A B2B triple win no one else is using 💸

The magical win-win-win of niche job boards: Why every B2B startup should create an ultra-targeted list of jobs.

💡 The Idea: Create a role-specific job board tailored exclusively to your target demographic. 

For example: If you’re building a platform for Product Managers and Product Analysts ➜ curate a job board exclusively for them.

Include special filters, categories, and info that are only relevant for these roles.

👉 Note: this isn’t about your own job openings or your own hiring needs. Instead, it’s a platform to spotlight all relevant roles within your industry.

After all, people use B2B products to help them do their jobs. Since job security and financial status drive any B2B product use, why not cater to these core desires directly for your target audience?

This tiny content marketing move will position your startup not just as a product or service provider, but as the go-to hub for career advancement in your industry.

🎉 The win-win-win breakdown

1. Job seekers: They get a tailor-made job board minimizing noise and maximizing relevancy. And who knows? Your platform might be their ticket to their dream job!

2. Companies: With good talent being hard to find, your job board helps them increase their visibility to the right audience.

3. Your startup: Beyond altruism, it's a powerful marketing engine: Job seekers are potential users of your product, and the companies posting jobs? They're your potential paying clients. So, you're positioning yourself favorably with both. This approach creates multiple touchpoints to connect with both groups, as I'll detail shortly.

To make it work,

1. Be the first in your industry to do it.

2. Give a clean experience: The job board must be free, no sign-in required, and no heavy ads — just a “Powered by [Startup]” text in the footer will be enough.

🤯 And it works!

We put this concept to work at Wiz, launching cloudsecurity.jobs — a job board specifically for those in cloud security. Unique features like job filters based on cloud platforms (Azure / AWS / GCP) make us stand out. The response? Great chatter on social media and interest from companies wanting to list their positions.

The internet loved it. Multiple content creators mentioned us when discussing layoffs and the cybersecurity job market.

Yet another example comes from DataGrail, a PrivacyTech startup. They created an exclusive job board for privacy professionals, featuring roles like Privacy Program Managers.

🍋 Maximizing your startup’s benefits

How can you “squeeze the juice” out of the job board?

1. Position yourself as the “Good Guy” & capture early users: Just as Adobe offers students packages at a minimal cost (training them on Photoshop so they're likely to pay full price later), your startup can capture juniors as a long-term investment, and be seen as the "good guys" in the industry. 

2. Give professionals a content goldmine: In B2B, thought leaders and professionals are always on the hunt for share-worthy content. A job board, especially one not overtly plugging your startup, is LinkedIn gold.

3. Grow your email list: A weekly roundup of new job postings? It's an excellent reason for users to share their email.

4. Create a touchpoint with companies: They might approach you to list or highlight their job openings. It’s a great conversation starter with new accounts.

5. Boost retention: Here’s a game-changing move: Why not give your existing customers a head-start? Offering them first dibs on new job listings can be a fantastic retention tool, showcasing that you're not just in it for the sales, but genuinely invested in their growth and success. And, shifting focus to sales, the key to winning new accounts for B2B startups often lies in capitalizing on relationships with established customers (when they move jobs). According to Usergems, these contacts are 3X more likely to buy.

🏗️ How to build your niche job board

Here are 3 methods to source jobs for your board:

1. Community driven: Ask the community to contribute jobs to the board - just like Hubspot did with their job board for marketers. 

2. Scraping existing boards (Linkedin, Glassdoor, Indeed, etc): You can leverage tools like PhantomBuster or hire a freelancer to do it — any data analyst or personal assistant on Upwork could do it. 

3. Manually: For hyper-niche sectors, set up alerts on generic job platforms, and curate listings yourself. There shouldn’t be a lot of jobs anyway.

For building the interface itself, I strongly suggest “Airtable to website” no-code tools like GlideApps and Softr. If you’re using WordPress, there’s an easy plugin for that. 

🌌 Beyond the board

After establishing your job board, why not dial it up a notch? Double down on career-related content. Supplement the job listings with well-researched tutorials, offer salary tables, and create a space for professionals to share career advice. Turn your platform from just another job board into a leading career navigator for your sector (e.g. InVision).

Did you like this idea? ✨ Access my free list of 100+ marketing ideas ✨

See you next Friday ✌️

Tom