say that staffing and recruiting firms typically play it pretty safe when it comes to imagery. Let’s break down imagery on staffing websites and how can the best staffing firms stand out from the crowd?

Matt Lozar:  A common theme here on on the Insights podcast has been audience and with anything with your imagery, the audience has to be very important because we have to think about who is going to your website, which candidates, which clients, which members of an organization, because the website’s the front door to your company right now. We have to think about what’s going to resonate with your target audience.

Brad Bialy:  And it’s certainly a challenge. Staffing firms want to be seen possibly as an organization that can help everybody, right? They’ve filled an opportunity for a medical associate in one point in their lifespan and now they are also a medical staffing firm. But really, we need to refine that specialty area. We need to refine that niche. And who are you helping? And with that imagery, showcase the target individual in that imagery.

Matt Lozar: Yeah, having that same imagery as the competition down the street or in the same town, it’s not going to help you distinguish yourself or stand out from the competition. With a lot of staffing agencies, candidates or your employees, the temporary workers are just looking for who’s paying the most or there’s a very high percentage of candidates have no idea even what staffing agency they’re working for.

Matt Lozar: So what can you do to really stand out from your competition to connect with an audience when they go to your job board, when they go to your candidate page, when they go to the contact us form? What really shows candidates and shows website visitors who you are?

Brad Bialy: Matt, I got a perfect example here. Today, I saw on a post that went out for a client of ours, it was an auto feed and they were looking for a warehouse associate, but the auto feed pushed out an image that showed an individual in a suit. It just wasn’t the right image. The end user on social media, if we want them to see themselves in the role, it should be an individual in a warehouse working in that warehouse facility set. They can see themselves in the role and then ultimately apply. They become one with that person.

Brad Bialy: So the same is true for your website. When you think about the imagery on a staffing or recruiting website, the individual that will ultimately apply to that job should be able to see themselves in the role that you’re showcasing. They should see themselves on the homepage of your website because the role is similar to their skillset and their knowledge base.

Matt Lozar: I might disagree with Brad for really the first time here on episodes. I think you’re correct, but I also think you have to be able to showcase imagery of almost people being people. In terms of, we recently launched a website for The Advanced Group that just shows bright imagery, people just standing there smiling in just their normal clothes. So what are they doing outside of work? It’s a balance because then if you scroll down the page, they have people that are working in their jobs.

Matt Lozar: It could be somewhere, a company we just launched a new website for down in the Hudson Valley showing imagery of the scenery there, a healthcare staffing agency in Torrance, California that shows pictures of the beach, or I think Wood Personnel won that Genius Award a couple of years ago that has, it’s a custom website, but the cutouts of the imagery of people on the homepage just stand out and make such a connection and an impression when you visit, it’s for the first time or for the hundredth time.

Brad Bialy: Yeah. I don’t fully disagree there, Matt. I think you can showcase casual individuals, you can showcase just normal everyday people in your marketing and in your messaging. My point there was so much to say that you shouldn’t showcase somebody other than who you already are, who you’re trying to attract, right? So if you are showcasing individuals in a very specific role, make sure that they fit the model of the target individual that would be working in your available job opportunity.

Brad Bialy: In a drastic extreme, if you’re hiring warehouse professionals, you wouldn’t want somebody in scrubs on your job board. I understand that’s a drastic extreme, but we want to really refine who our target audience is and put them inside of your website. Make sure that they fit in the imagery on your webpage.

Matt Lozar: Yeah, you can’t be everything to everybody. It’s, how can you position that company? I think the analogy we like to have in our consulting classes here is when you go to the grocery store, you go to the cereal aisle, you know where your favorite cereal is, and that’s who you want to be. And when they move that cereal to a different aisle, to a different location, it throws everything off. So how can you position your company to really showcase who you are? You don’t need to be everything to everybody. What’s your niche? How can you connect with that target audience in the most effective way possible?

Brad Bialy: You also made a great point about showcasing what area you’re from. If you service the Lehigh Valley exclusively, then absolutely show imagery from the Lehigh Valley. If you’re proud about being from Buffalo, showcase the Buffalo skyline, showcase where you are from the area. If you’re only serving a very specific local market, then absolutely showcase that in your imagery.

Brad Bialy: I think there’s another point here too, Matt, is with imagery, you can make a $5 million staffing firm look like a $50 million staffing firm. By showcasing a great looking website, you can put on this, I don’t want to say front, but you can put on a professional level of maybe just professionalism that takes you to that next level and sets you apart from the rest.

Matt Lozar: It even goes back to how us as humans process imagery. We process imagery 60,000 times faster than copy, than texts, than words. So before we can even get to that copy, which is important on a website, that imagery is processed so much faster and so much easier than anything else. That’s the image your staffing agency can give to really portray what you want to get to website visitors.

Brad Bialy: Matt, we took this a couple of different ways and I’d love to wrap this up here. When it comes to the imagery on your staffing website, if you service one local market in you’re proud of your local market, then absolutely showcase imagery from around the local area. If you’re showcasing a specific role and you specialize in warehouse staffing, light industrial staffing, medical staffing, whatever it is that you specialize in, then the end applicant should be able to see themselves in the role that you’re filling based on the imagery on your website.

Brad Bialy: And then to Matt’s point, if you want to get away from the role itself and bring it back to the individual, showcase the individual for who they are. Showcase the fact that it’s possibly a single mother looking for her next job opportunity, or it’s somebody that’s trying to make more money than they did the week before so that they could put food on the table for their family. Showcase that in the imagery on your website.

Brad Bialy: But really, it comes down to your positioning, who you are in the local market, and setting yourself out from the competition. Don’t create a website that looks like your competitor’s. Create a website that cuts through the noise, cuts through the clutter, and sets you apart from your competitor.

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