Effective Marketing For Recruiters With Ari Osur of iCIMS

William Tincup: [00:00:00] This is William Tincup and you are listening to the Recruiting Daily podcast. Today we have Arian from iSims, and our topic or subject today is what type of marketing works for recruiters. And, uh, we haven’t talked, we haven’t actually touched on this, uh, during a podcast cuz it’s, it’s actually the reverse of what you would think.

We’re not thinking about marketing that recruiters do. We’re actually talking about and gonna discuss what actually works to talk to recruiters [00:01:00] and get their attention, et cetera. Ari’s got a lot of, a lot of experience in the space and so this is gonna be really fun. Ari, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself and my.

Ari Osur: Yeah, so I’m Ari Osher. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer over here at iSims. Um, joined the company in November, so not too long ago. Um, and super excited to be, uh, to be over here really passionate about. Talent acquisition in the recruiting space and, and how important it is for not just businesses, but for people.

And it’s just a, um, you know, I like to think of it as a, as a, as a noble purpose and. I like being a part of, uh, organizations where you’re, you’re excited, uh, about the mission and it, you know, helps. That’s what gets you outta bed in the morning and, you know, keeps a smile on your face all day and, and keeps you engaged.

So, um, really love, love the category and, and psyched to be here today, uh, chatting with

William Tincup: you. [00:02:00] Love it. So I’ve tried all kinds of different things and from a marketing perspective, through the years email until we can go back to direct mail, uh, fax blast, direct mail, email. Yeah. Um, you know, uh, sending, uh, partial, you know, uh, you know, gifts, you know, like chess sets without the Kings, stuff like that, like dimensional mail, uh, conferences.

Oh yeah. Name it. I’m sure I didn’t. I, I’m interested to kind of, because of your work in the space, not just at I, but you’ve got a lot of work in the space, so what have you seen, what have you seen that just that, you know, and, and you kind of, if it’s historically something’s really worked or even right now, things that are working for you?

Ari Osur: Yeah, for sure. You know, there’s always. You know, I, I, there’s a lot of noise out there. Right, right. And cutting through it, you know, it’s always, there’s always kind of a, uh, an arms race out there in terms of [00:03:00] the latest gimmick. You know, you mentioned kind of chess pieces and, you know, people have done really cool things around.

Colleges that you went to and sending them, you know, alumni branded TKIs and, and things like that. And, you know, the, uh, the promo companies are always kind of far out in advance of that. And they do, they do an awesome job with that stuff. And, you know, but from my perspective, I think it’s always about, um, you know, what are, what are.

What are the things that are keeping up, uh, the buyers at night? Right. And in this case, it’s, you know, for us it’s, it’s the recruiters that we, that we work with and the talent acquisition teams and, you know, HR operations and, and, and tech understanding their needs, their pain points, their, their care abouts, and connecting them, uh, People and information and content, um, that is just really relevant and kind of speaks to, um, you know, how, how they can kind of break through and [00:04:00] come back to their offices with new ideas or help them solve specific problems.

So for me, it kind of goes back to the information and the, the, the content and then delivering that in a way where, They’re aware that it’s there. They can pay attention to it, they can digest it. Um, you know, it’s, we, we certainly. Have seen, and, and I think it, it accelerated throughout the pandemic that long form content, um, is, you know, really, you know, becoming a dinosaur, more snackable bite size stuff.

Um, you know, even to some extent, you know, Blog post and you know, things like that. We’re, we’re, we’re pretty trendy. They’ve become really much tighter, right? So anything that is shorter form, um, folks tend to be able to, you know, raise their hand and say, yeah, I’ll check it out. Right. So, You know, we’ve seen in, in emails, like if it’s animated gifts, even to explain [00:05:00] things.

So, so people don’t even have to watch a long, long form video, right? Is it, you know, gi giving people short versions of, um, demos of products instead of having them, uh, wanna sign up to, to sit through a long form demo? Um, you know, so I, I think there’s a lot of emerging tactics. You know, it’s all about trying to get the attention of people because, um, you know, we’re all kind of like squirrels out there, um, you know, getting distracted and, uh, you know, with, with, you know, our, our devices.

I think there was a, a. Stat, the Business Insider put out a couple, a couple years ago that, that our c e o likes to quote that, you know, on, on average, people touch their phones or pick up their phones, you know, between 4,000 and 6,000 times a day or something. And I think my, my, my, my kids probably have as beat there on that.

But that’s what marketers are, are competing with right now. It’s, it’s, it’s attention. Um, and so cutting through with content, And [00:06:00] keeping it as concise as possible, um, is really one of the, the biggest challenges that, that, that, that we all face. But it’s also an opportunity,

William Tincup: so, okay. Are you a persona based marketing person?

Do you like, do you like kind of building out different personas of the, of the different buyers that y’all sell to?

Ari Osur: Absolutely. Yeah. And we, um, you know, we, we build out personas for our, our primary, um, stakeholders. Right, right. So for us, typically the heads of, of recruitment, talent acquisition, um, and then also other important stakeholders and influencers, right?

So, C H R O we’ve got the technology persona, the, the finance persona. Um, you know, we’ve seen. The buying process has become more complex, more stakeholders involved. So, you know, you, you can’t get by right now with just one or two personas. Um, you know, you kind of, you know, really, [00:07:00] really need to, to, to, to build them out, um, you know, across the whole buying committee.

Uh, but yeah, big, big fans of that and, and, and those really drive a lot of not just the content we create, but also understanding. Okay. What media are they consuming? Um, what are their habits? You know, what are their personalities like in some cases, um, it’s never one size fits all, um, but in some cases it can be good enough.

Um, so we’re, we’re trying to really thread that through everything that we do to make sure that our content, our activities is, is, is really gonna resonate with, uh, key personas. Love

William Tincup: that. Okay. So, Webinars, I’ve seen webinars, uh, be very effective, uh, through the years. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, but I’ve also seen stylistically a lot of changes in webinars, like, uh, more like shorter webinars also.

Yeah. Um, more AMA style. [00:08:00] You know, like, like it used to be the things that were really effective years ago was at the front, there was like a, a little bit of a demo, like a little bit about tech. Like let’s show you, here’s five new things that is Simpson’s doing. Y’all just need to know a couple screenshots.

Boom. Now let’s get into some thought leadership. And then at the end we’d kind of come back around and go, Hey listen, if you like what you saw and you like what you heard, you know, fill out the form, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it knew we’d just market to ’em forever, until they. Until they took and until they looked at software.

Um, but I don’t, I’ve, I’ve, that’s kind of gone away and in, and it’s almost like a reluctance to show, show software, uh, and more conversational style. I don’t know if you’ve seen or you’re seeing some of the same stuff, but it’s like this conversation like, let’s, let’s bring on some really thoughtful customers and let’s just have a good.

And, and let them talk about things and, and, uh, and like that’s a good, that’s a wonderful educational bit. [00:09:00] Um, what are you seeing with, with webinars? Like what’s, what’s, what’s interesting to you and what’s also interesting to you, to the audience you serve?

Ari Osur: Yeah, I think, I think there’s, there’s a couple different flavors and some of the flavors have, you know, gone rapidly out of fashion too.

So,

William Tincup: um, it’s a better

Ari Osur: way of saying that. Yeah. So I mean, I think. You know, there’s the death by PowerPoint where, I mean, you know, we’re, we’re, you know, kind of talking audio only here, but, you know, show of hands, like how many people wanna sit through, you know, a virtual PowerPoint presentation for 45 minutes or 60 minutes, and then hope that a couple of people ask questions at the end.

You know, with, with one person just doing that presentation, um, it’s brutal. Nobody wants to sit through that stuff anymore. Right. And I think when everything went virtual from the pandemic, People just, you know, the webinars worked really well for a while. People could tolerate that, but then there really is [00:10:00] that, that that level of, you know, of fatigue there.

So, you know, I think there, there are some of the flavors that, that are still tasty for people. Are, um, you know, there, there is out there demos, right? There is an audience, depending on where they are in the buyer journey. If they are at the stage where they’ve kind of identified the problems that they have or the problems that they wanna solve and they wanna kind of touch and feel and see more products, then they will sign up for product specific.

Demos. Right. Um, and a lot of companies do a good job with that, and they’re just, they, you know, publish, uh, availability for public demos, come sign up, whether it’s once a week, once a month, here’s what we’re showcasing. Um, and, um, they, that might not get. A huge audience, like a thought leadership one, but often those product demos, um, the people who who do attend are the ones who at that point, are [00:11:00] probably pretty serious about product.

Um, they want to go into the evaluation phase. Um, and so the, the return and the outcome on ’em, um, could be, could be pretty good. As you kind of go up the food chain, um, you know, further upstream, that’s really where, um, you know, the thought leadership, the more provocative conversations, I think we’re seeing a lot less.

PowerPoint slide. Heavy content, right? And what, what you had mentioned, William, in terms of people having conversations, right? So it could be a vendor with a customer, with a thought leader. Um, maybe everyone’s just on camera. Maybe there’s a, some, you know, some couple light slides, short video, you know, little bit something else other than just a, a few talking heads.

Um, but it’s again, less PowerPoint. Conversation, more of a round table style ability for the audience to ask questions or answer a poll. So it’s a little bit more interactive too. Um, those are much more [00:12:00] engaging. And then you had brought this up before too. Um, the duration. So, um, you know, if people sign up for a long podcast, a, a long, uh, webcast, rather, they’re, they’re not gonna stay for the whole time.

That’s very few people do, right? That’s right. You see, you see decay and, um, We’ve done a whole bunch of tests around, um, format and length of, um, webinars, and we’ve seen some really good results on some short ones. You know, you do, right? Some people are like, Hey, wow. 20 minute webinar on a topic that’s.

Really interesting to me, you know, in terms of like, you know, so for example, on our side we’ve done some things like, you know, some strategies on how to build your talent pipeline even while hiring is slowing down, or strategies for how to accelerate and scale recruiting. Um, if you’re rapidly hiring or industry specific ones, and it doesn’t need to be 45 minutes, it can be 20 minutes, and people are like, oh, wow, I, I [00:13:00] know what the expectation.

I can fit that into my day. It’s not gonna blow up my whole morning or whole afternoon, you know, I don’t have to, I won’t be multitasking as much cause I know go by quickly. Um, and you’re in it out. And so, you know, I think again, it kind of goes back to attention span. Um, You can, you don’t need to have that much time to get your point across.

William Tincup: You know what’s funny is, uh, I did a webinar, well, this is a couple weeks ago now, but, uh, but it was, they, they asked me, the marketing folks asked me to do a webinar. I’m like, yeah, okay, cool. And they’re like, well, what do you wanna present on? I’m like, whoa, stop present. Yeah. I have no interest in Brazil.

And they’re like, well, what do you mean? I’m like, I, I’ll just show up and then just let people ask me, ask questions, and. Oh, oh, well, we’ve never already done that. I’m like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, that’s what I’m comfortable with. And so I did it and they loved it. And so, uh, 400 people on the, on the, on the webinar or [00:14:00] whatever, and I was just me staring into a camera.

And, uh, they had a moderator and they were asking questions from the audience. So Teresa asked Boop, and then, um, after the webinar’s done, email me like, we don’t know what to. We’ve got 41 questions that were, we didn’t get, we didn’t have enough time to get to. I’m like, well, let’s just record it. Let’s just go and I’ll put on the same t-shirt and we’ll just go and record it.

And as, as if we did it right after that and we’ll just go answer it. And then that way you can just kind of put it out, uh, over time. And so it’s like, That type stuff. Like Sandy and Topeka asked the question about blah, blah, blah, like, it, it was real specific and it was fun. I mean, it was actually enjoyable for me cuz I’ve, I’ve actually said, uh, I’ve said this a million times, but it’s, I think PowerPoint makes people stupid.

So I, I go to the far end of the spectrum and go, you know what? I will not only not. Not only will I not [00:15:00] do PowerPoint, I’ll make fun of PowerPoint.

Ari Osur: Um, and it also becomes a relief for some people. It’s like, oh wow, no PowerPoint. Like maybe, maybe I’ll, I’ll pay attention instead of, you know, pretending that my eyes are open or, oh, yeah.

You know,

William Tincup: especially if, especially if questions are being answered. Like, you know what I mean? Like I, I’ve seen this, uh, a number of times actually, you know, John answer asked the question. It’s like, Hey, John asked this really wonderful question, okay, blah, blah, blah. Okay, John, here’s the question. Here’s the, here’s what I would say is the answer.

And then all of a sudden, once John gets a response, it’s like, well, wait a minute. I’ve got, I’ve got a couple more questions. So it’s, it’s a really kind of an interesting deal and again, I don’t know how long that will last, but, um, I did wanna ask you about customers, cuz y’all are doing, y’all do kind of customer events differently and you, you’ve always kind of done this, uh, this bit differently.

You’ve got, uh, your major, well one of your caps on events inside coming up. Mm-hmm. Um, [00:16:00] tell us a little bit about that.

Ari Osur: Yeah, for sure. So, um, we had our. Um, Last major customer event in November, fire, and that was out in Santa Monica. Uh, that was day four of my tenure here at isim. So I got to, to walk into a, uh, beautiful.

William Tincup: Something that was already

Ari Osur: pro programmed for you. Wow. Exactly. And people told me my team did a great job, and I said, I guess they did. They did a fantastic job and I can’t really take any credit for it. Um, and um, you know, we, we have our, our next one coming up, uh, in, uh, may, so it’s Tuesday. May 9th. And so if you go to isims.com/inspire, you can, you can see some information about it.

But you know, we’re we’re, it, it, it’s interesting, you know, I think if we kind of take a step back right from a marketing perspective, you know, the topic of of our chat here today, um, events is something too that. Has become really interesting [00:17:00] because before the pandemic people, you know, really enjoyed traveling to events and different kinds of events.

You know, there was customer user events, there was thought leadership events, brand events, industry conferences, and then obviously everything shut down. And now as things, you know, reopened last year people started going back. And then this year there’s some economic headwinds and so travel budgets are getting cut.

And so I think. You know, us like a lot of marketers, you know, we’re, we’re all thinking through, um, you know, our, our customers and our prospects. What are, what is the right event strategy, and, you know, what, what kind of events, um, in terms of, of content and format do people want to travel to? So, you know, we, we are, Getting close to our customers to ask them that very question and collecting that information to really map out our strategy on a go forward basis, um, to see how we want to adapt moving forward.

Um, you know, for the event that we are having [00:18:00] in, um, in May, so, you know, the theme is breakthrough and it’s really all. We’ve got our community of talent innovators across our 6,000 customers or so, and, and, and our leaders here and, and a lot of industry leaders that we’re bringing to the event too. Um, we’ve got some really good content that’s gonna span really the full spectrum of, of talent acquisitions, some of the new innovations.

Um, of course we have to cover AI because, you know, how can you talk about anything these days without ai? Uh, that’s all anyone seems wanna talk. In fact, AI will talk

William Tincup: about ai,

Ari Osur: yes. Maybe. Maybe the whole event will just be written by, uh, GBT and nobody will know for, for, for the better and we’ll save some money.

But, um, you know, above and beyond that, you know, a a lot of, you know, I think provocative topics in terms of, you know, we’re kind of seeing a bimodal market out there where in some industries, You know, there, there’s job shortages and there’s not enough people compared to job openings. You know, if you [00:19:00] look at, you know, retail and some service industries and manufacturing and, and certainly healthcare, right?

And, and those industries are in one spot. And then, uh, All the headlines are being grabbed by the tech industry and the layoffs there, and a lot of recruiting teams are under pressure there. Um, and, um, so it’s, it’s just, it’s a very interesting time, I think in, in recruiting and, and, and talent acquisition.

And so we’re, you know, excited to, to gather a lot of, uh, you know, industry leaders. Together for that and going back to event strategy. So, you know, we’re, we’re trying to go with like a, a Goldilocks model for this one and, and we’ll see how it goes. You know, this is what, what we did last time too, where we’re doing it kind of hybrid.

We’ve got some folks that’ll be there in person, smaller. Um, and then we’re going to be broadcasting it for a larger virtual audience, um, as well. And, you know, we’re, we’re super excited to get, to get [00:20:00] people, um, together for it.

William Tincup: You know, that’s, uh, one of the things I wanted to ask you, cuz I, I love the, like the first day there’s parts of it that are streaming, if not all of it.

Second day obviously you’re gonna record everything, probably have it, uh, for folks afterwards, especially customers. Yeah. Um, but there is kind of, um, you know, unleashed does this thing where you have to apply. It’s not a registration. Like a, you know, like if you go to HR Tech, you know, you can just go to their site and register, pay them a slide, swipe your card and it’s done.

You got a ticket. Uh, whereas like unleash, it’s, it’s, they, they that you, you apply to register, which I, I like the scarcity of, I don’t know how the back end of that and how that works out, but I just like the idea of. And I like the idea of having kind of a smaller event. First of all, you are having a blue, beautiful part of the world and, and, and, and so, and having a smaller group of people, like, you know, there’s, they’re small enough where people might actually be able to meet almost [00:21:00] everybody that, that, that they want to.

Yeah. You go to larger events, it’s like wonderful events, but there’s no way you could meet all the people you wanted to meet. There’s just not enough. And, uh, cause Cause there’s just so much more density of people. Yeah. I’m thinking about Sherman in my head right now. It’s like, you know, it’s sometimes, you know, 15, 20,000 people and it’s like, there’s a bunch of folks I’d love to talk to.

I can’t, there’s only so many hours in the day. I can’t, I can’t meet everybody, I can’t go to all the content, I can’t do everything. But I really like the way they all structured that. Um, do you see like, doing more kind of roadshow type stuff? Because I, I love road shows. I’ll put my ballot, I’ll put my bias out, out on the table.

I love customer dinners and prospect dinners, and I love road shows. I just love, like iol, which is not a, not a competitor. They’re, they’re on core HR side. Mm-hmm. They’re doing, they’re in the midst of doing road show and they’re doing like three a week. But they got [00:22:00] multiple teams going, you know, in different directions.

But it’s just like, they’re just going out and going, you know what? We’re gonna drop into Austin. We’re gonna drop into Houston. Yeah, we’re gonna drop into Dallas. We’re, you know, they’re like, we’re just gonna do this bit from nine to one, and we’ll have breakfast. We’ll do some content, we’ll talk a little bit about product and we’ll do some stuff at lunch and then, yeah, get back to work.

Yeah.

Ari Osur: That’s, that’s great. Yeah, and we’re, we’re, we’re looking in the back half of the year at, at more events like that as well. Right. And I think, you know, there’s a couple drivers behind that too, is. You know, there’s not as much appetite for travel. Right. Um, and both from a budget perspective. And then, you know, also, I think some people are still kind of, you know, they’re like, I only wanna travel a couple times a year now, and they wanna pick spots and, you know, you’ll often get a better turnout if, if, if you come to them and, and you know, into their, their, their backyard.

And it’s, it’s just, it’s less of a commitment on their.

William Tincup: Right. It’s so much easier to just like talent that here in Dallas, Craig puts on a bit twice a year. One in [00:23:00] Austin, one in Dallas. And you know what? I’ve been to it every year for 12 years. Just a cuz it’s great content B because it’s here, like it’s 30 minutes away.

Like, okay, what else am I doing? So, uh, that’s different than, you know, the flight to Vegas. And, and all that, that, that encompasses. So the whole hotel thing and, oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I’m of the age now where I don’t leave the hotel. So now there was a period in my life where I might not stay in the hotel room, but I’m not at that stage.

I’m at a stage now where it’s like, uh, airport, you know. Uh, conference, hotel, and never leave and then go back and it’s reverse order. Um, so last, last question is, um, as you, as you look down, like some of the things cuz marketing, at least the way I’ve always approached it, when, when CEOs have asked me this question like, how do I, how do I hire a great marketer?[00:24:00]

It’s like, okay, so when you hire, you know, I can give you all of that stuff, but the first thing you need to do, You need to stop thinking of them in this traditional sense, what marketers need to do is they need to, they need to innovate, they need to try stuff, and it needs to fail. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, like the best way to to, to really encourage that is go to a medical supply company and get lab coats and put your brand on it and put their name on it, and then just give it to ’em and go, Hey, your job is to try stuff.

Some of, some of you know this from just his campaigns, some a campaign might. Another campaign might not. You know, that’s how, that’s how you learn. But it’s like cos because everyone thinks they’re a marketer. Very few people are they, they think that they, they just need somebody that’s strategic and it’s like, well you need somebody that’s strategic, of course, but you need somebody that’s in there breaking eggs.

Absolutely. Yeah. That’s their job. Janet’s job is to

Ari Osur: break eggs. Yeah, I mean, [00:25:00] a a a creative or a campaign or an email subject client that worked on Tuesday may not work on a wednesday hundred percent. Um, you know, so you gotta, you gotta keep on going back to the well, and, you know, e even, you know, there’s buyers change over time.

Their behaviors, things are cyclical, you know, there’s economic considerations and things get, you know, Maybe delayed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t initiate a conversation some way, right? So it’s a matter of thinking about, okay, you know, what is, what is the right conversation at the right point in time given those market conditions?

Um, and then, you know, how do you come up with the, with the messaging and then the right vehicles to, to deliver that so that you can, you can get to the right folks. And, um, there is no. Playbook that works every time. Uh, you know, the, the, the, the playbook. Don’t you wish, don’t you

William Tincup: wish there was at some point?

Don’t you wish there

Ari Osur: was? No. If there was, then, you know, everyone’s talking about how the robots are coming after all of us now and, you know, [00:26:00] um, you know, maybe, maybe it’s true, but I’m not even sure if the robots can figure that one out, you know? No, no.

William Tincup: It would. It, it, it, I mean, I, I wrote a book in oh seven and it was ba it was a B2B marketing in, in hr, uh, and, uh, and then bit, I want the, the title was try not to F this up, and it was all spelled out.

But basically we went through 38 things that you should do. And we told people like, okay, all this is, you know, with the stipulation that you try it, it doesn’t work. Try something. AB testing, just, just ab test everything. And, uh, a lot of people outside of, you know, people that are skilled like yourself, they don’t get that.

They think that marketing, you’re just like, okay, so we just build a house list and we send them email. It’s like, hmm, no, no. That’s, that’s not how that works. We got a lot of other things to do. So, yeah. Yeah.

Ari Osur: If only it’s not like, uh, if. It’s not like Field of Dreams, you know? No, no.

William Tincup: And [00:27:00] they’ll come, oh my goodness brother, I could talk to you forever.

I love, I love, first of all, I just love having this conversation. It was cathartic for me and I love what you’ve done with insight. Actually, I really like the, the approach cuz it’s so different than, than, than a lot of other folks in the space. And I, I like that. And I think it’ll be great for your customers.

Ari Osur: Yeah, we’re excited. Well, brother,

William Tincup: thank you. Great talking with you. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate you. You bet. And thanks everyone. Yeah. Oh, no worries. No worries. And thanks for everyone listening to the podcast. Until next time.