Lead generation in a highly competitive sector

Jonathan Lee Recruitment has been providing premier people and exceptional services to the technology, engineering and manufacturing sectors around the world for more than 40 years.

The consultancy has an excellent reputation, offering permanent and contract recruitment, interim management, executive search, managed services and design services solutions.

The business strategy relies on a deep understanding of clients and recruiters and the markets they operate in – and providing tailormade solutions to their needs.

Recruitment is a very competitive industry, and increasingly so in recent years. The growing skills shortage in the engineering and technology sectors has led to a high number of vacancies, creating a candidates’ market.

The contracting sector is growing to counter the lack of skilled candidates coming forward for permanent roles.

Jonathan Lee needed to make sure the business was capitalising on this increasing contractor market by generating leads from both employers and candidates for this arm of the business.

Working closely with the recruitment consultancy’s marketing team, the need was identified to generate more leads for contracting, including attracting employers to place contract roles with Jonathan Lee to fill.

As always, EBY took time to understand the Jonathan Lee offering and to research the market, including where the opportunities could be found and how to capitalise on them.

The solution was to develop a six-month pay per click (PPC) campaign which targeted the specific sectors where contracting was common.

Focusing on these key sectors, the campaign was constantly monitored, evaluated and evolved where needed to ensure optimum performance at all times for maximum return on investment.

The budget was set at a level which could capture a healthy share of relevant search traffic but remained sustainable for the client.

A strategic and carefully executed paid search campaign can be continually evolved to increase the chances of a significant return on investment. ROI can be high, even with a modest budget.

Here the paid search campaign resulted in a 489% return on investment and an impressive lead conversion rate of 38%.

This success led to pay per click activity forming part of the overall marketing strategy for Jonathan Lee, with an ‘always on’ approach.