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Do you still rely heavily on cold calling and BD? You’re probably wondering why you’re still not seeing the lead flow you should. Recent analysis shows that cold calls now convert less than 2% of prospects into meaningful opportunities, while inbound leads cost up to 62% less to acquire than outbound ones. This doesn’t mean having to abandon the phones; it’s a matter of building a joined-up recruitment marketing system where technology and consultants drive the same pipeline. Will Astbury, Global Head of Marketing at SourceFlow, broke it down into three pillars during his session at the RecConnect Leadership Summit: Team, Tech, and Campaigns. Will Astbury speaking at RecConnect on recruitment marketing strategy     1. Build a Recruitment Marketing Team That Behaves Like Revenue A great marketer won’t transform a pipeline alone. You need a team that thinks like sales, acts like revenue, and is backed for the long term. Recruitment marketing performance depends on culture, not just skill. Hire for resilience, not just reach. Look for candidates who’ve thrived under pressure, not just produced content. Align incentives with outcomes. Tie marketing bonuses to tangible ROI: meetings booked, qualified leads, or revenue influence. Create a voice at the table. Include marketing in SLT conversations. When marketers help shape strategy, they own the result. Protect their runway. Give space to deliver long-term campaigns like SEO or salary guides that compound over time. Hire marketers who can deliver under pressure     2. Integrate the Right Tech to Unblock Your Pipeline Your website isn’t a brochure. It’s your most valuable business development asset. “If your website and ATS aren’t integrated, you’re operating blind.”  When inbound leads can’t flow directly into your CRM, consultants are left chasing spreadsheets, not signals. Studies from Forrester confirm it: businesses with tightly aligned website, CRM, and marketing systems see 67% more leads, 36% higher retention, and faster lead response times than those without integration. Phase 1: Foundation Tech Stack Website with embedded conversion tracking CRM/ATS integration for instant lead routing Email automation and reporting Phase 2: Acceleration Tools Webinar platforms (like StreamYard) for lead capture BD automation flows (like SourceWhale) Data enrichment tools to track hiring-manager job moves When these systems sync, marketing-generated leads are visible, trackable, and immediately actionable. Recruitment marketing tip: Integration turns visibility into velocity.     3. Run Fewer, Bigger Campaigns for Longer You don’t need 15 ideas. You need three done brilliantly.  Salary Reports – When structured properly, a single report can generate hundreds of downloads and open doors for consultants for up to six months. Use light forms, segment by intent (hiring vs career), and trigger automated follow-ups. Events Programme – Run at least four a year. Grassroots, affordable, and audience-led. Focus on speakers who add value over style, and treat no-shows as future leads; they’re still part of your funnel. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – The slow-burn channel that builds authority. Publish useful, specific, and relevant content around your niche. Over time, Google and AI-driven engines reward depth and intent, not volume.  For a deeper look at this, read Recruitment Marketing Insight in 2025: SEO Landing Pages Aren’t as Effective as You Think.     4. Measure Momentum, Not Moments Building a lead machine takes consistency. According to SourceFlow’s benchmarks, agencies that execute these pillars see an average +30% increase in client leads within six months and up to 100–150% growth over two years once campaigns compound. Attract → Nurture → Convert → Expand Your Next Three Moves If your consultants are still doing all the heavy lifting, it’s time to change how your pipeline works. Recruitment isn’t short on effort; it’s short on systems: Give marketing a number. Assign revenue-linked targets and commission marketers like a sales function. Unblock your tech. Prioritise ATS/CRM integration and automation before chasing new tools. Commit to consistency. Salary reports, events, and SEO…and repeat them for 24 months. Cold calling will always have a place,  but the firms winning in 2025 are those whose marketing, tech, and consultants are finally playing on the same team. Ready to Build Your Own Lead Machine? Your website, CRM, and campaigns should be doing more than attracting attention, they should be generating conversations, leads, and placements around the clock. At SourceFlow, we help recruitment businesses build the digital infrastructure to do just that. From strategy and website design to marketing automation and analytics, we’ll show you how to connect every part of your funnel and prove ROI along the way. Get in touch with SourceFlow to learn how to use recruitment marketing as your own lead machine.  

Will Astbury

Expert Insights

Key takeaways from our London Lunch & Learn On the 1st of October 2025, SourceFlow’s Lunch & Learn London brought together recruitment marketers, operations leaders and agency founders to answer one question:How do we prove the commercial value of marketing in recruitment? Across four sharp, practical sessions, one message came through loud and clear: recruitment marketing is evolving from activity-driven to outcome-driven.  Here’s a recap from the day’s expert speakers:     Key Takeaways Marketers should measure success based on revenue and placements, not impressions or follower counts. Recruiters and marketers need to work together, using CRM and performance data to improve efficiency and results. Structured marketing plans supported by competitor analysis and clear value propositions help create stability and alignment. Marketing plays an important role in increasing a recruitment business’s value and preparing it for investment or sale. Strong brands, client advocacy, and consistent communication all contribute to higher business valuations. 1. From Likes to Placements – Proving the ROI of Recruitment Marketing Catherine Henderson, Director, Boudicca Consulting Catherine opened the afternoon with a rallying cry for marketers to be battle ready; equipped with data that connects their work directly to revenue. Too often, she said, marketing teams measure the wrong things. LinkedIn followers, clicks, and impressions might be helpful indicators, but they don’t hold up in a board meeting.“If your marketing can’t be traced to meetings, jobs or placements, it won’t win the budget conversation.” She encouraged marketers to turn KPIs into commercial metrics: mapping campaigns to client meetings, tracking cost-per-placement, and building consistent feedback loops with recruiters and finance.     2. Data is your Friend – but do your recruiters know it? Saeed ‘Si’ Bor, Founder, EmbeddedOps Next up, Si reframed how data underpins performance. Recruitment, he said, runs on ratios and data is the bridge between effort and results. He split agency data into two critical types:Performance data (what’s being done) and CRM data (what’s being learned). Used together, they reveal not just how consultants perform, but why. He urged agencies to modernise their coding models, capturing the qualitative detail learned in calls, not just LinkedIn-style filters. Done well, that data powers smarter targeting, stronger conversion ratios, and more meaningful marketing campaigns. Marketers must collaborate with operations, understand recruiter metrics, and use CRM as an engine for performance, not a filing cabinet.     3. Understand > Define > Action: Building a Market-Driven Marketing Strategy Jade Brar-Haase, Founder, Branded by Aquila Jade shifted the discussion from data to direction, explaining how structured planning builds resilience and alignment across teams.Her three-step approach combined competitor analysis, customer insight, and measurable activity to form a marketing plan everyone can commit to. “Quick wins are fine,” she said, “but they won’t get you through a downturn.” She also shared a SAFE scoring framework (Suitability, Acceptable, Feasible) to help leaders prioritise activities and keep teams focused on what moves the needle.     4. What Buyers Pay For: How Marketing Drives Valuation in Recruitment Kashif Naqshbandi, Founder, Stratifex OS Closing the afternoon, Kashif brought a private equity lens to recruitment marketing showing how brand, positioning, and data all affect valuation.After leading two successful PE exits, he revealed how buyers look beyond profit and into narrative: growth gets you noticed, but story gets you paid. He outlined practical levers for marketers to strengthen enterprise value: keep any single client under 10% of revenue, build multi-threaded relationships across the C-suite, and nurture measurable advocacy through NPS or case involvement. Marketing isn’t just a cost centre, it’s a value creator. The story you tell through your data, content, and relationships directly shapes your business’s perceived worth.   What’s Next? Across the afternoon, teams compared playbooks for connecting websites, CRM and operations data so that marketing activity is consistently tied to meetings, jobs, and revenue. Recruitment marketing is evolving from activity-driven to outcome-driven, and those who prove value with data and frameworks will shape the industry’s future. You can check out the slides from the event by clicking here.

Will Astbury

Events

For years, SEO landing pages were considered a quick win in recruitment marketing.  Dozens - sometimes hundreds - of pages were spun up in seconds by combining keyword and location lists. Think: ‘Tech Jobs in London’, ‘Teaching Jobs in Manchester’, ‘Finance Jobs in Bristol’ - all generated automatically, all with roughly the same content. And for a while, it worked. But recruitment website design - and Google’s algorithm - has moved on. And at SourceFlow, so have we.   Why Did SEO Landing Pages Fall Out of Favour? Once upon a time, recruitment website platforms popularised automated SEO pages because they were solving a real problem. At this time, many recruitment websites were minimal: a homepage, a jobs feed, and a few thin ‘news’ posts. SEO landing pages were a way to bulk out site content with relevant keywords. More pages meant more chances to get found. But search engines are far more sophisticated now. Google’s recent updates take a dim view of duplicate content, irrelevant pages, and spammy site structures. And that’s exactly what these auto-generated pages had become. Let’s say your site includes 20 locations and 10 job sectors. That’s 200 pages created instantly. But most of them contain the same reused content - copy about ‘tech jobs’ pasted across every city, or the same paragraph about ‘Manchester’ applied to every industry. These pages don’t just underperform. They hurt your recruitment website’s performance by diluting your crawl budget and damaging your domain authority. Worse still, these automatic combinations often produce nonsense. ‘Farming jobs in the North Sea?’ ‘Oil and Gas Drilling roles in the Cotswolds?’ These pages don’t help candidates - and search engines know it.   The Modern Approach To Recruitment Web Design: Quality Over Quantity At SourceFlow, we’ve taken a different approach. Instead of auto-generating hundreds of pages, our platform empowers recruitment marketers to create strategic, high-performing content through our flexible page builder. Want to target ‘Finance Jobs in London’? Go for it. But now you can customise the content, embed a filtered job search, and showcase roles that actually match the query. If you want 100 SEO landing pages, no problem - as long as each one is meaningful, specific, and useful to your audience. In today’s recruitment marketing landscape, that’s the standard. Our approach supports smarter recruitment website design by keeping your site lean, focused, and optimised for both users and search engines.   What Should You Do Next? If your recruitment website is still relying on auto-generated SEO pages, it may be time for a content audit and a new search engine optimisation strategy. Prioritise fewer, better pages. Focus on relevance, intent, and on-page quality - not sheer quantity. And if your current tech stack doesn’t allow for that level of control, maybe it’s time to talk to us. Book a demo    Author: Matt Whiteley, Chief Technology Officer, SourceFlow With over a decade of experience leading global engineering teams and building scalable SaaS platforms, Matt is passionate about creating technology that balances usability, performance, and business value. Before SourceFlow, he spent nearly seven years at Volcanic, including four as CTO. Matt is known for bridging the gap between technical complexity and commercial clarity - building digital products that make recruitment marketing work harder and smarter.

Matt Whiteley

Expert Insights

On the 9th of July, SourceFlow hosted an energetic and insightful Lunch & Learn event in Manchester, bringing together recruitment marketers, agency leaders, and operations pros from across the UK. The event focused on the evolution of recruitment marketing — and the bold strategies required to lead growth in today’s challenging market. Here’s a recap of the key takeaways from the day’s expert speakers: 1. Kristie Perrotte – Think Like a CMO, Act Like a Founder   Kristie is the Founder and Chief Thriver at Thrive Recruitment Marketing, a consultancy that empowers marketing leaders in the recruitment space with strategic coaching and execution support. Kristie opened the event with a session designed to inspire marketers to step up and speak the language of business. She stressed the importance of aligning with commercial goals—and of measuring marketing's true value in terms of revenue, not reach. She said:  “They don’t want to know how beautiful the engine is—they want to know if it’s going to get them to their goal, faster.”    Top tip: Create and revisit a marketing plan monthly, using it to challenge distractions and keep leadership aligned on priorities. 2. Simon Brown – Marketing Runs the Table. Sales Plays on It.   Simon is the Founder of Richard Knows Best, a consultancy helping recruitment agencies modernise their sales and marketing approach through data, creativity, and common sense. He challenged the room to ditch outdated BD tactics and shift to a marketing-led growth model. He argued that recruiters must stop seeing marketing as a “colouring-in department” and start investing in it like they would in sales. He said:  “If recruitment is a marketing job, then marketing is now a tech job. If you don’t understand the tools, you can’t drive the growth.”    Top tip: Let marketers lead your go-to-market strategy—including CRM usage, tool selection, and cadence-driven outreach. 3. Chelcie Harry & Janine Owen – 10 Questions Recruitment Marketers Want Answers To   Chelcie is Group Marketing Director at Levin, a global tech recruitment group, Janine is the Founder of JO&Co, a consultancy helping recruitment marketers drive revenue and scale their impact. Together, they answered the questions every recruitment marketer wants help with—from proving ROI to building influence at board level. Their message was clear: revenue attribution, data storytelling, and knowing your numbers are non-negotiables in modern   recruitment marketing  . Chelcie said: “The second you move from brand metrics to revenue, you change the conversation.”    Janine added: “Don’t just report numbers—tell a story. Show where you’re going and what it means for the business.”    Top tip:   If your CRM is messy or reporting is limited, start small—use a spreadsheet, track leads manually, and focus on demonstrating commercial value. Our Manchester Lunch & Learn made one thing clear: Recruitment marketing is no longer a support function—it’s the engine of growth for modern agencies. Whether you're scaling content, proving ROI, or driving purpose-led outreach, the marketers who embrace commercial thinking, creativity, and confidence will shape the future of recruitment. You can check out the slides from the event by clicking right here.   Author: Will Astbury, Global Head of Marketing, SourceFlowI have worked in recruitment marketing for nearly a decade and now lead strategic growth and communications at SourceFlow.  SourceFlow do WAY more than industry-leading recruitment website design. We build recruitment websites and marketing tools that amplify ROI and provide transparency with state-of-the-art data insights.

Will Astbury

Events

Earlier this month, SourceFlow officially launched its latest product, SourceFlow Engagement, during a live webinar hosted by our Global Head of Marketing, Will Astbury. The session brought together recruitment operations and marketing leaders to explore how automation, AI, and strategic insight can reshape retention and performance. Alongside Will, the webinar featured a platform demonstration from Helen Taylor, Head of Customer Experience at SourceFlow, and a customer case study from Rebecca Lauder-Fletcher, Head of Marketing & Ops at Source Group International (SGI). Their discussion offered valuable insight into how SourceFlow Engagement functions as effective customer retention management software for recruitment businesses. Closing The Feedback Loop Recruitment is full of moving parts: consultants, clients, contractors, and candidates all create touchpoints every day. Historically, gathering feedback across these groups has been inconsistent at best. Many agencies still rely on basic surveys, manual forms, or anecdotal insights passed up through consultants. SourceFlow Engagement changes this by automating the process at scale. Whether you’re sending out a customer satisfaction survey to clients, or an employee engagement survey internally, the platform helps you capture feedback at the right time, with minimal effort. As Helen explained, "We built SourceFlow Engagement to close the feedback loop across the recruitment journey. It means no more guesswork and no more delayed reporting—just consistent, real-time insight." Reporting That Works For Recruitment Firms One of the standout moments from the webinar came from Rebecca, who shared how SGI is using the platform to inform board-level decisions. "It’s a game changer," Rebecca said of the AI-generated summaries. "It was very manual before—going through each individual response, looking at patterns, then trying to create a cohesive summary. Now, we receive AI summaries every month just before our board updates, and it’s really easy to digest from both an operations and a sales perspective." Will reinforced this point: "We’re helping agencies move from scattered, reactive feedback to a strategic, ongoing view of experience that supports growth and retention." From Insight To Action Beyond just making feedback collection easier, SourceFlow Engagement gives recruitment leaders the tools to take action: Spot at-risk clients early and intervene before relationships are lost Track consultant engagement over time, by team, location, or tenure Surface real feedback from candidates that’s more than just a number As Rebecca noted, "We’re no longer flying blind. Now we can see exactly what’s happening and act on it—quickly and with confidence." Purpose-Built For Recruitment Unlike general-purpose tools, SourceFlow Engagement is designed specifically for recruitment processes. It integrates directly with ATSs and the SourceFlow dashboard, allowing agencies to embed surveys into existing journeys and trigger them at key milestones. You can build your own employee engagement survey questions, personalise messaging for different brands, and benchmark results over time or against industry standards. Watch The Webinar Replay If you missed the launch event, you can still catch the full session on demand. You’ll see a full demo of the platform and hear directly from SGI on the results they’re seeing after rollout. And if you’re ready to see how SourceFlow Engagement could support your business, book a demo with our team today. 🔗 Get a demo Author: Will Astbury, Global Head of Marketing, SourceFlowI have worked in recruitment marketing for nearly a decade and now lead strategic growth and communications at SourceFlow. As someone who’s led marketing in the recruitment space, I know how difficult it is to get real-time feedback at scale. That’s exactly what we set out to fix with SourceFlow Engagement.   SourceFlow do WAY more than industry-leading recruitment website design. We build recruitment websites and marketing tools that amplify ROI and provide transparency with state-of-the-art data insights.

Will Astbury

Webinars