Recruitment Marketing: Part 2 of 4.
Start with a strategy, and stop ignoring your data.
In Part 1, we covered why seeing results from your marketing often takes longer than you’d like, why viral numbers don’t pay the wages, and why consistency beats a heroic fortnight. If you missed it, start there.
This part is about two things recruiters routinely skip: having an actual strategy, and using the data you’re already sitting on. Because most agencies are busy “doing” marketing with no plan, while ignoring the single most valuable asset they own.
1. Start with a recruitment marketing strategy. Then, and only then, start “doing”.
This is the big one. In fact, honestly? It’s the reason this whole series exists.
Most recruiters don’t start with a strategy. They start with a to-do list of things they think they “should” be doing.
✅ Post on LinkedIn.
✅ Start a TikTok.
✅ Send a newsletter.
✅ Boost a job.
Busy, busy, busy…with no idea whether any of it moves the business forward.
Here’s the thing…nobody starts a recruitment business because they’re passionate about CRMs and marketing funnels. You started it for independence, freedom, to build something of your own and, let’s be frank, the earning potential. But marketing without a strategy is just activity; and activity is easy. Anyone can be busy “doing”.
Everything you do should ladder up to an actual business goal. That goal could be more client roles to work; or a stronger candidate pipeline in your niche; or breaking into a new sector completely. It could be building a name and a reputation so you can hold your fee instead of racing every other agency to the bottom on rates.
Your goal decides your message → your message decides your channels → your channels decide what you actually create and “do”.
In that order. If you can’t draw a straight line from a piece of content back to a business goal, don’t make it. That is the difference between marketing that earns its place and marketing that just fills the calendar.
2. Stop starting from scratch and actually nurture your database.
This step costs recruitment agencies more money than almost anything else, and it’s completely self-inflicted.
Most recruiters get a new instruction and start from zero. They run straight to the job boards, straight to a fresh search on LinkedIn or, nowadays, deploy their AI to find a match; all the while a database of thousands of past candidates and applicants sits there, cold, gathering dust. People who already know you. People you’ve already paid, in time or money, to acquire.
You are sitting on a goldmine and treating it like a filing cabinet.
The number one rule in any service based business should be to keep that database warm with value driven content. A regular newsletter, useful market updates, a genuine heads-up when relevant roles land; so that when you do have the perfect vacancy, you’re not shouting into the void, you’re messaging people who already trust you. And it works on both sides. Nurtured clients remember you when they’re ready to hire, nurtured candidates actually answer when you call.
Want proof? When we introduced newsletters to the candidate database of one recruitment agency, it passed 1,057 warm leads to their sales team in just three months. Exactly the same database they already had, and no additional ad spend.
A business in the property sector that has now been a valued client of ours for 4 years, consistently earns over £130,000 in additional revenue each year exclusively from email marketing to their database. Picking up archived leads that go on to use their services.
Email marketing is not dead. It works. And more businesses should be capitalising on it.
3. Use your data to make decisions.
Beyond your database, you almost certainly have more insight sitting in front of you than you’re using.
→ GA4 (Google Analytics) tells you how people find your website, what they actually look at, and where they lose interest and leave.
→ Your social analytics tell you which posts land and which ones flop.
→ Your CRM or ATS should tell you where your best clients and best placements actually come from, your conversion rates, and your timeframes.
This isn’t data for a tidy monthly report nobody reads, it’s a map. It tells you what’s working so you can do more of it, and what isn’t so you can bin it. Marketing on gut feel alone is guessing, and guessing is expensive. Let the numbers make the calls.
4. Marketing is a cost, right up until you measure it.
This is the mindset shift that changes everything.
If you don’t track what your marketing brings back, it will always feel like money leaking out of the business, and you’ll treat it as the first thing to cut when billings dip. But the moment you measure it (how brand awareness lifts revenue, which channels bring client leads, what a candidate registration costs you, which activity turns into actual placements), it stops being a cost and becomes an investment with a return you can point to.
How big a return? Naturally that varies depending on the business, the foundations that have been set up, and the quality of the campaign. For one recruitment client of ours, a measured, multi-channel campaign delivered a 998% ROI. The only reason we can say that with a straight face is because it was tracked from day one.
If you only make one change to your business this quarter, let it be that you start measuring your numbers.
Before you go.
Remember our rule of three: Strategy first, database always, numbers never ignored. In Part 3 of this series we’ll get to my favourite point of the whole series, and the one recruiters almost always get backwards: why it was never really about the jobs.
Not sure where your strategy actually stands right now, or what’s hiding in your data? Our free mini marketing audit will tell you, and it’s produced by an actual human, not AI. No obligation to work with us.
Frequently asked questions.
Do recruitment agencies need a marketing strategy?
Yes. Without one, marketing becomes a disconnected to-do list that is far less likely to move the business forward. A strategy ties every piece of activity back to a real goal — more client roles, a stronger candidate pipeline, a new sector, a defensible fee — so your goal decides your message, your message decides your channels, and your channels decide what you post.
What should a recruitment agency do with its candidate database?
Nurture it, don’t hoard it. A database of past candidates and applicants is people who already know you and cost you to acquire. Keep them warm with regular newsletters, market updates and relevant role alerts so that when you have the right vacancy, you’re messaging a warm audience rather than starting a cold search. One agency’s candidate newsletters passed over 1,000 warm leads to their sales team in just three months.
How do you measure recruitment marketing ROI?
Track which channels generate client leads and candidate registrations, what each costs, and which activity converts into placements. Measured properly from the start, marketing stops being a cost and becomes an investment. One recruitment campaign we ran delivered a 998% ROI precisely because it was tracked from day one.
