How to Attract Top Marketing Talent For Your Business

The role of marketing has expanded far beyond catchy slogans and pretty graphics. Today’s best marketers are part technologist, part analyst, part creative, and full-time growth drivers. As the business landscape becomes more digital, data-driven and customer-centric, the people behind your brand messaging and performance channels matter more than ever.

But here’s the catch, top-tier marketers are not just sitting around waiting for an ad to appear on Seek or Indeed. They are being poached, nurtured and offered attractive alternatives every day. So if you want to win the race for top talent, you need to compete on more than just salary.

This guide unpacks practical strategies to help you do exactly that.

Reassess the Marketing Roles You Actually Need

Often, businesses look to hire based on outdated or overly generic job titles: “Marketing Manager,” “Digital Marketer,” or “Brand Lead.” In today’s nuanced world, those labels can be too broad or too vague.

Instead, ask yourself:

• Do we need someone to lead strategy or execution?
• Do we need a channel expert (e.g., SEO, paid media, email)?
• Do we need a generalist who can manage and optimise multiple areas?
• Is the role tactical, strategic, or both?

You might find that what you truly need is a growth marketer, a lifecycle marketer, or a content strategist. Some roles with specific responsibilities and measurable outcomes. The clearer you are about what you need, the better your chances of attracting someone who fits.

Create a Hiring Funnel Just Like a Sales Funnel

The best recruitment processes mirror successful sales funnels: awareness, interest, consideration and conversion. And just like in sales, the more effort you put into building the top of the funnel, the better your outcomes.

How to do it:

• Promote your open roles across multiple platforms
• Engage passive candidates with valuable content or events
• Encourage employees to share openings within their networks
• Create videos or blog posts explaining your company’s vision and growth plans
• Build a talent pool or email list of marketers who might be a fit later

This approach builds awareness and trust, which are critical factors in attracting A-grade marketers.

Market the Role Like You Would a Product

If you want to hire a great marketer, show that you understand marketing. Treat your job ad like a campaign. Create a landing page. Write a compelling copy. Address pain points. Highlight benefits.

Your "campaign" should answer:

• Why should someone join your team?
• What makes your marketing culture different?
• How will this role grow their career?
• What will they accomplish in the first 6 to 12 months?

The best marketers are looking for roles where they can create impact and grow quickly. Show them what success looks like.

Understand What Motivates Modern Marketers

A decade ago, salary, location and job title were enough. But today’s top marketers are motivated by purpose, progress and people. They want meaningful work, mentorship and visibility into how their efforts contribute to business success.

Top motivators include:

• Autonomy and decision-making authority
• A learning culture that encourages experimentation
• Clear communication from leadership
• Flexible schedules that allow for deep work
• Access to cutting-edge tools and data

If you offer these things, make them central to your recruitment message.

Make Onboarding an Experience

Attraction does not stop at acceptance. Many companies lose great talent during poor onboarding processes. A disjointed, unstructured first week can damage enthusiasm and delay productivity.

Tips for world-class onboarding:

• Send a welcome pack with branded items, tools access and a personal note
• Introduce them to the broader team (not just their manager)
• Schedule a 30-day learning plan with goals and checkpoints
• Assign a “marketing buddy” or mentor for quick integration
• Set up meetings with key stakeholders so they see the big picture

First impressions matter. And a seamless onboarding process boosts both retention and advocacy.

Showcase the Bigger Vision

Talented marketers do not just want to run ads or write blogs. They want to be part of a business that is building something meaningful. If your company has a unique mission, disruptive product or ambitious roadmap then shout it from the rooftops.

Examples:

• Are you entering new markets?
• Launching a sustainability initiative?
• Partnering with well-known brands?
• Creating a new category or redefining one?

All of these stories can make your business significantly more attractive to candidates who want to align their careers with meaningful impact.

Offer Clear Paths to Leadership

Ambition is a common trait among top talent. If your business lacks clear progression paths, talented people may look elsewhere to grow.

How to create pathways:

• Define junior, mid, senior and leadership roles within the marketing team
• Allow high performers to lead small projects or cross-functional initiatives
• Offer leadership training or coaching to future managers
• Make succession planning a priority, not an afterthought

Let people see that they are not just joining a role, they are stepping onto a ladder.

Keep Evolving Your Marketing Stack

Great marketers care about their toolkit. If your team is still using outdated platforms or Excel for everything, it could be a red flag.

Modern marketing stacks often include:

• CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce
• Analytics: Google Analytics 4, Looker Studio
• Automation: ActiveCampaign, Marketo, Mailchimp
• Project Management: Asana, Trello, Monday.com
• SEO & Paid Tools: SEMrush, Ahrefs, Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads

Investing in tools is not just about performance, it also shows that you respect the profession.

Build a Reputation for Hiring Well

If you build a reputation for empowering great people, others will follow. If, instead, people associate your business with micromanagement or poor work-life balance then it will repel candidates fast.

Reputation boosters:

• Share stories of current marketing team successes
• Celebrate work anniversaries and promotions online
• Encourage employees to speak at events, webinars or podcasts
• Collect Glassdoor or Seek reviews from your team
• Stay active in industry groups or local business communities

Your brand as an employer is a long game. But it pays dividends every time you hire.

Work With the Right Partners

You do not have to do it all in-house. Hiring can be time-consuming, especially for lean HR teams or fast-growing companies. That is where external support comes in.

A platform like Cemoh connects you with Australia’s best marketing freelancers, contractors and fractional experts. Whether you need someone for a 3-month campaign or long-term guidance, Cemoh helps you find the right fit very fast.

And because every marketer is pre-vetted, you avoid the risk of mismatches, delays or wasted investment.

Understand the Role of Marketing in Shaping Company Culture

Many businesses still treat marketing as a department rather than a culture. But in top-performing companies, marketing is embedded in every function, from product development and sales to HR and operations. When you view marketing this way, you naturally attract people who want to contribute to something greater than campaigns or content calendars.

• Encourage cross-functional brainstorming between marketing, product and sales teams.
• Make internal communications
• Empower all staff to share brand stories on social media
• Recognize marketing wins alongside sales milestones in team meetings

When marketing is seen as a business driver, not a service function, it becomes a far more attractive career destination.

Differentiate With Your Brand Story

Brand storytelling is not just for your customers, it is for your candidates too. Today’s marketing professionals want to work for brands they believe in. If your “About Us” page or company mission is dull or generic, you are missing a golden opportunity.

How to tell a better story:

• Be transparent about how the company started and where it is heading
• Share founder stories, struggles and milestones
• Showcase real-life impact on customer wins, community outreach or sustainability
• Include testimonials from team members about why they joined and what they love

A strong brand story creates emotional resonance and that is powerful currency in the talent market.

Adopt Transparent Performance Metrics

Marketers love data. The best candidates want to know how success is measured and what systems are in place to support continuous improvement. Being vague about KPIs or avoiding measurement altogether can be a major red flag.

Examples of good marketing KPIs:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
• Website traffic and conversion rates
• Email open/click rates
• SEO keyword rankings and domain authority
• Social media engagement and ROI of paid campaigns

Transparency around metrics shows you are results-driven and data-savvy, qualities that high-performing marketers value deeply.

Empower Innovation Through Test-and-Learn Culture

Marketers are constantly looking for ways to improve performance. If your company punishes experimentation or demands perfection on the first try, it will drive away creative thinkers.

Foster a test-and-learn culture by:

• Allocating a percentage of the budget for experimentation
• Using A/B tests in campaigns and publishing results company-wide
• Rewarding learning outcomes as much as successful ones
• Documenting and sharing failed tests and what was learned

Innovation thrives in environments where curiosity is celebrated. That kind of culture is magnetic to marketers who want to push boundaries.

Offer Remote or Hybrid Flexibility

The best marketers are outcome-driven, not hours-clocked. Offering flexibility in where and how work gets done is no longer a nice-to-have. It is expected.

Best practices for remote/hybrid models:

• Be clear about expectations (e.g., core hours, team meetings)
• Invest in async communication tools like Loom or Slack
• Ensure access to secure, cloud-based software and project tools
• Offer stipends for home office equipment or coworking spaces

Flexibility increases the size of your candidate pool and shows you trust your team to deliver.

Build Talent Pipelines Before You Need Them

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is waiting until a role is vacant before starting their search. If you want to attract top marketing talent consistently, you need a proactive, not reactive, approach.

How to build a marketing talent pipeline:

• Attend or sponsor marketing events and conferences
• Maintain a “careers newsletter” for potential future hires
• Host roundtables or webinars that position you as a thought leader
• Use LinkedIn to connect with marketers who impress you, even if you are not hiring

A warm, engaged network is the best insurance policy for sudden hiring needs.

Get Involved in the Marketing Ecosystem

Marketers are plugged into their industry. If your company is not, it can be a turn-off. Being visible and respected in the wider marketing community boosts your employer brand and increases inbound interest from top talent.

Ways to engage:

• Sponsor awards or community meetups like Digital Marketers Australia
• Contribute to industry publications or podcasts
• Nominate your team for case study spotlights or speaker slots
• Share thought leadership via your blog or LinkedIn company page

The more active and generous you are in the marketing ecosystem, the more it will reward you with access to great people.

Audit and Optimise Your Hiring Content

Candidates will Google you. They will read your blog, check your LinkedIn, scroll through your Glassdoor reviews and watch your videos. Make sure what they find is compelling and aligned with the type of marketer you want to attract.

Content to review:

• LinkedIn company page and posts
• Careers and About pages on your website
• CEO and leadership team’s social profiles
• Video content on YouTube or Vimeo
• Employee review platforms and Q&A sites

Treat every piece of content as a window into your brand. Clean up what no longer fits and create fresh material that attracts the right people.

Embrace Diversity in Hiring

Top marketing talent does not come in one shape, gender or background. In fact, diverse teams perform better and are more innovative. If your leadership or current team is homogenous, now is the time to start building a more inclusive and representative workforce.

Diversity-friendly hiring tips:

• Use neutral language in job descriptions
• Partner with organisations that support underrepresented talent
• Showcase diversity in your team photos and testimonials
• Provide flexibility for different time zones, caregiving schedules or neurodiverse needs
• Conduct blind reviews of applications for early-stage filtering

Diversity is not just the right thing to do, it is a strategic advantage.

Ask for Feedback and Keep Improving

If you want to become known as a destination for great marketing talent, you need to be obsessed with improvement. That means asking every candidate, whether they joined you or not, how the experience went.

Simple feedback questions:

• What did you enjoy about the process?
• What could we have done better?
• Did anything stand out as especially positive or negative?
• Would you recommend our company to a friend in the industry?

Use this data to refine your hiring process, improve employer branding and close the gap between perception and reality.

What Now?

Attracting great marketing talent is not about luck. It is about clarity, consistency and commitment. When you position your business as a place where marketers can grow, learn and create impact. You do not chase talent. It finds you.

But if you need help building that foundation, do not go it alone. Hire a Fractional Digital Marketing Expert with Cemoh. Get expert-level marketing leadership, strategy and execution without the full-time cost. Cemoh connects you with proven talent who are ready to deliver results from day one.