This article of part of our ‘View from the Inside’ series where we get insights from in-house recruitment marketers.
At Flare, we’re an external marketing partner, and whilst the challenges we face are very similar to in-house marketers, it’s not exactly the same. So to give you a balanced view on the trends and challenges across the market, we’ve started this series to add as much value as we can.
This article has been created by Chelcie Harry, Marketing Director at Levin.
How to shift from messy friction to a dream partnership, and unlock the real ROI from your marketing function
My name is Chelcie, and I’ve spent the last decade proving that marketing can drive revenue in recruitment industry (without needing to beg for buy-in). I lead marketing strategy across B2B, B2C, and employer branding at Levin and if you ask my sales team, I’m best known for my straight-talking approach to building brand, enabling sales, and making marketing actually matter.
1. The biggest misconceptions in recruitment businesses
Let’s start with the most common myth: that sales and marketing are two totally separate functions with clean lines between them. You go do your branding thing; we’ll go make the money.
Except I don’t believe that those lines really exist.
Go back to classic marketing theory: the 4 Ps—Product, Price, Promotion, Place. Those are commercial decisions. Decisions that impact how you sell, what you sell, and how you package your offer. Marketing shouldn’t be “the team that post on LinkedIn and manage job boards.” It should be influencing how your services are positioned, priced, promoted, and perceived.
In the best recruitment businesses, marketing has a seat at that commercial table.
Where things break down is when sales and marketing exist in silos – especially at leadership level. It means slower growth, disjointed messaging, and general brand chaos. The irony is that most recruitment founders already do marketing. They just don’t call it that. When you’re teaching your recruiters to pitch, attending events, writing job ads, or building LinkedIn visibility – that is marketing. But without someone the proper mindset to formalise and scale it, it stays ad hoc. And that holds you back.
2. What poor marketing-sales alignment really looks like
It doesn’t always look like mismatched collateral. Most of the time, it just looks like… missed potential.
I once spoke with a founder of a 30-year old recruitment business that told me that marketing didn’t drive revenue in their business. Their Marketing team was delivering sales collateral, was responsible for writing every job ad, and created email campaigns that were being sent to their database, but there was no reporting line between the founder and the head of marketing.
Within the space of that 30min conversation it was evident there was a huge gap in visibility of the results they actually delivered. A little bit of digging and we worked out almost 30% of their placements were filled through candidates from ad response (a marketing result), the list of ‘hot BD clients’ that every team lead had in their inbox on Mondays was from the lead nurturing campaigns (a marketing result), and closed jobs from marketing-assisted pitch decks had on average, a 3% higher average fee.
And honestly, this can be a lack of accountability on marketing’s side to deliver tangible commercial impact. It’s not necessarily always the marketer’s fault – but if the people at the top aren’t setting expectations or giving marketers space to operate strategically, they’ll stay tactical. You’ve created a glorified service desk for adding logos to slides.
What are the consequences?
- Missed revenue: Marketing should be able to drive 5–10% in attributed revenue just from brand awareness, site optimisation, and nurturing warm leads.
- Reputation risk: If marketing isn’t controlling the message, your sales team will. That’s how you end up with 10, 50, 100 versions of your business hitting the market at once – with no consistency or cohesion.
- Stunted growth: Without a strong marketing-sales partnership, you’re never maximising ROI on either side.
If I had to fix that dynamic? I’d start with sales enablement. Ask what’s getting in your recruiters’ way and solve it. Build trust by being useful. Once Sales sees that Marketing understands their world, the bigger brand plays become easier to land.
For context, I joined my current company when we were just 13 people. Because marketing was baked into the business early, it’s never been “us vs them” – we grew up together and that really shows in how we work together.
3. What good looks like
A sales-aligned marketing function starts with sales.
- What are their monthly targets?
- What accounts are they going after?
- What objections are they facing?
- What markets or areas are they seeing wins in?
Sit in on sales calls and team kick offs. Build messaging from what’s actually happening, not what you think is happening. Salespeople will tell you what’s working, if you’re listening.
Then build content that meets that moment:
- Clients moving slower than usual? Create an infographic on the cost of hiring delays.
- Clients pushing back on budgets? Create case study videos that shows the value of your services (BONUS – use the recruiter that gave you that insight to boost their personal brand and build buy in).
- Clients expecting unicorn candidates without adjusting salary expectations? Run a skillset survey with candidates and release as a downloadable guide (= lead gen) or invite some key clients to join a panel or webinar event.
While every business is different, I think a good b2b-focused marketing function should be 40% sales enablement, 60% brand-building and lead generation.
And you need that split. Because the brand work creates future demand. The enablement work drives today’s deals. Together, they power sustainable growth (and higher commissions for your sales team).
4. How to actually build the relationship
You want trust? Speak their language. Start with shared goals. If your sales leaders are being targeted on revenue or candidate delivery or outreach rates, make those your goals too. Bring marketing solutions to sales problems.
That starts with a feedback loop. Ask:
- What’s getting in your way this month?
- Which messaging is working right now?
- Where are we losing candidates or clients?
- What could help you close more?
Make this a standing conversation. Monthly, ideally. The measure what matters, from lead to revenue:
- # of marketing leads
- Marketing lead → job on (%)
- Job → placement (%)
- Placement value (and then build up into LTV)
Don’t just hand them MQLs. Show them what percentage of leads came from marketing, which clients were reactivated, which were flipped from candidate to client through automation or content, and how your efforts are improving the numbers they already track.
That’s the performance proof they need.
As for the relationship with your founder or CEO? They have to be involved. Top-down support changes everything. Behind closed doors, they should be asking sales leaders how they’re working with marketing. Publicly, they should champion wins from both sides, not just revenue. That subtle cultural signal says, “This matters.”
And it’s not just the CEO. CFOs, COOs, People leaders, Tech leaders – everyone with influence should show curiosity about marketing. A culture of collaboration starts with leadership.
5. The ROI mindset shift
If you’re a founder who wants more ROI from marketing, start by being curious. Understand what’s possible, and how holistic marketing is in an organisation (I genuinely think there is not one function in recruitment that marketing can’t have a genuine positive impact on). Marketing heads should have access to the full CRM and placement data. They need to be able to ‘talk sales’.
And if your marketer is junior? That’s okay. Just don’t expect them to drive revenue solo. Support them; Find them a mentor or bring in outside help, be their strategic partner and give them space and confidence to think commercially.
Because marketing can drive sales. It will take a real understanding of the customer journey, smart content strategy, automation, and messaging that actually moves people. And it will take a brilliant Sales team to then close those leads. But it’s possible!
If you are a marketer in a business without a lot of support and perhaps a team of ‘old-school’ recruiters, don’t lose faith! I used to believe that you can’t teach an old-school recruiter new tricks. But now? I’ve seen it happen. When people see wins, they buy in. You don’t have to force it. Just show the value, and the adoption follows.
And if there’s one thing I repeat to my team all the time? Marketing doesn’t work for sales. It works with sales.
Sit near them. Listen. Speak up when you can solve a problem. And over time, you’ll have a robust 360 engine that doesn’t just focus on the roles in front of them but futureproofs your pipeline for the long-term.
Get more incredible insights and content, and connect with Chelcie on LinkedIn.
And you can see Chelcie’s work over at Levin here.
