Bringing lead generation in-house from zero, and getting ad spend below 20% of revenue in ten months

Mirai Jinzai Support Inc. runs a recruitment business centred on the Tokai region.
When they first came to us, they were running a range of web marketing initiatives with the goal of strengthening their own customer acquisition, but were struggling because these were not leading to the results they wanted.

In response to their wish to move away from a business model dependent on scouting through major job platforms and to strengthen their own acquisition, we began supporting them in September 2022 in bringing landing page production, Google Ads, Meta ads and affiliate advertising in-house.

This time, we asked Mr Ito, Representative Director, and Mr Tanaka, who is in charge of marketing, about the background to asking us for digital marketing support and the results it has delivered.

Growing fast, aiming to be number one in the Tokai region

― First, could you tell us your roles and what the company does?
(Ito) I’m Ito, Representative Director of Mirai Jinzai Support Inc. We run a recruitment business centred on the Tokai region: Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectures.

(Tanaka) And I’m Tanaka, from the Marketing Division of Mirai Jinzai Support Inc.

― Could you tell us the goals for the company as a whole and for the Marketing Division?
(Ito) Since our founding in 2014, the company has grown steadily. At present, one of our numerical targets is to reach total annual sales of 300 million yen in 2027.

(Tanaka) In the Marketing Division, we are focusing on two things: raising awareness of the “Mirai Jinzai Support” brand and strengthening customer acquisition. First, we want more people to know about us, so that we can be involved in supporting career changes widely. In the long run, we aim to be a company that many people know as the number one recruitment agency in the Tokai region.

Building from scratch: the reassurance of having recruitment experts was the deciding factor

― What marketing challenges did you have before coming to NowVillage?
(Ito) Until September 2022, when we started working with NowVillage, scouting through the major job platforms was our main source of candidates. The company was then in its ninth year, and we wanted to accelerate our growth further, and felt that to do so we needed to strengthen our own acquisition capability much more.

We tried improving our website and so on by imitating what we saw (to bolster our own acquisition), but we felt it would be better to ask web marketing professionals after all, so we consulted NowVillage.

― How did you come to know about us?
(Tanaka) I had heard that Mr Imamura, who came from UZUZ Co., Ltd., a recruitment service specialising in second-time new graduates, had started a new company. Our first real contact was when I attended a marketing seminar (hosted by NowVillage). I had a business meeting directly with the person in charge at the time, and I wanted to work with them straight away.

― With so many support companies out there, why did you choose us? 　
(Tanaka) Before we approached you, nothing we tried was getting the results we wanted, and we were at a dead end. At first I attended the (NowVillage) seminar out of curiosity, but I received concrete proposals there. I remember that the content was convincing, and I thought, “I want to ask them right now.”

Now we have a level of trust that can’t be compared with other companies, but at the time, the fact that the CEO, Mr Imamura, was the founder of UZUZ, a company with a proven track record, and an expert in recruitment was also reassuring. We also looked at what kind of companies they usually work with, and as they had plenty of experience with recruitment agencies, we decided to go with them.

Now 30% of applications come from our own acquisition

― Could you tell us about the results you have gained from using our services?
(Tanaka) Thanks to the thorough support for bringing (web marketing) in-house, we were first able to start running Google Ads and other channels ourselves, and the fact that we have been able to keep running them up to now is very significant. Our own acquisition taking shape also became the trigger for a marketing culture to develop within the company.

Partly because I had no marketing experience myself, at the time I was attending every seminar I could find and trying out information I had picked up online; I was just moving blindly. Putting things into practice isn’t a bad thing, but in reality I did feel there was a problem there…

From that situation of “we want to acquire candidates online but don’t know what to do”, they guided us step by step and gave us the knowledge we needed at each stage, so we were able to run the PDCA cycle quickly.

Thanks to that, inflow from scouting, which accounted for over 90% before we started the initiative, is now down to around 60%. Put the other way round, about 30% now comes from our own acquisition.
Recently, applications from latent candidates, which had been a challenge, have also been growing.
When we started running web ads, I think we set 25% of total applications as one target, and I never expected to achieve it in under a year, so it was a surprise.

It’s not only the number of applications; the return on investment is good too, and ad spend as a share of sales via our own acquisition has been kept below 20%.

(Ito) For the first six months, I think there was a feeling within the company along the lines of “I don’t really understand what Tanaka is doing; what on earth is he up to?” But recently, as applications from our own landing pages have increased, awareness of digital marketing within the company has spread too.

As an extension of that, we’re seeing employees share their sense of the issues and make positive attempts, such as “let’s change this part of the interview process” to suit jobseekers who come via our own landing pages. That is proof that web marketing has firmly taken root in the company, and in that sense too I really think it was worth doing.

(Tanaka) I’ve been able to turn what I used to do in my own way into practice grounded in theory, and I feel I’ve become more particular about the numbers myself. I’ve become more proactive in putting information out too, and in the future I want to aim for even better numbers.

Honestly, we’d rather keep it secret from our competitors!

― How do things stand now, and is there anything you expect from us going forward? 　
(Ito) While I know we shouldn’t rely on you for ever, other recruitment companies in this area have been growing in their own ways too, so with that in mind, I want to build an organisation that won’t lose out on acquisition and marketing.

Going forward, if we can build a relationship in which we think together about how to set strategy and move the company into its growth phase, our vision and what we want to become, that would be a great help to me, and when the time comes I’d like to leave it to you wholeheartedly.

(Tanaka) Speaking personally, I think there are still lots of untapped acquisition channels. I’d be glad if you could teach us about things like how to prioritise them, in as much detail as possible.

― What would you say characterises us?
(Ito) As with Mr Tabiraki, who looks after us, it’s that you show the basis for things clearly with data (numbers). It may be a given in the world of marketing, but forming a hypothesis, actually running the ads, looking at the numbers that come out and then improving further: I think being able to do that as a matter of course is impressive.

What’s more, it’s not just the numbers; proposing solutions based on them comes as a set. Because you show the basis so clearly, we can see the level of our web marketing, and it’s easier to make forecasts for the future.

(Ito) In my view, NowVillage is a company that supports you so that you “can come to love marketing even starting from zero”. Marketing is hard to get into, and there’s a part of it that can’t get started unless you see what’s interesting about it, isn’t there? In that respect too, I feel they gently gave us a push.

― Finally, what kind of companies would you recommend our services to?
(Ito) Honestly, I’d rather you didn’t go to our competitors (laughs).
We were an organisation with no marketing knowledge at all, so, as came up earlier with “even from zero”, I would definitely recommend you to companies that want to start from scratch and have someone think through the path forward with them.

(Tanaka) Absolutely. We were at the stage of “what is marketing, anyway?”, and they got us on track to where we are now. I see them as a company that made detailed proposals tailored to our current situation. I’d recommend them to companies that don’t know where to start.

― Thank you very much! We look forward to continuing to work with you!