The average sourcer or recruiter possesses a large database of contacts, whether past or present. Whether they can effectively utilize it for their own gain, is another matter entirely.
Although social media has taken over virtually every walk of life, when it comes to customer engagement, it still plays second fiddle to the good old email.
With an ROI of $40 for every $1 spent, email marketing is still the top channel for customer engagement. Here are some essential email marketing tips for everyone who reaches out to a candidate:
1. Subject line
The subject line is the first thing that catches the eye of the target. It must be optimized to ensure maximum open rates of your emails. A lot of other factors come into play to influence open rates, like:
- Personalization (40% increase in open rates)
- Relevance (64% increase in open rates)
- Shared connections
- Whether spam or not
- Length of the subject line (a subject line of 2 to 6 words is likely to be most effective)
Also, it’s a good practice to use your name, rather than your agency’s. It adds a personal touch, plays on the mind of the target, and often leads to better open rates.
2. Choose your time
Simply sending an email is not enough in today’s world. You’ve got to ensure maximum visibility for the prospective lead to open the mail. With people getting busier, it’s essential to know the exact day of the week you should be sending your email. Every day of the week doesn’t have the same impact when it comes to email marketing. Campaign Monitor’s Email Marketing Benchmark Report illustrates this.
Clearly, the best day to get the highest opening rates is Thursday. For the best CTR, choose Tuesday. If you don’t want to be unsubscribed, choose Tuesday. Furthermore, it’s better to avoid emailing on Sundays!
3. Simplicity is key
‘Write to express, not impress’ stands true when it comes to email marketing. Time is of the essence, and your targets don’t want to get confused by bulky, information-heavy emails. They want clear, crisp information and it’s your duty to provide them just that.
Always remember, avoid using jargon and industry-specific terms. You shouldn’t take it for granted that they’ll know. In fact, 60% of candidates try to avoid industry jargon. 33% find it annoying, and 14% find it intimidating. Keep it succinct, get to the point, express, and move on. This practice is more likely to increase your open rates.
4. Send interactive emails
The customers of today want instant gratification. They don’t want to wait to find things out. With the rise of streaming apps like YouTube and Dailymotion, videos on demand have become more popular. Few channels are better than video for customer interaction and engagement. And there are statistics to prove it.
Videos incorporated in emails lead to a rise in CTR by 200 to 300%. Using the word ‘video’ in the email subject line increases open rates by 19%. It’s a great tip to attach videos in your emails for the candidates to get a real-time feel of what he/ she is looking at.
5. Don’t be vague
Clear, concise communication is the key to email marketing, especially when you’re trying to get a candidate to change jobs. The most important thing is relaying the message of the email with the utmost clarity, without being prolix.
And that’s why you need to provide for an efficient Call To Action (CTA), that’ll take the potential lead to the next stage in the sales funnel. It was also found in a study that using a button-shaped CTA increased the CTR by 28% over link-based CTAs!
6. Voice & Tone
The voice and tone of your email body is underrated yet very important aspects of email marketing. Unless there is consistency in your voice and tone of the email, few leads will take you for someone who means what they say. That means you can’t follow different patterns for different emails. You’ve got to stick to a single style. What style you use solely depends on you.
Usually, we’ve seen traditional engineering companies use formats like ‘Respected Sir,’ ‘Good evening, Sir,’ while the recent 21st-century tech companies prefer formats like, ‘Hi, Steve!’, ‘Hi there!’ Regardless of what you choose, it’s important to remain persistent in your approach.
7. No company details
One common complaint from candidates about the emails they receive, is that the emails are all about the selling the company. The person you’re targeting is probably from the same domain as you are, so in all probability, they know their job. Also, there’s always a high chance they’ve already heard about or from you, and know what you do.
So talking about the very basics doesn’t make sense in an email marketing campaign where every word is important. Company details can wait. You can talk about company ideals, mission, and vision, but that’s about it – until they’re on board!
8. Segmentation, targeting, and positioning
Even though there may be thousands in your email list, not all are potential customers. That’s why it’s important to segment the right ones from the wrong, target them, and position yourself favorably towards only them. A segmented campaign has 23% more open rates and 49% more CTR than unsegmented ones.
Therefore, it makes sense to segment the email addresses based on geography, behavior, psychographics, and demographics, target the segment that is most likely to respond and position yourself in a positive light towards the target group. Your efforts become streamlined, you engage the right people, and your success rate improves.
9. GDPR compliance
Become GDPR compliant and protect yourself from fines to the tune of 20 million pounds or 4% of your annual global turnover – whichever is higher! 40% of B2B marketers believe GDPR will hamper their business strategy. Take British Airways, for instance. It is embroiled in a lawsuit of around 180 million pounds over an incidence of the data breach.
GDPR talks about email marketing campaigns only after prior consent by the prospective target, has jurisdiction in the EU, and imposes hefty penalties if proper consent isn’t obtained. Ensuring compliance with GDPR is easy and should be done at the earliest. It’s a very small price to pay for the case where you don’t.
10. Introduce yourself
You probably wouldn’t want to set a meeting with just any representative of a company unless they were someone important, right? If they were just an associate, it wouldn’t make sense for you to, anyway.
That’s why it’s important for you to introduce yourself and clearly mention your hierarchy in the organization. Not only does it sound more professional, it also implies appreciation and a sense of urgency.
Getting approached by someone high up in an organization makes the person being approached feel important. Imagine clicking on the link attached in the email, and discovering the Chief Strategy Officer of a competitor firm just emailed you!
Summary
Following these tips mentioned above can help you generate more leads. However, they aren’t the only things that you should do to improve your email marketing conversions. There are plenty of other things you can do as well. That said, these steps can make a lot of difference when appropriately implemented.