If your recruitment marketing only starts when a job becomes available, you’re already too late.

The fight for audience attention isn’t fought in the job boards anymore, it’s won long before someone decides they want to look for a job. Brands need to work harder, smarter, and more strategically to stand out. That’s where employer branding and strategic marketing solutions come in.

The short-term campaign cycle

Too often, talent teams fall into the trap of reactive marketing. They only promote roles as they come up and hope for the best. That kind of approach might plug a hiring gap, but it doesn’t create long-term interest or brand affinity with the organisation.

You’re basically always back at square one, spending more money fighting for the attention of quality candidates, and of course don’t forget you’ll be up against competitors who invested in their brand months ago!

Think like a marketer, not just a recruiter

Consider consumer marketers, they don’t wait until someone needs or wants to buy a product. They build demand over time by telling stories and creating emotional connections. They create brand affinity and persuade consumers that their brand is worth keeping in mind. The same principle applies to attracting talent.

Strategic marketing solutions use insights, creativity, and data to turn your employer brand into a long-term attraction engine. That means:

• Understanding your audience (who they are, where they are, and what matters to them).
• Building an always-on content strategy that educates, inspires, and builds trust.
• Using video, storytelling, and social media to make your people and culture visible, before someone ever sees a job post.

From awareness to advocacy

A well-designed recruitment campaign can fill roles. But a well-executed strategic marketing solution builds relationships that last.

It turns passive candidates into warm leads, and warm leads into future employees. It’s about consistency too – by creating a rhythm of authentic, audience-led content you’re showcasing your culture, values, and opportunities in real time.

Candidates who already know your brand, start to like what they see, and want to be part of it when the timing’s right for them (or you tempt them with the right role).

So, what actually could the right strategic marketing solutions be?

As I said earlier you need to understand your audience – who they are, where they are, and what matters to them. If you can answer these questions then you’re half way there.

The key is to consistently tell your story across the channels your audience engage with. Below are some marketing channel ideas to get your started. It could be:

• Social media campaigns that showcase real employee experiences, highlight your culture, and encourage conversation in the comments.
• Targeted paid ads on platforms like LinkedIn or Meta, reaching niche audiences such as engineers, healthcare specialists, or early-career talent.
• Video storytelling that captures the heart of your brand, from behind-the-scenes moments and leadership interviews, to cinematic brand films for your careers site. (We have a sister company that can help you with this – check out studioRK)
• Email campaigns that re-engage past applicants or talent community members with useful content and new opportunities.
• Career site optimisation that ensures a seamless, inspiring, and authentic candidate journey from curiosity to application.
• And even employer reputation management, building visibility through PR, employee advocacy, and authentic storytelling on external review sites.

Each of these marketing channels works harder when part of a multi-channel strategy. Together, they form a marketing engine that keeps your brand visible, your candidate pipeline warm, and your hiring goals within reach.

Data, storytelling, and return on investment

It is important to always measure performance of whatever channels you decide to use. Before you launch any strategic marketing solutions, think about the metrics you need to track. How will you measure success?

Data and analytics are your friends so don’t be put off if you’re not sure, start with the basics like engagement rate and clicks on social posts, traffic volume to your website by channel, and dwell time. And of course ideally you need to track the candidate journey through to application and offer to make sure you have the conversion metrics to back up a business case for more investment in marketing.

For sure, if you use data and insights to test, optimise, and refine your campaigns, you’ll deliver meaningful results. And this isn’t just about vanity metrics, it’s about return on investment: more engaged audiences, means better quality candidates who are aligned with your brand values. This in turn will reduce your hiring costs and increase your retention rates.

Time to play the long game

The most successful employer brands aren’t built with short-term campaigns; they’re built through creative and consistent employer branding.

By embracing strategic marketing solutions, talent teams can move from reactive recruitment to proactive brand building. The future of talent attraction belongs to those who think like marketers, who understand that every story, post, and interaction contributes to a bigger picture.

When your brand speaks to the right people, at the right time, in the right way, you won’t have to chase talent. You’ll become an employer or choice and they’ll already have found you.