What is your corporate image? It’s more than your company name, your logo or your website, it’s created from the inside out and the employees that are currently representing your company are having an impact on the brand – positive or negative.
They may seem separate, it may be an intentional business decision to keep them separate, but your business brand and your employer brand are very closely linked. You may put business marketing above employer brand marketing on the to do list, but creating a compelling employer brand can be very influential when it comes to promoting your business.
Before you start, you need a compelling Employer Brand. Our blog A Simple Guide to Building Your Employer Brand Strategy is a great read if you are trying to make sense of everything and need that simple step by step guide.
Or, if you want more than a simple step by step, why not download our Essential Guide to Employer Branding?
OUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO EMPLOYER BRANDING
Discover, shape and promote your employer brand
How Does Employer Branding Impact On Recruiting?
Now that you have a strong employer brand in place, you can start to share it with the outside world. Not only will you see an increase in the amount of interested candidates, you will probably also see an increase in potential customers.
Done right, and with a bit of expert assistance, your employer brand will attract people with not only the perfect skills, but also the perfect culture fit. They are more likely to mirror your values and on joining your team settle in quicker and become a key employee to enhance both your business and your employer brand further.
We’ve talked in many blogs about the employer brand linking into employee satisfaction and that in turn leading to a more happy, more engaged team who provide exceptional service levels to all customers as they are proud to be part of the team and have a strong emotional attachment to what you stand for.
What If You Could Do The Same For Your Customers?
Trust is a big factor for marketing of any kind and by promoting your employer brand, you will find that potential customers see this and will then formulate the opinion that you are a company they can trust as you are attracting the best possible people who will be very passionate about what they do.
In additional to this, by creating an employee advocacy program across social media, your future clients will start to associate you with a brand they know and trust when they see that there are many motivated and passionate experts behind your services or products.
Today, people want companies to have a conscious and in particular, millennials are not interested in unethical products which has created a shift from the alignment between profit and purpose. We are already starting to see the rise of what are called pro-social companies and pro-social jobs. These are companies and jobs that are still profit based, but are socially driven.
Clients also care how you treat your employees and any negative news in this area will have a detrimental affect on business. There has been a company recently, (we won’t name names), who had a CEO who was in the press for doing something not so great with regards to how employees were treated. Not only did applications for jobs hit rock bottom overnight, but their sales showed a drop, as did the amount of new clients. The impact was instant!
Remember that everything that is visible will affect your image – whether it be business marketing or employer branding. Even if you do keep the two things very separate, they both form part of your overall image so make sure that there is a synergy or you may find that your customers could lose trust in you and this will affect both new business and the loyalty of your current clients.
Making Employer Branding and Business Marketing Work Together
Keeping the two brands separate is fine if you want to portray a different feel, but they should still compliment each other. And, as you have seen above, done properly, your employer brand can actually improve the impact of your business marketing brand and visa versa.
By creating an employer brand that really stands out in the overcrowded market, you will in turn be creating a business brand that has an emotional attachment to your values. Think about your last business marketing initiative. Were you promoting your best testimonial, your best-selling product or how your service really made a difference. If so, all of these things will also attract top talent.
If you have an employer brand strategy already, think about your recent promotions. Maybe you were promoting a blog that talked about an employee who had been with you for over 5 years, or a lovely thank you present an employee received from a customer for a job really well done, or a charity or fundraising event you were involved in. All these things will also help you attract new business.
It Doesn’t Stop With Marketing
There’s one final element that so many companies overlook, yet it plays a vital part in how people really feel about your company and that’s your candidate journey.
You’ve gone to all the effort of creating an employer brand, making sure it is in sync with your values and it has created a surge in interested candidates. Lots of companies stop there and don’t continue to nurture those candidates, whether suitable or not. They have all taken time to research your employer brand and prepare and send their application, so please don’t ignore them.
By creating a solid candidate journey and communicating with everybody who shows an interest in your company, you will create potential customers of the future. People talk, especially on social media and a positive candidate experience will do a lot more for your bottom line than you think.
JobHoller have the expertise and passion to help you develop and promote an Employer Brand that will have a positive impact on all areas of your business. Get in touch to find out more – 01244 567 967
