The Manufacturing Marketer Marketing's role in workforce recruitment and retention w/ Wes Temple and Ray Reader | IMC Live
Feb 26, 2026
Ray Reeder, Gorilla76 strategist who built employer branding and recruitment programs at a precision machining firm, and Wes Temple, Gorilla76 strategist with B2B and construction marketing experience, discuss how marketing can support hiring and retention. They explore treating recruitment like a go-to-market strategy, aligning employer brand with customer messaging, auditing candidate touchpoints, local recruiting tactics, and community outreach.
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Reuse Customer Messaging To Strengthen Employer Brand
- Employer brand can and should reuse go-to-market messaging by translating customer-facing promises into employee-facing benefits.
- Example: MacTech's 'Great machines, great machinists' communicates product quality to customers and mentorship to hires.
Build K–12 Partnerships To Create A Talent Pipeline
- Use community and school partnerships to build future talent pipelines: work with CT coordinators and K–12 to expose students to skilled trades early.
- Capture success stories and family ties to highlight community roots in recruitment content.
Simple Employee-Owned Messaging Drove Evergreen Hiring
- Allen Fennewald shared a client example where simple Facebook ads highlighting 'employee-owned' did the heavy lifting for recruitment.
- The campaign ran with minimal intervention because the claim matched real company culture.