A checklist for your perfect user recruitment email

You have to be friendly & informative, but succinct

A recruitment email is the gateway to your users. You have so much you want to learn from them — how are they using other products like yours, do they understand your site’s navigation, do they have any difficulty completing your checkout process?

And while a recruitment email may seem simple, it needs to be the perfect combination of informative and friendly while also succinct. I’ve written a lot of user recruitment emails and have slowly developed a formula that gets participants to reply.

Recruitment Email Checklist

1. Introduce yourself

Who are you? Start off your email by giving your name, your role, and who you are working with. That might be the client you are working on this project with or the name of your company. This short introduction helps give your potential participant an idea of who you are and may also give you some legitimacy in their eyes if they recognize the name of your company or client.

2. Briefly explain why you are reaching out

Alright, they know who you are, but why are you reaching out to them? In a sentence or two, explain what you are working on and how they can help. Make sure to keep this brief — it’s great to let them know what you are doing, but you don’t want to bore them with the details and risk them glazing over the rest of your email.

3. Emphasize how their input will help

People love to hear why they are important or how their efforts can help. Seriously. If you’re redesigning a system that already exists and you’re reaching out to current users, let them know that they are the experts and that their input is essential to your work. If you’re designing a new product or website, tell them they’ve been selected as an ideal candidate to help make the experience work best for them and others like them. Don’t go over the top but give them a little boost to make them feel important and that their time with you really is important.

4. Give them a time estimate

If someone has made it this far, they may very well be interested in participating. The next thing they’re going to want to know is what kind of time commitment this is. Are you meeting remotely over Zoom for 30 minutes or are they going to have to make their way to your office and dedicate half a day?

5. Offer an incentive (if you can)

You’ve given them the major details — now it’s time to offer an incentive. Oftentimes, you may be able to offer a cash incentive, gift card, or something of the sort to a participant. If you can, GREAT, do it. Sometimes an incentive can even be something as simple as free snacks for those participants you are meeting in person. If you can’t offer an incentive, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve been working on a project where we cannot offer anything to our participants, but they are still eager to help as we are improving a system that is long overdue for an upgrade!

6. Ask if they would like to participate

Duh. You’ve led them this far. Now wrap it all up nicely and ask if they would like to participate in your research. You can do this in a couple of different ways. I often ask if they would like to participate and then send available times or a doodle poll after they confirm. You can send those times in the initial recruitment email. I’ve done this before and it has worked, although I sometimes feel like it can be jumping the gun a bit. Also, it makes your initial email more complicated and may reduce replies if they don’t read through all of the information.

If you do send available times and are scheduling remote sessions, be sure to include your time zone. I cannot tell you the amount of times I have had a participant select a time and then be confused when I send them their calendar invite or just not show up because I’m on Eastern standard and they’re on Mountain time.

8. Include an email signature

Lastly, finish off your email with a signature. I include my name, title, company, and address. This repeats the information I presented in the beginning of the email and also looks more professional than just signing with your name. The appearance of a company and location can also help give you some more legitimacy.

9. Don’t be afraid to follow up

If you aren’t hearing back, give it a few days and don’t be afraid to send a follow up. Emails get lost all the time and someone who may actually want to participate may have just forgotten to reply. Don’t hound them, but no one will get upset with one follow up email. Re-emphasize what you are looking for and how they can help. Sometimes I’ve even included some images here or a gif of our current designs to help get them excited.

That’s all there is to it! Writing an email is not difficult, but it’s important to include the right pieces of information without dragging on and losing participants’ interest.

Is there anything else you include in your recruitment emails that has been particularly effective?

Curious how to reach out to not just recruiters, but other UX designers for networking purposes?

> Read The UX Designer’s Guide to Informational Interviews