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How 1 (Yes, 1) Email Increased Applications by 267 Percent

Increase Applications through Email Marketing
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The following transcript was taken from InSights, a staffing and recruiting podcast from Haley Marketing Group dedicated to providing quick-hitting takeaways on Social Recruiting, Content Marketing and Employer Branding. To listen to the episode, click play on the player above or visit the episode page [InSights] How to Increase Applications by 250%

 

Brad Bialy: Todd, today, we want to talk to you about a recent case study that you noted for a particular client that you work with, and you shared this in one of our weekly meetings here at Haley Marketing Group. Why don’t you walk us through how one email increased applications by 267%.

Todd Lewandowski: I know it’s a crazy number and it probably seems like an impossible number for a lot of people, but a couple of months ago we designed a series of emails that we call The Candidate Toolkit. And it was part of our HaleyMail program, which is our email and content marketing program. And for these candidate toolkit emails, they were intended to kind of reengage with a candidate database.

Todd Lewandowski: So a lot of our clients out there, they have a huge ATS that’s filled with candidates they may never have spoken to, they spoke to a year ago and never did anything with. So it’s a really great resource just sitting there kind of doing nothing. So we designed these emails to help reengage with them. So there’s about 20 that we have now and all different industries are shown.

Todd Lewandowski: Some of the emails are to ask for referrals, talk about the referral bonus program, to reengage with people you haven’t spoken to in a long time, to just promote your job board and to really drive traffic to the job boards and to obviously hopefully increase applications and increase really great candidates for our clients.

Todd Lewandowski: So we had it, we did a test one with a client a couple of weeks ago and in the first week that they sent out the mailing, and it was just a very basic email that had a link back to the main job board, applications, as you said, went up 267%. Conversion rate, which is the number of people who view the jobs or that actually applied, went up 256%. Their applications per job went up 302% and their cost per application went down 72%.

Todd Lewandowski: We’ve had a couple of clients that have done these and that was really the best results that we’ve seen and from talking with the client, I know that they received a bunch of really great candidates as a result of this in resumes.

Brad Bialy: So Todd, if I’m hearing you correctly, email marketing is not dead.

Todd Lewandowski: Like the old Mark Twain Line says, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Yeah, I really disagree with all of these industry stories that are saying that email marketing is dead. I’ve been managing our email clients for 16 years and we haven’t seen a really big decrease in opens and in click-throughs. So no, it’s not dead and it’s still one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to stay in touch with clients and candidates.

Brad Bialy: Matt, on the recruitment marketing side of the house, I know you have that recent SmashFly report (2019 Recruitment Marketing Benchmarks Report). Why don’t you tell us about that?

Matt Lozar: We talked about the benchmark report that SmashFly composed of Fortune 500 companies a few episodes ago, and one of their statistics to separate the companies who are the top in recruitment marketing from the companies who are the worst was with email marketing. And only 5% of Fortune 500 companies were sending content other than jobs to their talent network.

Matt Lozar: So all of those email addresses in your ATS, all of those candidates you have that you’re not reactivating, all they’re getting is jobs. All they’re getting is those latest openings. You’re not building any trust, any thought leadership, anything in their mind besides I’m just going to hammer you away with our open positions.

Brad Bialy: So Todd, I know that this specific example was about showcasing great job opportunities, but when we think about email marketing, what else could staffing and recruiting firms be showing in their email marketing campaigns?

Todd Lewandowski: Well, there’s a lot of things. When we talk about email marketing, I separate it into two areas. One is relationship marketing. What are you doing to stay top of mind to position yourself as an expert? And then two, what is more often, I don’t want say direct selling, but the emails where you’re trying to get a direct response, like an email that we talked about before, trying to drive people to your job board, or sending out a list of top candidates to your clients and prospects, something that’s intended to get the phone to ring to get email replies right away. Those are kind of the two ways that I go.

Todd Lewandowski: So in terms of other ways to stay in touch with candidates, sending resume tips, sending interviewing skill tips. What are the skills that you’re going to need in the next five years? Stuff like that to really not only just say, “Hey, here are some great jobs,” but how can you improve yourself and how can you go from a B level candidate to an A level candidate?

Brad Bialy: And Matt, we’ve talked about the battle for attention multiple times on Insights. You never know when a potential candidate is actually ready to apply for that job. I think email marketing, whether it’s a monthly email, a biweekly email, whatever it is, staying top of mind and saying, “Hey, when you’re ready, we’re here,” I think that’s the best thing that you can do.

Matt Lozar: It’s the cheapest, easiest way to stay top of mind with both candidates, clients, prospects. It really to me, if I was a staffing firm owner, it would be a no brainer thing to do. For so many of our clients, they send out emails to clients and to prospects, but they don’t want to do candidate marketing.

Matt Lozar:  Yet when you ask them, what’s the biggest issue you’re having right now? Well, I can’t find any candidates. Well, what are you doing for that? Well, we’re not doing anything. It’s one of those Aha moments where you go, “Well, why aren’t you doing anything? This is so easy to do, to stay in touch with these candidates. Why would you not be sending them at least a monthly newsletter, monthly information, something?”

Brad Bialy: Right. And along with that, even if you’re not looking for a job, do you know somebody that is? Can you refer a friend to us, a family member? Do you know anybody that we might be able to assist? If it’s hard for them to find a job opportunity right now, let us be their advocate. Let us work for them and put them to work in a great opportunity.

Matt Lozar: Yep, absolutely.

Brad Bialy: Well, Todd, I think it’s pretty safe to say that email marketing is not dead. And by driving 267% increase in applications by sending one email marketing, it’s a no brainer to me as well. Matt and I, we want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing your insights with our audience.

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