Your association’s job board software has a real competitive advantage against job board aggregators like Indeed or ZipRecruiter. You can market that competitive advantage to maximize your non-dues revenue. Associations have a strong opportunity to generate non-dues revenue by attracting employers – who are focused now more than ever to access talent – to their job boards.
Association members tend to be the most engaged, high performing professionals in an industry. They care about their profession, they work hard, and their employers take care of them. As a result, they are infrequently unemployed or not actively searching job board aggregator sites to find opportunities. But because they do interact with you, your association can help employers reach these passive job seekers who are not available in the other channels where employers spend their recruitment ad dollars. Capturing this non-dues revenue opportunity will help you attract and engage members by making you their number one career growth destination.
Let’s look at how to attract employers to your job board.
Lead Generation
Because of the power of your association’s brand, some employers already know to come to you to post their jobs on your website. But for every one employer that is posting on your job board, there may be nine other employers with relevant jobs that are not. If you have a salesperson (or sales team), make sure they have a process in place to find these employers, reach out to them, and explain why they should turn to you as a talent acquisition solution.
When employers need your help, they literally hang out a sign declaring just that – in the form of a job posted on their website – and other job board sites. It is easy to search for relevant open jobs on these sites, and then reach out to the employers to explain why your association can help them connect with more qualified, higher quality candidates (your members).
Only you provide access to such a concentrated niche audience of talent in your space, and only you can provide access to so many passive job seekers – who are not going to job boards. An easy way to do this is to set up job alerts on big aggregator sites with terms that are relevant to your profession, so you will get an email with new relevant jobs (leads) every day.
You can also use more sophisticated methods such as job scraping on the web to make sure that you know every open job out there that should be on your job board but is not. This way, your association can reach the employer with a relevant and timely message encouraging them to advertise with you. A good sales pitch is crucial in attracting employers to your job board.
The Sales Pitch
When talking about the sales pitch itself, general best practices are to place a phone call, then send an email, then follow up in a day or so by another brief email. That third touchpoint typically has the highest response rate. When making these outreaches, little tweaks in content can make a significant difference.
Here is an example of what NOT to do:
Weak Sales Pitch
In this pitch, the salesperson starts by talking about himself versus the employer and the value proposition. Employers are busy and more likely to respond if you get straight to the point. This example also uses lots of different fonts and colors, which is a great way to make an email seem spammy. He includes a photo of himself, which can trigger a junk filter. It would have been more impactful to include job seeker data and demographics as well. Perhaps most importantly, instead of leading with data about the talent he can provide access to, this salesperson leads with pricing and offers discounts.
Strong Sales Pitch
On the contrary, here is an example of a good pitch. This one is short, direct, and highly relevant, addressing the specific role this employer needs to fill: a litigation attorney at Binder & Binder’s Houston office. It also uses data to make its case – the job can be marketed to 103,000 members and emailed directly to 40,000 of them. Typical open rates for such an email means that roughly 12,000 attorneys will open the email and can see the job. The job board itself averages 55,000 job views each month, so the employer knows it is well-trafficked. And finally, it closes with a clear call to action. This pitch shows that there are many compelling reasons for Binder & Binder to advertise its job with the State of Texas Bar Association Career Center.
Employer Resources
Think about how to market your career center just as professionally as other association products you sell. For example, a short video for employers can go a long way. Email marketing and landing pages are also great tactics, when well-executed. A key way to attract employers to your job board is to provide them with plenty of resources.
Media Kit
A professional media kit highlights the demographics of your members and how your various products help employers reach them. Providing one will help ensure your recruitment value proposition is clearly understood, and that the products employers buy from you will get them the best return on their investment. This is important because, as we all know, happy customers are repeat customers.
On-Site Events
Another terrific opportunity to attract employers is hosting on-site events. Employers will sponsor booths to recruit on-site at formal career fairs, for example. This is another non-dues revenue opportunity for your association. You can section off part of your exhibit floor, or use an adjacent ballroom, or even a section of a hallway where employers can speak directly to job seekers at your event.
There is so much that can be done to enhance your career fairs: resume or CV reviews, private on-site interview booths, headshot photos, career coaches, and more. And there is an endless list of products to sell employers, including booth sponsorships, signage, job posting packs, and resume credits on your job board.
Virtual Career Fairs
Virtual career fairs work just as well as they do on-site. Virtual career fair platforms are exceptionally efficient and provide a wonderful experience for both job seekers and employers. During a typical event, employers can live-screen dozens or hundreds of candidates, and candidates screen dozens of employers, in just hours. Clean reporting and workflows make following up on both sides easy and organized. Many associations hold multiple virtual events each year, never charging members or job seekers, but generating non-dues revenue from the sale of recruiter booths and sponsorships.
Recruitment Guides
If you are in an industry where hiring is in high demand, consider offering a product called a “Recruitment Guide.”
Typically, these guides are created and distributed in conjunction with an association’s annual conference or meetings. It is a stand-alone supplement, essentially a magazine publication, that is available in hard copy and electronically so in-person and virtual attendees can view.
This creates yet another way for employers to tell their story as an employer brand, and to highlight the relevant jobs they have open for your association members. Employers can even include videos in the electronic version to convey how they provide the ideal place to work. Some large associations have generated six figures of recruitment advertising in these guides alone!
Your association’s career center can be backed by the world’s strongest recruitment ad sales team and process. YM Careers’ sophisticated sales process and team showcases your job board to every employer who needs you, maximizing your revenue. Associations see an average increase of 35% of additional revenue by taking advantage of our job posting sales team.
