You’ve probably seen it a hundred times. A recruitment website that leads with the year they were established or claims of being yet another industry leading business. Then there’s the LinkedIn feed that’s full of new hires, anniversaries, and promotions.
It’s all a bit samey. And usually, it comes down to not knowing your audience.
When you don’t understand who you’re speaking to, you fall back on what’s safe, which often means talking about yourself.
And when you’re not confident in your own marketing, the next step is usually to look sideways. What are our competitors doing? What are others posting? And just like that, you end up copying others. Not because you think it’s great, but because you’ve got nothing better to go off.
You can’t create good marketing if you don’t know who it’s for
It sounds obvious, but with the busy nature of business, it often gets missed. But good marketing happens when you truly understand your audience.
And not just in a ‘we recruit in X sector’. I’m talking about:
- Who your ideal clients are
- What they care about
- What’s getting in their way
- How they talk about those challenges
- What the early warning signs of those problems look like
Because it’s only when you get to that level that your marketing starts speaking to real problems, in a way that your audience actually recognises and responds to.
The difference between problems and symptoms
When you do start to put time aside for understanding your audience and you identify their core problems – don’t stop there! The real insight comes when you identify the symptoms…
Let’s say your client’s problem is hiring delays. The symptoms might be:
- Burnout in their team
- Missed delivery deadlines
- Internal complaints from overworked staff
- Or just a constant backlog of approvals
That’s what they’re feeling.
And if your content or outreach speaks directly to those lived experiences, you’re already more relevant than 90% of your competitors.
What happens when you skip this step
When you don’t take the time to build a proper ICP you end up guessing. And guessing leads to safe copy and vague content trying to target everybody. That includes:
- Established in…
- Industry leading…
- People-first approach…
None of it tells your audience what you actually do or how it’s going to help them. And over time, that just pushes you further into reactive marketing.
How to build your ICPs and market to them
Here’s the simple version of the process I follow when building or refining our ICPs:
- Get specific
Nail down job titles, company sizes, market maturity, and buying behaviours. - Talk to the sales team
They’re having the real conversations every day. Find out who’s engaging, who’s ghosting, and what the common objections are. - Dig into challenges
Ask what’s really slowing your clients down, costing them money, or keeping them up at night. Then map out the symptoms they’re seeing before they even name the problem. - Build content from that
Use those insights to build messaging, content, and campaigns that feel specific, timely, and useful.
If you want your marketing to generate leads, drive conversions, and support the sales process, it can’t start with your company. It has to start with your customer.
Get to know them properly, speak their language, and the rest falls into place.
A View from the Inside
At Flare, we’re an external marketing partner to recruitment agencies. So, while we see a lot of the same challenges in recruitment marketing as in-house teams, the reality is, it’s not always the same. That’s why we created the ‘View from the Inside’ content to deliver perspectives that are supported by in-house marketers.
The article above comes from conversations I had with Nathan Fenton, Marketing Manager at Roc Search.
Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn.
Find out more about Roc Search.
Discover more View from the Inside articles below:
The importance of community in an AI world with Leah Smith from Linux Recruit
Marketing and sales alignment with Chelcie Harry from Levin.
