What good is a job board if you can’t drive in the right traffic? You don’t want a ghost town, you need a thriving hub where employers and job seekers meet. And that takes strategy on all fronts.

Marketing strategy components should be designed to bring the right people to your job board. From identifying its unique value proposition to the tools and marketing techniques that improve job board performance, make every mile marker count.

#1: Identify the Job Board’s True Value Proposition

What does your job board do better than anyone else? That’s your value proposition, and it’s more than just a slogan or mission statement.

Quicksprout value proposition quick stats:

• 71 percent of businesses promote user benefit

• 56 percent spell out why their company is better

• 45 percent use a separate targeted message for different customer personas

A mere 20 percent perform testing to see if the value proposition really works
A value proposition statement launches you in the right marketing direction. At least if it’s done right. If not, you might as well shout into the wind.

Startup mentor, Eric T. Wagner, writes at Forbes that a value proposition (or lack thereof) is responsible for the top #2 and #3 reasons why a business strategy flops.

Flip that around, and it’s the secret sauce the best job boards have.

How can your value proposition tank before it gets off the ground? Take the “I, me, my” approach, and you’ll find out. The real value isn’t what your creative muse thinks is amazing, it’s what your audience believes is amazing.

NorTech CEO, Rebecca O. Bagley, writing for Forbes, says the statement has to be compelling, and it has to develop before anything else can move forward. And she’s got a tried-and-true plan for writing one.

How to build a value proposition statement in four easy steps:

• List the job board benefits as you know them

• Identify how those benefits are delivered to the audience

• Map out those benefits on a 3-axis chart: Service, Technology & Cost

• Write the value proposition statement using the map as your guide

The statement and marketing direction should be dynamic. They should continually evolve as you learn more about what motivates your target audience and how better to deliver what motivates them. For that, you need feedback.

No job board is an island, at least not one that rises to the top.

#2: Create and Share Exceptional Content

Out with the old, and in with the new. Job board content marketing is towering over traditional marketing for one important reason: it works better. It has a broader reach to drive in more traffic on a consistent basis.

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) quick stats:

• 200 million people use ad blockers, but content marketing is immune

• A serious content marketing strategy generates nearly 8 times more site traffic than a site without it

• Content costs about 68 percent less than traditional ads, and drives in triple the leads

• Conversion rates are 6 times higher with content marketing

That sounds great! Where can you sign up? Wait . . . what is content marketing? It’s a strategy that:

• Develops valuable, relevant information that the target audience wants

• Speaks the language of the audience

• Distributes information through channels that find the right people
• Engages the target audience
• Makes it easy to share and take action

Content tears down the barrier between the job board brand and its target audience. It transforms a single-use portal into a magnetic destination because it offers more than just a job.

Naturally, there’s a caveat. The Job Board Doctor says a “cognitive dissonance grows” if the job board content consumer experience doesn’t mesh with the promise. If your value message offers the moon and stars, it has to deliver.

What is good content? Something that matters to the audience, even if it doesn’t relate directly to the job board. And according to CMI, it has 5 easy earmarks.

• Easy to find

• Easy to consume

• Easy to understand and relate to

• Easy to act on

• Easy to share

Just like a superhero, content is everywhere and it’s on a mission. And if you want the full benefit, embed your job board into the content. Make it easier to find and share, not harder.

What kind of content gets noticed and shared?

• Information-packed blog posts

• Entertaining videos

• Clever podcasts

• Smart infographics

• Relevant content from other sites

• A great career site landing page

With all of that content, you need a place to send it out to the world. That’s what social media is for.

#3: Use Social Media With a Strategy

What’s better than an organic search? Social media. But it only works if you take it seriously. SEO is so 1990s, and social has turned into a sleeper hit.

Shareaholic Quick Stats:

• Social media drove 31.42 percent of website traffic in 2014

• Facebook referrals jumped 277.26 percent between 2011 and 2014

• Organic search referrals dropped -94.76 percent during the same time period

With a social media strategy, you can tap into the referral results that sites across the web are enjoying. Hold onto the on organic search, and your job board traffic will slip along with it.

• Develop a real social media strategy and stick with it

• Shift organic search away from the forefront

• Find job candidates on social media where they spend the most time

• Engage them with your awesome content

Passive candidates aren’t searching to begin with. They aren’t looking for job boards in a volume that’s big enough to drive high traffic, but they are looking at social media. According to Shareaholic, Facebook users don’t spend all their time playing FarmVille or watching kitten videos, either. They are engaged.

What does a social media strategy look like? Madgex recommends a basic framework:

• Use hashtags to improve your post visibility and make them searchable on social media

• Leave the spam in the can and skip self-promotion. Weave your social media content message around the audience and the valuable goodies you have to offer.

• Open the lines of communication. Relationships are built on it.

• Stay active. Post regularly, share relevant content from other sites, monitor comments and respond quickly.

Going forward, analytics can tap into what’s working and what doesn’t ring the job candidate bell. That information lets you tweak your strategy to get better performance. The time of day and even the day of the week matter when reaching a certain social media audience.

With search engine referrals tumbling end-over-end, SEO is only part of the job board marketing equation now. Social media gets bigger results.
A smooth cross-platform experience captures a much bigger audience.

#4: Keep Traffic Engaged With E-Mail Marketing

Think e-mail marketing to drive job board traffic is a thing of the past? Then you’ll be surprised to learn that it’s more effective than Facebook and Twitter. Combined!

McKinsey Research E-mail marketing quick stats:

• 91 percent of Americans use e-mail daily

• E-mail is 40 percent more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined at attracting new customers

• E-mail-referred customers are 17 percent more likely to convert

• 45 percent of marketing e-mails are opened via mobile

• 40 percent of users turn to a competitor after a poor mobile e-mail experience

Chances are, your inbox gets numerous e-mail marketing hits every day. And maybe you delete most of them without reading. But marketers keep asking site visitors for e-mail addresses because e-mail still performs.

McKinsey research says it’s “significantly more effective” at attracting new prospects than the most popular social media marketing platforms. And when a prospect clicks through from an e-mail, they’re more likely to convert than people who arrive from a social media referral.

That said, their research also shows e-mail use dropped about 20 percent between 2008 and 2012. Now, the important focus is the complete “consumer’s decision journey,” and not just the e-mail appearance and content.

• McKinsey’s tips for a better e-mail marketing strategy:

• Use the e-mail as step-one in the consumer journey

• Refer e-mails to custom landing pages and get 25 percent more conversions

• Optimize the whole consumer journey for mobile users

• Leverage user data to determine which e-mail campaigns perform or flop

• Send personalized messages, not generic ones, using user data

E-mail providers are more sophisticated now. Message personalization is even more important. And e-mail timing is critical.

According to Data and Marketing Association (DMA), it doesn’t matter if you have the right name and email address gleaned from the consumer’s last visit to your site. If they don’t engage with the message, the provider notices. Eventually, they’ll route every message to the spam folder.

As for timing, too much of a good thing is too much. No one likes spending a portion of the day deleting e-mails in bulk. DMA says half of consumers want weekly – not daily – marketing emails.

The right message at the right time with an e-mail-dedicated landing page. That brings your job board more traffic.

#5: Work With a Job Board Provider

Is patience the opposite of your forte? Want quick results? Then you want a job board provider for an instant traffic boost with minimal effort.

Job board provider quick stats:

• Up to 4 times more job ad response

• 133 percent ad revenue increase
• Quick onboarding in about a month
• Authentic job matching through technology that’s designed for it

A provider such as RealMatch improves traffic and overall white-label job board performance quickly and effectively. And it supports your brand integrity. Instead of marketing one step at a time and building traffic slowly, RealMatch technology reaches over 100 million job seekers, candidates, and advertisers.

Another benefit is everyone’s bottom line – money. RealMatch supercharges revenue, with partners enjoying well over a 100 percent increase.

A provider relationship also links you with cutting-edge technology. What’s missing is the cost and a steep learning curve. Instead of licensing or investing in new software and then working through implementation, the technical heavy lifting happens on the provider’s side.

Real-Time Job Matching™ and TheJobNetwork™ are central to job board provider performance. Using high-level data analytics and an extensive reach, they drive not just more traffic, but more of the right people to white label job boards.

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