HR meets Marketing Part 4: Email Campaigns

Email generates $38 for every $1 spent, which is an astounding 3,800% ROI, making it one of the most effective options available.

There are 3.9 billion daily email users. This number is expected to climb to 4.3 billion by 2023. (Statista, 2020)

59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions. (SaleCycle, 2018)

59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI. (Emma, 2018)

This year Jobonics has been looking at several tips & lessons hiring teams can borrow from marketing. Marketing is definitely becoming a critical skill for HRPs especially due to the changing dynamics in the world of business being brought about by technology and demographics. In an age where people are bombarded with thousands of messages per second, it becomes imperative for hiring teams to be innovative in solving their sourcing problems. Apart from other methods we’ve discussed before on hiring in the digital age, we thought we’d look at a few email marketing or outreach tips for recruiters since this is often the first point of interaction for most candidates.

Remember, the goal of any storytelling is to evoke emotion & inspire action.

But first, why does it matter?

• Email is one of the oldest but most effective marketing channels in use.
• Candidates are demanding a different hiring experience that is making room for hiring innovation.
• Emerging technologies are empowering us like never before enabling us to do what we couldn’t do before.
• The age of the individual- There’s a growing need for brands to differentiate themselves by tailoring their marketing efforts. Your communication should not sound like a mass email.
• The demand for authentic voices- In a world where all marketing sounds the same, automated bots have replaced human interaction & paid influencers exist, and customers yearn for brands that have built a real differentiated voice.

OK. So we’ve all agreed to hire more proactively this year, not just post jobs and wait for applications. But how can we get better conversion rates on our job ads or branding calls? How do we keep our talent pipeline engaged & informed whether there are open roles to be filled or not? If we have over 10000 candidates apply through our ATS this year alone, how are we tapping into this opportunity to maintain the person’s interest in our company? How are we using these contacts to share segmented campaigns that may drive more applications for our Women in Engineering program? The statistics speak for themselves regarding the ROI of email marketing. So why aren't many companies investing in this for talent acquisition?

Look at what Smart Insights says about the matter;

• Customer expectations of value are more complex than ever. As well as generally being better informed, they want a connection with brands that go beyond quality products and competitive pricing.
• Emerging technologies are making it easier to cater to customer needs and create opportunities in both B2B and B2C environments
• Engagement initiatives require consistent effort over time. The ability to adapt to shifts in consumer and channel preferences while remaining relevant is critical.
• Targeted audience research is needed to reveal who your customers are, how they behave, and what platforms they prefer to use

Photo by Yogas Design on Unsplash

What you can do.

1. Have pre-sales support- No marketing initiative works on its own. They all together make the sum of the parts more powerful than the whole. If potential recruits have seen or heard from you before, you’ll stand a better chance of moving them to action when they read your email.
2. First impressions matter- We should focus more on the contents of the first & second emails. This includes generating catchy subject lines that attract attention but are also likely not to be marked as Spam which could be a reason some emails are not being opened.
3. Get personal. -As stated in the Lean Startup book “Instead of marketing yourself to millions, sell yourself to one.” Check out the future of social reports by Hootsuite for more on the age of the individual. Recruiters should personalize email campaigns from name, and industry to the messaging and channel used during sourcing. And understanding your prospect well is the only way to do this. As the saying goes, ‘The more data you have on them, the easier it is to convince them.’ This information can be gathered beyond LinkedIn since the majority of users don’t use the app as much too, which leads to a slow click rate. This could be profession-based e.g. Behance for designers, GitHub and Stack Overflow for developers, and more increasingly, personal websites. This goes especially for high-prospect leads who would want better-targeted engagement. For instance, by using LinkedIn or other social media, you can get details of employees at your company who are connected to me and you can use that in the email to either have the person reach out to me or use their story to convince me. More on emotional branding in our follow-up article here.
4. Get visual- To increase email click rates, move towards more visual content than presentations, long emails & PDFs. A picture speaks a thousand words and a video a million. The goal of marketing is to elicit a feeling. And the best way to do this is through visuals. Attach more links to videos and pictures. It also gets tiring & boring reading through a lot of text. As Zuckerberg said, “The future of social is video”. Optimize your recruitment marketing towards the same.
5. Utilize trust messaging & credibility enhancers into the pre-sales stage- Most consumers don’t immediately trust what you sell. Why should they? While you may do a good job with the email or text content, you shared in detail about what you do and why it matters, I’d have more trust in seeing it for myself or hearing it from people other than the CEO. Check out our earlier post on social proof to understand this concept more. For instance, the videos suggested, having real employees share their experiences. Another way is to use testimonials from your customers. I don’t just take your word on the impact you’re making. I’d like to see the customers or employees talk about what the company has done in their lives. If you’re selling me a Tesla by email but your reviews on Glassdoor or your social media responses are terrible, I’ll pass. Using numbers & facts also makes a difference in inspiring trust.
6. Have a sales script — There’s clearly what we refer to as NON-Journey in Design. What is not directly captured in the candidate’s experience? In this case, you send an email, I open it, then go ahead to do other things like checking your social media pages for comments & reviews, find colleagues who work there & engage them, attend an event, etc. This means all employees act as employer ambassadors and should have a ready sales script that is consistent & true, to be used at any time or place. Ensure your branding captures every touchpoint the candidate is likely to interact with & work on enhancing it.
7. Introduce a fear of loss- To reduce the time for the candidate to take action, give them an incentive to take action now. Why should I stop what I’m doing now to act on your email? This works brilliantly for Kim Kardashian marketing. E.g. we’re doing phone call interviews for willing candidates for up to the next 7 days only for this position. Candidates who apply in the next 3 days get in-person interviews or free CV reviews or feedback. Candidates who refer others within 7 days get ABC. Create scarcity, urgency & demand(48 Laws of Power Book) for your job.
8. Use stronger risk reversal- If you’re so confident about your value proposition, include numbers in your communication. Hence the famous quote “Put your money where your mouth is.” E.g. if you’re not happy with your employee experience within your first 3 months/or year, we will do ABC.
9. Got questions?- Offer an opportunity in every contact for the recipient to ask further questions if they have any. This also gives you a chance to see what matters to candidates.
10. Have an opt-in or out statement- Instead of assuming every candidate you reach out to is interested, let them know in the first email that we can proceed if they’re interested in learning more and they can inform us if they’re not interested in receiving our engagement.
11. Repetition- The secret to great advertising is repetition. If the only contact your candidate receives is a standard ‘thank you for applying’ and then your engagement is nil, chances are they will not apply again for your jobs or refer their friends. Marketing is an all-year-round activity that’s never-ending. The good thing is there’s plenty of content & creativity we can put in for those 52 weeks to share content that is educational, inspiring & entertaining.

What kind of content can you share through emails? Well, the list of content is endless. From new job announcements to company structure updates and even alumni engagement, email can help you get there faster.

Do you have further tips on how recruiters can utilize marketing tactics in email campaigns to deliver better outcomes? We’d love to hear them below.

Looking for something more? Check out https://medium.com/jobonics/how-to-write-a-winning-interview-invitation-email-31dca8d72185