It’s fair to say 2023 has been tough for direct hire. 2021 and 2022 set our expectations high. Clients’ budgets dried up. Many agencies, once inundated with orders, had to learn to sell again. Here’s what I learned from this period: Teach your market and they’ll repay you in kind.
That’s where my agency’s podcast, Nurse Recruitment Secrets, comes in. A decision maker at the prospect, a large hospital system, found one us by searching “healthcare recruitment” in Spotify. Her employer was in the market for nurse-sourcing help. She listened to one of our interviews on nurse retention. We were top of mind, and the timing was right. An intro was made, and they felt they already knew us on the sales call.
We closed, and the journey felt easier than normal because the client took less convincing that we were subject matter experts. The result was a $200,000 retainer with very little promotional spend.
Here are my tips for creating or optimizing your podcast, and replicating the result:
The Podcast Blueprint
Choose niche-specific topics and name. Three things aligned when the prospect found us: her intent to learn about hiring nurses, our ranking within the healthcare recruitment podcast and the actual episode name. We opted to call our pod “Nurse Recruitment Secrets.” We rank for several keywords across healthcare recruitment. Apple, Spotify and Google all know what kind of searchers we’re looking to reach. Remember, podcasts live within search engines, just like most web pages. It’s healthy to apply a title in keeping with what your prospects are searching.
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Promote tactfully. Our episodes aren’t sales pitches. The aim is to educate our audience. They value guests in decision-making positions, inquisitive questions and space for guests to share expertise without interruption. Thought leadership is the main promoter.
That said, tactful promotion of your knowledge, results and experiences enhance an interview too. Listeners want to hear guests, but you’re a constant they get to know. Where relevant, slip in your own interaction with the topic, providing the perspective only a third-party agency can.
Get it out there. We use Streamyard to broadcast our content across Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Then, the recording is uploaded to several podcasting streams. While live broadcasts boost engagement and facilitate community building, recordings allow listening on the go, at your audience’s leisure. You’re making content anyway, so it’s little extra effort.
Of course, credible guests and entertaining speakers will drive listeners to you. Invite influential industry voices to improve the value of your content, gain access to their audiences and improve listenership overall.
It’s the Little Things
Don’t be discontented if your listeners don’t break double digits. That’s fine. Just ensure you’re talking to the right people, and your desired audience is listening. Provide value, and make your podcast discoverable with appropriate keywords. It’s easy to get started, but be consistent with the podcast. At worst, you’ll educate your audience and clients will respect you more. At best, there is business out there to be won.
Interested in learning more? Listen to our podcast for ideas.