Do you have catchy email subject lines? That’s awesome! So does an army of seasoned talent acquisition professionals. A large portion of recruiters and sourcers have elevated their game thanks to people who share in our community like Mike Chuidian, Steve Levy, and Holly Mallowes (all of them you can meet and greet at the upcoming SourceCon in ATL btw). Heck, there is even a candidate engagement archive on the SourceCon website you can find it here.
Last year in Atlanta Maren Hogan dropped an edgy preso in a room full of sourcers with a simple question: “Who would win a sourcing battle between a marketer and a sourcer?” As people shifted uncomfortably in their seats, I wanted to be honest with myself. A marketer would get in front of a person better and faster than I could. So I wanted to evolve my process. One of her points was this: “Marketers Understand What Sourcers Are Just Learning.” It’s happened time and time again in our industry. We evolve, or we die. So how was I going to evolve my outreach strategy? What would give me the biggest bang for my buck? I landed on videos.
Thank you, Netflix and YouTube.
Chances are you have probably streamed/binged something on Netflix or have watched a YouTube video this week. They both have a wild user adoption rate and their products have “changed how we as a society consume media.” said Maren Hogan. It’s no surprise to anyone that a click race is always won by video. Hands down. Remember this as you engage your candidates.
“Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021.” Source
I stayed on the lookout for a sweet video engagement tool I could use. The first place I looked? Here of course! Greg Hawkes wrote the first article I saw (I pronounce it like HAWK-ES… he hates it, but secretly loves it). He had mentioned Loom and several others, but I decided to check out Loom. I also found that Mark Lundgren has also been using Loom. After some arm twisting by Elena Valentine, I decided to use it. Yes, it takes a village.
Loom is a simple video messaging platform with a free option and a pro option. Since I first started using it, they have introduced a few cool features like password protected video links, allowing your videos to be indexed by Google, and even has a desktop app. Here’s a 90-second demo video on the platform – check it out! It’s also not lost on me that I was wearing the same shirt when I wrote this than in the last few videos I recorded. I showered. Promise.
So why video?
Human media consumption statistics aside, there is some strong evidence that will/should make you raise an eyebrow. Half of our job is getting the attention of people in a meaningful way. Assume that three recruiters have already messaged your potential candidate before you unless you’re in tech recruiting, then it’s more like ten.
- Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%. Source
Think about that clickthrough rate. We can use all kinds of tools to know when someone opens our emails – which is good – but a high click-through rate means action. That’s what we want.
- We are conditioned to watch videos
80%+ users of Twitter watch video (depending on the study)
500M hours videos are watched on YouTube daily that’s 57,080 years worth of footage.
85% of the US Internet audience watch videos
My first initial test was on one role, and I sent a total of 30 videos.
- The first 30 videos yielded an 85% response rate (that’s 24)
- 50% of those responses were in 24 hours or less
- 12 of those videos sent were engaged and screened
So why haven’t we started using video?
I’ve talked about video messaging in client training, recruiter meetings, collaboration sessions, Facebook postings, etc. Here are the main two reasons I get.
I don’t like the way I look.
I don’t like the way I sound.
I get it. Not many people like the way they look/sound on camera. Pssst, here’s a secret. Neither do I, but it’s not about you or me. It’s about THEM. It’s about the person on the receiving end of your message. It’s about you taking the time to stand out from the crowd. It makes your potential candidate feel like you give a damn because you should.
Or you can keep sending busted emails like this one up to you.
