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We have decided to advertise less! Until recently we have posted a good number of our assignments on numerous websites and job boards but we will be doing less of this in the future. Is this a good strategy?
Our Executive Interim Managers have often asked “Why do you advertise your assignments – isn’t your proposition based on the fact that you already know us?” They have also said “You advertised this assignment – does that mean I have been overlooked?”
The answers are yes and no. Yes, we do know many in the community. Our proposition should and is based on knowledge. This is how we can benchmark one interim manager against another. No they weren’t overlooked – we often post ads at the outset after we have taken a brief and gained our clients’ agreement to advertise. We still needed to attract new interim managers who are the “life blood” of the business but we did not wish to alienate those we already knew.
Advertising can therefore prove to be a double edged sword. Why have we done it then? When I started the business in 2003 we didn’t have a database – just my personal network. This network in itself was not enough to service the diverse demands of our client base. As we grew into new markets we needed to continue to develop broader relationships with the interim community. Also there was an element of wanting to shout about what we were doing. We were handling fantastic assignments – we wanted to show that we were growing, proactive, winning new clients and entering new markets.
Not much has changed since we started. We still feel we are at the beginning of our journey with a lot to prove. We still have the same ambition and passion. We have bigger plans for growth than at any previous time and we are still committed to building long term relationships with our clients and candidates. What has changed is that our networks are maturing and we are seeing far less need to advertise. We know many exceptional Executive Interim Managers and our responsibility is to work with them first.
Our message to the interim community remains the same – we hope you will build a long term relationship with us. However, you may be seeing slightly less ads on external websites because we don’t need to shout at the market as before. Many of our assignments will still be posted on our own website but the money we spent on external websites will be re-invested in other marketing initiatives that we hope will deepen our relationships with the candidate community.
So – less advertising on external websites – good idea or bad idea? How did you find us in the first instance? Will we lose a potential competitive advantage? Your thoughts on this are always welcome.
Ps I will be producing a newsletter for our Interim community in the next few weeks as I hope to keep you up to date on what we are doing and what’s happening in the market.
Doug Baird is Managing Director of Interim Partners.
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June 2nd, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Doug,
The interim world has changed in the last few years. I rarely have time to review websites any more.There are too many and the formats are all different, therefore time consuming.
My time is spent:
Networking with the Interim Provider contacts that I know personally – in my view personal contact is still the best way to pick up assignments.
Monitoring LinkedIn and Twitter alerts. These are in the same format, in one place and cover a wide range of providers. It is the most convenient place for me to be. Alerts linking me directly to a role description on your website are perfect.
For my strategy to continue working I want to see your twitter feeds of current assignments. It is not clear from your article whether these will continue.
Adam Blackie.
June 20th, 2011 at 8:33 am
Adam
Sorry for my delay in responding to you.
I should have included Twitter! We will continue with our Twitter feeds but are going to have a re-think on how we use it. Not many in our interim community sign up to our twitter group. We have taken some advice and this may be because we post too many assignments and not information/ news that could be of interest to balance out.
What we are considering doing is having more Twitter accounts and splitting them by sector. E.g. – one for Consumer- one for TMT etc. This means we could get specific sector info and relevant assignments grouped – which hopefully means more interest to our interims whilst reducing the “noise” of less relevant tweets.
Do you think this will increase our interims take up of Twitter?
Regards
Doug