Industry: Human Resources Content: Blogs, video, infographics, whitepapers, social media Highlights:  +94% annual organic traffic, +306% annual social traffic increase, +38% LinkedIn follower growth A goal-focused, diverse content strategy that’s […]

Industry: Human Resources
Content: Blogs, video, infographics, whitepapers, social media
Highlights:  +94% annual organic traffic, +306% annual social traffic increase, +38% LinkedIn follower growth

A goal-focused, diverse content strategy that’s founded in data gives you confidence in your efforts, and makes it more likely you’ll see results. This isn’t just our perspective – results from a Percolate study conducted earlier this year prove it.

For our client in human resources, creating a strategy with different content formats was the key to victory. This contingency staffing firm was focused on growing different aspects of the business, and needed the right content to drive home their services, and get customers to find them over the competition.

Problem

  • Reputation management. The firm wanted to create a more positive brand presence and contribute to more positive conversations about the industry. We aimed for more SERP presence.
  • Brand awareness. This company has the ability to send temporary staff to fulfill a variety of needs, and it needed to be seen by more markets. They needed more traffic and followers.

Strategy

  • Use diverse content appeal to build and nurture audience at all levels of sales funnel – from blogs and graphics for traffic, to gated assets in a „Contingency Staffing Toolbox“
  • Seed the content on social, focusing on audience building through LinkedIn and Google+, where key target audiences and job titles are active.
  • Add CTAs to all Brafton-content, inviting direct lead gen or „soft conversion“ through gated Brafton content

Content

  • Blog posts
  • Bi-annual video testimonials
  • Quarterly white papers with „toolkits“ to get the most from temp staff
  • Quarterly infographics targeting specific verticals
  • 10 weekly LinkedIn posts

Results

  • Organic traffic increased 94% YOY
  • Social traffic increase 306% YOY
  • Bounce rate decrease by 17 percentage points
  • 38% growth in LinkedIn followers
  • LinkedIn Analytics ranked as No.2 in the Temp Staffing Industry (no previous ranking)
  • 112% more new users (all driven by Brafton content), viewing almost double the pages per session
  • One in 10 new users filled out the „Contact“ form

The details behind these major victories

Organic Traffic

Search engine results pages are fueled by rich content – videos, images, Google’s Knowledge Graph and Buy Buttons are all the result of users’ preferences becoming more sophisticated.

Unique content is one of top factors that marketers perceive to have an influence on their search rankings. Answering queries through different types of media is a great way to appeal to different types of learners (some prefer graphics or videos, others want to read). Plus, when users come to a website from SERPs, they want to see that same level of sophistication – which comes with a variety of content formats.

Knowing this, we created a strategy that touched on different content types for the various stages of the sales funnel:

  • 500-word blog posts and infographics create awareness for top-of-funnel searchers.
  • Corporate promotional videos build trust and brand awareness.
  • Downloadable ebooks and whitepapers educate (while also capturing new leads).
  • On-location client testimonials seal the deal on trust while also encouraging conversions.

Social Media Traffic

Having a strong organic search presence is just one piece of getting people to visit your site. The second aspect is referrals – in this brand’s case, social media was the avenue they chose as their promotions strategy.

This social media strategy began with LinkedIn,” Strategist Olivia Cocchiola said. “However, we decided it would be more beneficial for us to utilize Twitter, and we’ve definitely seen a lot of growth!”

The secret behind this brand’s success on social is honing in on what their audience likes, and posting more of that.
“Posts about labor trends, business continuity and skilled trade shortage have definitely performed the best via Twitter and LinkedIn,” Olivia said.

Reduced Bounce Rate & Increased Conversions

More site visitors generally indicate a higher bounce rate, because more does not always equal qualified. However, this strategy was positioned to bring in both more and more qualified leads by answering searchers‘ queries. The brand’s bounce rate actually decreased 17 percentage points.

A combination of great content and Brafton’s UX guidelines contributed to the decrease in bounce rate. After analyzing pages on the site, we came to the conclusion that readers weren’t sure where to click next. There were no call to action buttons pointing readers to their ‘next step.’

A simple addition of CTA buttons in the top right hand corner of the screen (where eyes have been trained to look on a web page for ‘next steps’), with branded colors that ‘popped’ resulted in users knowing their activity on the page didn’t have to stop when they were finished reading.

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Molly Buccini is Brafton's community manager. She joined the team with a background in digital journalism and social media. She's a theatre nerd, pop culture junkie and lover of summertime.