Police marketing has become a nasty word in public safety. Some leaders hear it and think “fluff,” “spin,” or “ripoff.” Others assume it means posting a few recruitment videos and hoping applicants show up.
Both views miss the point.
Marketing serves as a catch-all. Marketing can provide a certain impression about your agency, but it must go further if you want it to actually help in recruiting.
Here are five myths about police marketing that are keeping agencies understaffed, misunderstood, and reactive.
Myth 1: Police marketing is just recruitment ads
Recruiting ads are one small slice. Marketing includes your careers site, how your recruiters respond to inquiries, what candidates experience in the process, how supervisors talk about the profession internally, and how your agency communicates with the community when something goes wrong.
If your application process is confusing, your careers page is outdated, and your follow-up is slow, no amount of ads will overcome the drop-off. Police marketing is the complete journey, from first impression to first day on the job, and how that story stays consistent across every touchpoint.
Myth 2: Police marketing is “spin” or propaganda
The fastest way to fail is to treat police marketing like image management. People can detect inauthentic messaging instantly, especially candidates deciding whether to risk their future with your organization.
Real marketing is about clarity. It’s telling the truth about the job, the standards, the culture, and the expectations. It’s showing your values in action: how you train, lead, hold people accountable, and treat the public and each other. Trust isn’t built by perfect messaging; it’s built by alignment between what you say and what you do.
Myth 3: We don’t need marketing
Your reputation matters, but it’s no longer enough. Today’s candidates don’t “hear about” your agency the way they used to. They research online, ask peer networks, scan social media, read local news coverage, and judge your professionalism by your digital footprint.
If you don’t control your narrative with accurate information, someone else will control it for you, often through outdated posts, third-party forums, or one-sided headlines. Police marketing is about ensuring the public and candidates can quickly find the truth about your agency, not a distorted version of it.
Myth 4: Marketing is the job of the PIO
Your PIO matters, but police marketing isn’t just press releases and posts. The biggest drivers of your brand are internal: leadership behavior, supervisor competence, training quality, and how you handle everyday decisions.
Candidates don’t just leave agencies; they leave cultures. And cultures are shaped by leaders. Police marketing should be owned at the command level because it’s tied to recruiting standards, hiring timelines, applicant experience, and retention outcomes. If your internal reality doesn’t match your external message, marketing becomes a liability instead of an asset.
Myth 5: Marketing is expensive, and only big agencies can do it
While it’s true that marketing can be very expensive, it’s not with the right company whose goals are aligned with yours. Safeguard Recruiting used to reject the term marketing when it came to recruiting because so many of our clients had spent thousands and got nothing in return, but that wasn’t because of marketing. It was because of the company they chose.
We help clients of all sizes and budgets align their marketing and recruiting efforts, and the results have been incredible.
You don’t need a massive budget. You need consistency, speed, and accountability for outcomes. Small agencies can outperform larger ones simply by being easier to understand, easier to apply to, and more responsive.
What police marketing should actually mean
Police marketing is the systems-level approach to public trust and talent attraction. It is the intersection of brand, process, leadership, and communication, designed to remove friction and increase confidence in your agency.
If you’re serious about staffing stability, police marketing can’t be treated as optional. It’s part of modern leadership. The agencies that win this decade won’t be the ones with the flashiest videos. They’ll be the ones with the clearest message, the fastest process, the healthiest culture, and the strongest follow-through.
