HR and Marketing: Unexpected Allies in Business Strategy

Recently, I spoke with a CEO about my background. I mentioned that before becoming a digital marketing strategist, I spent nearly a decade in HR, working my way up to senior HR business partner.
His response?
"Wow, I've never thought about how transferable HR skills are to marketing."

That moment stuck with me.
What’s obvious to us who have experience in the field isn't always obvious to others.
So, I want to break it down.
– How HR and marketing are deeply aligned.
– Why the shift made so much sense for me
– And how this combination might be the superpower that more businesses need right now.

It Started with Recruitment and Conversion Funnels

When we recruit for our departments, we think like marketers:
– Which channels bring the best-fit candidates?
– What are our conversion rates at each step?
– How can we optimize sourcing like we do ad spending?

It wasn't just about traffic (or applications).
It was about quality, targeting, and cost per hire.
Sound familiar?

Then came ideal candidate profiles.
We analyzed:
- Which companies did they come from.
– What skills, behaviors, and mindsets they share.
– What motivates them.

We also learned how to tailor our communication to the individual's profile.

If you work in marketing, you can see the parallel.
– This is buyer persona work.
– This is target audience segmentation.

Retention = LTV?
In HR, we cared about more than just hiring.
We also tracked how long people stayed.
We knew that, for them to be profitable to the business, it took 6–18 months, depending on the role.

We think about LTV (lifetime value) in marketing the same way:
– How long do customers stay?
– How much do they spend?
– How much does it cost to acquire and retain them?

Same principles. Just a different language.

From Internal Communications to Brand Voice
As a senior HR business partner, I shaped internal communications, rolled out company values, and aligned cross-functional teams.
Do you know what that trained me for?
– Clear Messaging
– Voice of Brand
– Team alignment
– Consistency across channels!

Now, all of that lives on the marketing side of what I do, especially for founders and small brands who don’t yet have a clear voice or structure.

And now: Marketing + Behavioral Science
I blend my HR background with digital marketing, neuromarketing, and DISC personality profiling.

After all, marketing is also applied psychology.
It's about people.
It's about understanding what they want, how they decide, and what builds trust.

HR gave me the tools to understand behavior.
Marketing gave me the tools to apply that understanding to customer journeys.

Why This Matters for Businesses:

Most companies compartmentalize HR and marketing.
But what if you connected the dots?

This isn’t just a story about my career.
It’s a strategy.
I believe the next generation of growth will come from the bridges we build between disciplines, not the boxes we put them in.