How Much Should You Pay a Marketing Manager at Your Recruitment Agency?

As a recruiter, hiring a marketing marketing for your recruitment agency likely feels a bit out of your comfort zone. Hiring salespeople is relatively straightforward (you know they will have to meet their targets or hit the road), but hiring a Marketer can be a whole different ball game.

If you’re in the process of hiring a marketing manager for your recruitment agency, you’ve come to the right place. But before you even get to the part where you’re thinking about how much to pay them, there are several questions you need to ask yourself.

What is Your Marketing Manager Going to be Responsible For?

The first thing you need to do is identify exactly what the responsibilities of your marketing hire will be (and there are a few aspects to think about!).

Ask yourself which of these areas is a priority to your recruitment agency, because realistically, one person cannot manage all of these to a high standard – there just aren’t enough hours in the day!

 

Do You Want a Senior Marketing Person or a Junior?

Much the same as recruiters, marketers are often categorised into two areas: generalists or specialists. Generalists will have an overview of the various marketing areas above but will not be an expert in everything, which is not always a bad thing. A specialist marketer will be an expert in their niche. Social Media Manager, PPC Specialist and Brand Manager, for example, are all standalone job titles and these people tend to have a much more in-depth knowledge of their specialism, but will likely be unfamiliar with everything that goes into a successful marketing strategy for a recruitment agency.

Perhaps the most common marketing hire for recruitment agencies is a generalist who oversees a bit of social media, some email marketing and perhaps a little bit of graphic design (they may also do some administration work). Additionally, they may manage a few external providers for technical resources such as PPC ads. Larger agencies may hire a senior who can oversee strategy and then a coordinator below them, again still relying on third-party support for complex items or larger graphic design items.

What’s Your Marketing Budget?

Global data suggests that your overall marketing budget should be 7-8% of your recruitment agency’s gross profit (although obviously this can vary greatly depending on the size, marketing position and future plans of the business).

Once you have worked out your overall marketing budget, you should be able to work backwards and figure out how much you should pay your marketing person.

Bear in mind that your marketing budget should include the following items:

– Jobs board spend

– Cost of hiring a marketing manager

– Paid advertising spend (Google Ads, Social Media Ads etc.)

– Additional outsourcing needed (graphic design for example)

It’s worth noting that if your budget is limited, you shouldn’t spend it all on one marketing hire. Having a separate budget for paid advertising, events, collateral, etc is just as important.

What is the Average Salary of a Marketing Manager?

If we use Indeed data to benchmark your marketing hire’s salary, you’re looking at anywhere between £26,000 up to £75,000 per year, per hire in the UK, and from $77,000 (AUD) to $132,000 (AUD) in Australia. We would suggest that the average for the recruitment industry is on the lower end of this scale.

 

*Indeed UK as of March 2021: https://uk.indeed.com/career/marketing-manager/salaries

 

*Indeed Australia as of February 2021: https://au.indeed.com/career/marketing-manager/salaries?hl=en

 

In an ideal world, every recruitment agency would have a senior generalist marketer to create a marketing strategy and consult with the senior leadership team on the overall business goals, plus a couple of junior specialist marketers in the team to get stuff done – but as you can imagine, this is where things start to get expensive!

Of course, there is also always the option to hire someone part time, but as we’re sure you’re aware – half the time means half the output, and you’re unlikely to see a huge ROI. But if you were just looking for someone to write a couple of blogs and manage your social media profiles, for example, this would be more than sufficient.

The Other Option: A Marketing Agency for Recruiters

If you’ve read through the above, and you’re thinking “I just want someone to do it all and not have it cost the earth?!”, you’re in luck.

Prominence is a marketing agency for recruiters, which basically means that everything discussed above, we have a team of specialists that can do it all. From marketing strategy to graphic design to paid advertising and social media management, our team are experts in all things marketing for recruitment agencies.

The best bit? Our costs are on par with hiring a junior Marketing Manager. PLUS, we have all the knowledge of recruitment that makes our onboarding process super smooth.

So, if you want to see results quickly but don’t have the budget or the time to hire an internal marketing team, we’re your guys.

Get in touch with one of our Directors, or fill out our contact form to get the ball rolling.