CASE · B2B / SAAS
Recruitment: marketing and sales that stopped working past each other
Memorise connected marketing and sales for a recruitment company and lifted the average ranking from position 35.7 to 20.0. Marketing produced and the sales team sold, but in parallel tracks: content never reached the sales process, ads drove to the wrong pages, and 69 percent of traffic came via brand searches. We mapped the buyer journey, built sales enablement in HubSpot and an SEO structure that reduced the dependence on the brand.
Client: Recruitment and staffing company with several brands · Timeframe: Ongoing engagement
- Industry
- Recruitment and staffing (B2B)
- Structure
- Several brands under one roof
- Market
- Sweden
- Engagement
- Connected marketing and sales, plus SEO
35,7 → 20,0
average ranking over the period
69%
of organic traffic via brand searches at the start
~1 000 000
search impressions during the period
The starting point
Marketing produced and the sales team sold, but the two functions moved in parallel tracks that never met. Plenty happened: campaigns launched, leads came in, meetings were booked. Yet the conversion rate was lower than it should be and the sales cycle longer than it needed to be.
The data pointed to a brand dependency. 69 percent of organic traffic came via brand searches, people who already knew the company. Only 31 percent came from generic terms, the traffic that represents new business. The average ranking sat at position 35.7, effectively invisible to anyone who didn't already know the company existed.
Going through the flows showed why. Content was produced but never reached the sales team in a structured way. Ads drove to generic pages instead of to what the ad promised. And leads were handled manually in inboxes and spreadsheets, without nurturing and without a link back to which activity actually produced a qualified lead.
What we did
We treated marketing and sales as one system, not two departments. First understand how the audiences actually behave, then give the sales team the right material at the right moment, and finally connect everything so each lead could be followed from the first click to a closed deal.
Map the buyer journey per segment
We mapped how the primary segments actually search and decide: employers looking for specialist recruitment, companies needing interim solutions and candidates in priority sectors. For each segment we defined the questions that drive first contact, the objections along the way and what's needed for a decision.
Sales enablement per segment
With the journeys mapped, we built a library of sales material, segmented per audience and adapted for early, middle and late stages. Everything went into HubSpot with clear instructions on when and how to use it, so the sales team stopped improvising and started working from a shared toolbox.
HubSpot sequences and traceability
We built automated sequences by where the lead came from and which segment it belonged to, and connected the ad platforms to HubSpot. For the first time the company could see which campaigns generated leads that actually converted, all the way from ad click to deal.
SEO that reduces brand dependency
A 69 percent brand dependency leaves the company exposed: if brand awareness drops, the traffic collapses. We built organic visibility on generic and geographic terms, with service pages optimised for how employers actually search.
Disciplines in the assignment
Read more about the method
The outcome
The average ranking improved from position 35.7 to 20.0 over the measurement period. The site went from effectively invisible on most terms to taking a place in a range where clicks start to be generated. During the period the site gathered nearly a million search impressions, and a clear share of that visibility began converting into traffic as the positions rose.
One detail in the data steered the prioritisation: mobile users clicked twice as often as desktop, 1.88 percent against 0.83. Meeting that traffic with a mobile-ready experience became a direct lever on how much of the reach turned into visits.
The most tangible change in the daily work was that the sales team stopped redoing the job from scratch for every new prospect. They had the right material, at the right moment, for the right audience, and lead follow-up largely ran itself. The client's own feedback was a shorter sales cycle and a higher conversion rate.
Learnings
- A high brand dependency looks good in the report but hides a vulnerability. New business requires visibility beyond those who already know you.Read more: Brand dependency is a hidden vulnerability
- Content the sales team doesn't use isn't an asset, it's a cost.
- Ads that drive to the wrong landing page aren't marketing, they're wasted budget.Read more: Conversion, not traffic: the metric that actually counts
- Marketing and sales aren't two departments but one flow. When they don't connect, you pay double for half the result.Read more: Marketing and sales are one flow
Involved in the assignment
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