REcruitment email marketingThe recruitment industry is tough, competitive and subsequently requires a significant degree of persistence when it comes to finding and placing new candidates.  So how can recruitment email marketing help optimise responses?

Email marketing is brilliantly suited to this sector, but it doesn’t offer a silver bullet for recruitment firms; you still need to work very hard at it to get yourself heard.

The trick lies in optimising your emails so they elicit the widest response from your subscribers, and we’ve got some brilliant ways to do just that.

Start with your analytics

We’ll assume that you’ve already sent one or two campaigns, therefore before you start your next one it’s important to take a look in the rearview mirror.

How did your last recruitment email marketing campaign perform? What was the open rate like? How many people clicked-through and does the number of unsubscribes concern you?

Ask yourself these questions before penning your next email and learn from the last send. You’ll have got certain things right and certain things wrong, and your analytics will shine a light on what those elements were.

Only turn to email when it’s likely to be effective

Because email marketing is so accessible it’s easy to lean on it as a digital crutch.

Don’t. You don’t need to use email at every stage of the recruitment process. If you do, you’ll just lose subscribers and decrease your chances of gaining a decent response rate.

For instance, in your industry, it might be that the initial contact with candidates is best conducted over the phone or via LinkedIn. If that’s the case, use email further down the line when you need to nurture the relationship.

You’ve been in this game long enough to know when sending an email is inappropriate, so if it feels like that, don’t press send.

Always personalise recruitment email marketing

Client contact in the recruitment industry is always personal in nature; this is people’s careers you’re dealing with and businesses who want to find the best talent.

Sending blanket emails simply doesn’t work, which is why you need to personalise every recruitment email marketing communication you send.

Add the candidate’s name to the subject line and email intro, and if you do need to send a mass email (i.e. for a position that requires specific skills), use your database and email marketing platform to segment a list of people to whom the position will be of most interest.

Test the subject line on yourself

We all know how important subject lines are in email marketing, but they’re also the easiest element to screw up.

Try this. Compose your email a couple of days before it needs to go out and schedule a send to yourself for the following day. Chances are, you’ll forget about it, until it arrives, but when it does, see how the subject line makes you feel.

If it grates or appears entirely uninteresting, you’ve got it wrong. If you find yourself immediately opening the email only to realise it’s the one you created… bravo!

Strike the right tone; be human

There’s no bigger turnoff in the recruitment industry than robotic business speak and long-winded job descriptions.

Whether you’re pushing a vacant position or attempting to place a brilliant candidate, make sure you strike the right tone. Write your email copy as you would speak it – naturally and without any hint of business bullsh*t!

Wrapping up

Once again, we’ve only scratched the surface above, but if you’re new to recruitment email marketing or have hit a roadblock with your campaigns, the above should help considerably.