How to retain top talent to your marketing business

Retention is a crucial part of business development and growth. Hiring new people to your organisation is important to gain new skills and experience, but keeping the best members of your team happy with your business will not only help your company to grow but will also attract more people to the organisation when they learn that it is a good place to work.

So, what are the reasons that marketing teams lose top talent, and how can you avoid this with your organisation? 

The difficulties that marketing businesses face

Quite often, businesses are ignorant of the problems that their business has, and are left scratching their heads when they receive resignations from their employees. To avoid this, there needs to be good and continuous communication at all levels. Team this with asking your staff if they are happy and what you can do as a business to improve their working day, and you will minimalize pain-points in your organisation that are causing you to lose your best people.

Every individual is different, and what is important to one employee may be less important to another. It is important to promote your salary offering, but the employee that you are trying to attract may be looking for a role with better flexibility or a company with a great culture.

The main difficulty businesses face is not realising that they may be about to lose talent until it’s too late to keep them. If a company does try and ‘buy-back’ the employee, they need to make sure they’re offering a change that they can action, otherwise, the candidate is likely to end up looking to leave again six months down the line. 

The importance of retaining your best people

Recruiting the perfect marketer does not happen in a day. Running a recruitment process, interviewing, negotiating contracts, waiting for a notice period, and training up the new marketer all takes a considerable amount of time. Waiting for longer than necessary can put more pressure on the wider team and may also delay some time-sensitive projects.

It can also affect team culture and potentially cause other departures if people feel they have been under too much pressure for too long. It can be difficult to develop a team that works well together, and sometimes team dynamics can be affected when people leave the office. It’s not unusual for one or two people to leave a company, and a wave of colleagues following them.

The turnover of a business depends on the organisation. We often talk to candidates who are looking for new roles because they don’t feel that they have the resources they need to do their job well in their current organisation. This could be resources such as CRM systems or software, but also budget and team. This can be made more difficult when they’re then being asked to demonstrate results or are unable to reach unrealistic targets due to not being able to deliver. This also links to candidates needing to feel appreciated.

High turnover is normally to do with a poor team culture. This is often linked to an overworked, under-resourced, and often unappreciated team. 

Top tips for retention 

Here are some of the top tips you can use to retain more of your marketing talent:

Clear progression
You need to ensure that each of your team members has a clear progression plan that is tailored to them and their career goals.

Flexibility
Agile and dynamic working is becoming increasingly asked for. Allowing someone to be able to do the school run or work from home occasionally to ease a tough commute can make a big difference. It can be a good way of retaining a marketer who is trying to balance work and family life without affecting productivity.

Clear expectations and targets
Good marketers are normally able to talk through results and ROI of their marketing campaigns, and being acknowledged by management for achieving these targets and meeting the expectations of the business will make them feel appreciated and valued.

Training and development
Marketing is always evolving, and as a result, marketers want to remain relevant. Offering to fund courses and qualifications that can help both them and your business will develop them in their career and provide your business with useful skills.

Opportunities for progression
Marketers will leave a position if they feel their role is becoming stale. You should make sure your employees are getting exposure to new areas and not being pigeonholed so that they can see a future with your organisation.

What marketing professionals want 

Of course, this varies depending on the stage that they are in their career. For example, someone who is at an earlier stage in their career is going to be looking for development and a progression plan, and are often more likely to be looking for a competitive salary. Marketing executive and senior marketing executive roles are particularly competitive at the moment, and we’re finding that salary and development being two of the main drivers.

For other candidates who are battling with trying to balance work and family, offering flexibility and agile working can be incredibly important. We’ve had situations where candidates have had multiple offers and have turned down a better paying role in favour of an opportunity that has better flexibility options.

Finally, team fit and company culture are incredibly important. It’s difficult to get a true sense of this until in a role, but it does make it all the more important to try and reflect this during the interview process. Candidates who are feeling very engaged in a process are more likely to accept if offered the role, and less likely to accept a buyback from their current business.

Learning about your teams and encouraging them to grow and develop with your company is the key to retaining top marketing professionals in your organisation. If you are interested in hiring top marketing professionals to your business, get in touch with one of our specialist recruitment consultants today for a confidential discussion.

Amie Hemson
Business Manager, Michael Page Marketing