Paragraph by paragraph
This is my application for the Senior Marketing Manager role in demand generation at GoCardless. I have worked in B2B marketing since 2018 and have spent the last five years at HubSpot, where I manage a £1.2m annual budget and a team of five.
The size of her budget and team
She names the exact role, then gives her background and her current budget and team. Budget is the quickest way for a marketing leader to judge seniority, so it belongs in the first paragraph.
The campaign I would point you to first ran across paid search, email and webinars last year. It produced 4,200 marketing qualified leads and £2.8m of pipeline, and over the same period we brought our customer acquisition cost down by 28%, mostly by cutting the channels that brought in leads sales never followed up.
One campaign, followed through to pipeline
Leads alone don't impress a head of marketing any more. Sophie follows the campaign through to pipeline and explains how the acquisition cost fell, which tells the reader she works closely with sales.
I also care a lot about the parts of marketing that keep working after a campaign ends. Through search and content we grew our email list from 18,000 to 52,000 subscribers, all signed up through our own forms, and at Mailchimp the content I produced, about 120 pieces a year, contributed to a 45% rise in organic traffic.
Work that lasts beyond a campaign
List growth and organic traffic are slower results, but they keep paying back. The detail that every subscriber signed up through their own forms quietly shows she respects consent rules for email.
Two of the marketers I hired at HubSpot have since been promoted, both within 18 months. I would like to keep building that kind of team, and a company selling to finance teams is the audience I know best. Before changing anything, I would want to spend my first few weeks listening in on your sales team's calls.
Building a team
For a senior role, developing people matters. The promotion figure is specific, and the second sentence connects her experience to this company's customers without praising the company.
I would be happy to share the campaign deck, with client data removed, before we speak.
An offer to show the work
One short sentence that gives the reader a reason to reply. Mentioning that data will be removed shows she knows what can and can't leave her current employer.
Marketing numbers that hold up
Marketing leaders see a lot of impressive looking numbers that don't mean much. The ones they trust are close to revenue and come with a period and a context.
| Number | What it shows | How to write it |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline | Sales opportunities your marketing created. | The value, the period and the campaign or channel. |
| Marketing qualified leads | Leads that met an agreed standard. | Only next to pipeline or revenue, since leads alone can be padded. |
| Customer acquisition cost | What it costs to win a customer. | Before and after, and what you changed. |
| Return on spend | Revenue against money spent. | Say whether it is return on ad spend or overall return, and over what period. |
| Organic traffic and list growth | Audience you own. | Start and end figures, and how you grew them. |
| Engagement rates | Opens, clicks, follows. | Use sparingly, as supporting detail. |
What to send a marketing recruiter
Senior marketing roles often come through specialist recruiters. This version gives them the essentials to pass on.
Talking about attribution honestly
Most marketing results have more than one cause, and experienced readers know it. Claiming a whole revenue figure for one campaign will make them doubt the rest of your numbers.
- Say "contributed to" when other teams or channels played a part, as Sophie does with organic traffic.
- Say which model you used if you quote influenced revenue, such as first touch or multi touch.
- Separate your work from the team's. "My team" and "I" are both fine, as long as the reader can tell which is which.
- Keep the numbers you can defend in an interview, because a good interviewer will ask how each one was measured.
Openings for other marketing jobs
Your first marketing job
Show something you marketed and what happened: a society event, a small business account, your own project. Give real numbers, however small.
I ran social media for my university’s climbing club for two years and grew it from 300 to 2,100 followers, which filled our beginner sessions every term.
B2C or consumer marketing
Consumer marketing leans on brand, retention and revenue per customer. Lead with sales, repeat purchase or brand measures rather than pipeline.
At a direct to consumer skincare brand I ran our paid social budget of £600,000 and lifted repeat purchase within 90 days from 22% to 31%.
Content or SEO role
Show organic results with time frames and the kind of content that drove them.
Over two years I grew organic traffic to our blog from 40,000 to 190,000 visits a month, mostly through guides written with our own support team.
Agency to in house
Explain why you want to work on one brand, and show results you stayed with long enough to measure.
After three years running campaigns for six agency clients, I want to work on one brand long enough to see what a campaign does over a whole year.
Head of marketing
Lead with the team, the budget and the plan you would bring. Give one decision you made about where not to spend.
I lead a marketing team of 12 with a £4m budget, and last year the most useful decision we made was to stop sponsoring events that brought us no pipeline.
What to show from your campaigns
Marketing is visible work, so a hiring manager will often want to see some of it. Choose two or three pieces and be ready to explain each.
| What to share | Why it helps | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| A campaign summary deck | Shows strategy, execution and results together. | Remove customer names and internal figures you can't share. |
| Live content you wrote | Shows your writing and judgment. | Link only to pieces still published under your employer's name. |
| Ads and emails | Shows craft and testing. | Use screenshots without customer details. |
| A short written case study | Shows how you think when you explain your own work. | Keep it to one page. |
In the UK, email marketing to individuals is covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, enforced by the ICO, so never share subscriber lists or anything that identifies a customer, even inside a portfolio.
Mistakes marketing leaders notice
Buzzwords instead of results
Phrases like "growth hacking", "synergy" and "data driven storytelling" make marketing readers wince, because they write this kind of copy themselves.
Name what you did and what it produced, in plain words.
Leads with no pipeline
Lead numbers on their own are easy to inflate, and B2B leaders know it.
Follow leads through to pipeline or revenue, or leave them out.
Taking credit for everything
Claiming all of a revenue figure for one campaign tells the reader you don’t understand attribution.
Use "contributed to" where others helped, and say how it was measured.
A dull letter
A flat letter makes the reader wonder about the rest of your writing.
Write it like your best email: a clear first line, short paragraphs and one clear ask.
Nothing about their audience
Marketing is about audiences, so a letter that never mentions who the company sells to misses the obvious.
Name their customers in a line and connect them to the audiences you know.
Can a marketing letter be designed?
- Length: one page, about 240 words, like Sophie's.
- Design: a designed letter is fine for marketing roles, as long as the text is easy to read and the file is a text based PDF that applicant tracking systems can read.
- Links: one portfolio or case study link in the header, written out in full.
- Greeting: by name with Yours sincerely; marketing leaders are usually easy to find on the company site or a professional network.
The main points from this page
- 1Lead with budget and team to show your level.
- 2Follow results through to pipeline or revenue.
- 3Use "contributed to" when others played a part.
- 4Treat the letter as a piece of copy: clear, short and specific.
- 5Offer to show the work, with customer data removed.
Frequently asked questions
What should a marketing manager cover letter include?
The role, your budget and team, one campaign followed through to pipeline or revenue, a longer term result such as organic growth, and an offer to show your work.
Which marketing metrics should I put in a cover letter?
The ones closest to revenue: pipeline, revenue, acquisition cost and return on spend, each with a period. Use engagement figures only to support those.
Can a marketing cover letter be creative?
A little. A clear, confident voice and a strong first line help. Gimmicks rarely help, because the reader is looking for good judgment.
Should I include a portfolio link?
Yes, one link in the header to a case study or a small set of work. Remove customer data and internal figures before sharing anything.
How long should a marketing cover letter be?
About 250 words. Recruiter versions work best at around 80 words.