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Get more marketing value from recruitment software
Effective client contact management and timely, personalised
business communications are essential to the success of any
recruitment company. The first step in getting more from your
marketing and sales activity is to better understand your
existing and prospective client base.
In today's frenetic business environment it's simply not enough
to send generic email shots to everyone on your database and
hope they generate some interest. With numerous demands on their
time and attention, your existing clients and prospects surely
won't appreciate another bland missive to an already bulging
Inbox. Worse still, they might simply block all future email
communications from you.
An audience of one
The days of "load and send" email campaigns are long over. Today
email marketers are focused on increasing response, conversion
and retention rates using a combination of personalisation,
segmentation and triggers. Increasingly segmented and triggered
emails are driven by behavioural data, such as which links a
recipient clicked, whether someone did or did not open an email,
what pages they visited on the sender's website or whether they
did or did not take a specific action.
Design matters
Something like 95 percent of all commercial email campaigns are
sent in HTML today. As a result, design has become critical for
a number of reasons. Recipients might have their email setup to
block images. Many people now use their Outlook "preview panel"
as a handy filtering tool to weed out unwanted emails. Designers
also need to consider inconsistent rendering by different email
clients. The way an email looks on Gmail differs from Yahoo, for
example. Some designers have adopted a purely graphical approach
to email campaigns in an attempt to bypass content filters, but
this brings us back to where we started.
Bombarded by evermore junk mail, most people will only read
about 15-20 commercial emails per day, and in many cases much
less. As a result, layout, readability and usability are
critical to differentiating your emails from everyone else's. In
reality your email will have just seconds to provoke interest,
convey value and trust, and prompt action.
Democracy at work
Email has been described as the ultimate democratic form of
marketing communication. After all, it's the recipient who
decides whether they want to opt-in or opt-out of your mailing
list; if and when they open, read and act on your email; how
much information they wish to share with you; and when they want
to unsubscribe.
Recruiters who do not wish to fall foul of increasingly
stringent anti-spam legislation and want to build genuinely
lasting client relationships will learn to deploy various
tactics to increase trust and build brand loyalty, such as
ensuring only permission-based emails are sent from your
company, switch to a double-opt in subscription process, and
publicise your privacy policies. Those recruiters recognised and
trusted by clients and prospects will be able to mine for more
information. In turn, this will enable them to deliver higher
value emails through ever-greater personalisation and
segmentation.
Recruitment software mail centres
Today's sophisticated, made for purpose recruitment
applications, such as Bond Adapt, RDB Pro and Eclipse integrate
with third party email clients and offer a range of contact
management or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) features.
Chris Pawsey, Business Development Team Leader at Bond
International Software (UK) Ltd, explains: "Bond Adapt
integrates email via Microsoft Outlook. Since Outlook is by far
and away the market leading product we (Bond) make use of many
of the functions therein. It is also possible to integrate Bond
Adapt with other email clients."
It is this contact management or CRM functionality that allows
recruitment agencies and staffing professionals to create and
retain email, letter and fax templates; conduct email marketing
campaigns; and record response data. However, what these
applications cannot do is prepare marketing materials, or ensure
promotional activity is properly monitored and measured to
ensure continuous improvement.
Matter of design
If you want your emails to succeed in generating interest in
your services then they must always look professional. Don't
make the same mistake many applicants do when sending
CVs/resumes in response to job advertisements i.e. fail to spell
check and proofread them properly. If you send an email full of
spelling mistakes, it will cost you sales and could permanently
damage your credibility.
Next, send test versions of your emails to yourself. You can
sign up to any number of free email account providers such as
Yahoo, MSN Hotmail and Google's Gmail. Include these email
accounts in your test mailings. The point here is to catch any
formatting errors that might show up in the different email
programs. It's quite common to find a HTML email that looks
great in Outlook and is missing all of its images in Yahoo or
Gmail.
Before you send your email you should also ask yourself one
fundamental question: "How relevant is this email to the
recipient?" Don't assume that the recipients will automatically
see why your email is relevant to them. Often it needs to be
spelt out. Succinctly explain how your recruitment company can
help them and why now is such a good time to spend money on your
services. You might want to consider using a professional
copywriter to help you.
Two of the most effective ways to highlight the relevance of
your offer are to put a strong emphasis on the benefits and make
your offer exclusive. Tailor any promotions you run so that they
are exclusive to your recipients, giving them a strong reason to
act immediately.
As well as facing an avalanche of commercial emails every time
we visit our In-boxes these days there's also the ubiquitous
spam, much of which comes with the added threat of viruses. In
fact, a recent article in London's Metro daily newspaper
suggested that as many as one in every 43 emails received
world-wide is infected with some harmful entity. So, not only
does your email have to compete for the recipient's limited time
and attention, it also has to overcome their fears and
apprehensions.
Even with a good understanding of your target audience,
establishing which email design elements work will be a matter
of trial and error. To help you identify weaknesses and build on
strengths, it's a good idea to take one email design and then
produce two or three variations (split test). For example, you
might use the same headline and supporting image, but change the
subject line. Response levels and email tracking will enable you
to identify strengths and weaknesses of your promotion.
Email Design Tips
Effective subject lines
Subject lines should be clear, direct, attention grabbing and
benefits related, such as "Reduce your recruitment spend by 60%."
Get your hooks into 'em
Just like other forms of advertising, emails have to capture the
reader's attention within the first couple of sentences.
Otherwise, it's all over. The hook should be a distillation of
your email's overall message and strongly appeal to the reader's
self-interest e.g. what do they get, how do they benefit.
Sign posts
Generally it's considered best practice to keep your emails text
length to about 250 words. The body copy must support your
"hook" with a clear focus on benefits, and then close with a
clear, direct call to action. It's extremely important that
there is no ambiguity about what you want the recipient to do
e.g. "click here," "register now," "reply."
Mind your language
A well-written email message uses the active voice and short,
concise sentences. This is critical as the stark reality is that
most readers won't progress beyond the first couple of lines.
You have to be clear, direct and focus on how your offer
benefits the reader. Avoid diluting your message by making more
than one offer or going into needless detail. At the same time,
it's important that you include all essential information such
as the cost savings to be gained, contact details and deadline
to respond, for example.
Readability Almost as important as what you say is how you
present your text to the reader. Try to keep your paragraphs
short - no longer than five lines. Use 1.5 or double line
spacing, and a font that's easy on the eye and big enough to
read. Use bullets to emphasize key points, but avoid text in all
caps or multiple exclamation marks. Set text width at 68
characters or less per line so it displays correctly in e-mail
applications. Also, avoid breaking or wrapping URLs into two
lines - it may cause technical problems. The more barriers you
eliminate the better your chances of a positive response.
Note As mentioned earlier, you should always give recipients the
option to "opt-out" or "unsubscribe" and elect to be permanently
removed from your mailing list. Failure to do this or to act on
the recipient's wishes is not only bad business practice, but
could make you liable to prosecution under current UK anti-spam
legislation. The Office of the Information Commissioner enforces
UK regulations. Any breaches of enforcement orders can result in
fines of up to 5,000 in a magistrate's court, or an unlimited
fine if the case is heard by a Crown Court (trial by jury).
Keeping track
Having segmented your audience, prepared your marketing message
and sent your email out, you'll want to know it has been
received and acted upon. Tracking email responses is essential
if you are to identify and eliminate weaknesses and build on the
strengths of your campaigns. Here are some suggestions that will
enable you to monitor and analyze the effectiveness of your
email marketing for free. For accuracy, be sure to use a unique
tracking code for each of your different email test variables
and keep accurate records.
MS Outlook provides you with a simple tracking facility which
informs you when a message was sent, when it arrived and when it
was opened. The downside here is if the recipient just glanced
at your email in the panel view of their Inbox and then deleted
the item you'll only know because you will never receive a
corresponding "read" message from your Outlook tracker.
To switch on MS Outlook 2003 email tracking:
Launch MS Outlook.
Click on the Tools menu at the top of the page, scroll down and
click on Options.
Click E-mail Options, which is top-right of the Preferences page.
Next, click Tracking Options.
Select the Read receipt and/or the Delivery receipt check boxes.
Click OK.
One idea is to simply ask respondents to place something unique
in the subject line that acts as a tracking code for your email
campaigns. However that puts the burden of responsibility on
your respondents, which is something you might to avoid. Instead
us the following little trick to automatically place what you
want in the subject line of a response email message:
Click on this example:
mailto:user@domain.com?subject=Send-Info.aboutyourcompany
Replace user@domain.com in the above example with the email
address you want to use and a unique campaign code.
When the above link is clicked on in your email promotional
message, the text immediately following ?subject= automatically
appears in the subject line of a new email message. This should
work in most email packages.
Vital statistics
If you have access to even the most basic website statistics you
can track hits to your web pages by placing a question mark (?)
after your web address (URL) when used in each email promotion,
followed by your unique tracking code.
For instance, you send 3 email promotions. Each carries a
corresponding URL tracking code:
Email Ad 1. http://www.yourdomainhere.com/homepage/htm?EM1 Email
Ad 2. http://www.yourdomainhere.com/clients/htm?EM2 Email Ad3.
http://www.yourdomainhere.com/applicants/htm?EM3
Hyperlinks with your own unique tracking codes added to the end
of a URL don't adversely affect the ability of recipients to
access your web pages in any way, but will show up in the server
log files. To determine the exact number of hits that a
particular email generates, look at your log files within hours
or days of sending your mail shot. You can check with your ISP
or web host for access to your log files.
If you don't mind having other peoples advertising on your
website then there is a range of free website tracking services
available. Take a look at AddFreeStats.com and FreeStats.com.
Landing pages
Having created a cracking email campaign it's vital you follow
through. Creating email or advertisement specific landing pages
is another excellent way to track your recipient or audience
response rates. Landing pages allow you to build on the initial
success and interest generated by your email or advertisement. A
landing page gives you the opportunity to present more detailed
product or service information, answer commonly asked questions,
overcome resistance, build confidence, and gather client or
prospect data by including a short form, for example.
Your landing page should reflect the look and feel of your email
or advertisement in terms of design layout, tone of voice,
fonts, images and colours. In turn, these must be sympatric to
the overall design of your company website. Consistency is the
golden rule here.
Pack your landing pages with lots of recruitment specific
keywords and then submit the individual URLs (web addresses) to
search engines. Search engine spiders love landing pages because
they are so targeted, and traffic searching for your keywords
and phrases will find itself directed your way.
By using some of the simple, free tracking and analysis methods
explained here you can continually refine your email marketing,
measure its effectiveness and get more from your recruitment
software. For more information and professional help preparing
your next email campaign, sales promotion or advertising visit
www.charlie-the-copywriter.co.uk
Contact Charlie Trumpess Charlie the Copywriter
charlie@charlie-the-copywriter.co.uk
http://www.charlie-the-copywriter.co.uk
About the author:
Charlie Trumpess is a marketing communications copywriter with
over a decade's corporate experience. Today he offers freelance
copywriting services to small and medium size businesses.