3 Tips to Successful Messages
Sending out an email campaign can help you reach many candidates with little effort. But of course you want the candidates to be intrigued by your message and for them to take action. Find out why engagement is so important, and follow our tips to make the most out of every campaign you send.
Why You Should Care About Engagement
- Better Subject Lines = More Opens
- More Opens = More People Reading your Message
- Better Messages = More People Replying to You
- More People Replying = Higher Chance of Finding the Right Person
- Find the Person You Want = Send Less Messages, Save More Time, Get Better Hires
Tip 1: Start with an interesting subject line
The goal of the subject line is to reach an audience that is literally bombarded with email advertisements and convince them to open your message. Subject lines greater than 50 characters are likely to be cut off, especially on mobile devices.
Vague teasers are not going to cut through the inbox clutter. The best subject lines tell what’s inside without overselling.
Different subject lines can be interesting for candidates in your search pool. With the follow up emails you can use different subject lines to get more attention from the candidates.
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Do: New career opportunity in London
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Don’t: Want to make millions?! Reply now to be the first!!! Open this email for all the details!
Tip 2: Create a compelling message
Your message should communicate the most important aspects of the position or your company. You are trying to get the candidate to apply. The subject line has peaked some interest, but with a compelling message you can reel them in. The email should include the necessary information about the job, and include why the candidate should click further. Also think about the candidate pool you are sending the emails to. What would be intriguing for this particular group of job seekers? Think of location, benefits, salary, etc.
You shouldn’t write the full job description, but the message should be clear and interesting enough for the candidate to click on the description for more information. This also goes for company information. You can include a link to your website, but the full history of the company is unnecessary for the first impression.
Use the list below to check that your message is optimized for both desktop and mobile users:
- State the opportunity in the Subject Line
- Align left so it’s easy to read on mobile devices
- Make it easy to Apply by placing links in the email
- Be brief while outlining the job details/benefits
- Close with a strong, clear call to action and encourage candidates to apply.
Tip 3: Avoid Spam Filters
This tip mostly applies to the subject line, but also goes for the whole message. Refrain from the use of punctuation and other special characters since they can trigger some spam filters (i.e. !@#$%^&). When a spam filter caches a message with more links than actual text, there is also a chance the candidate won’t even see the email.
Use the list below to check that your message will avoid common spam filters:
- Mentions of money give off the impression of a “get rich quick” scheme
- Avoid too-good-to-be-true phrases like “once in a lifetime” and “innovative breakthrough”
- Cut out extreme hype in the form of ALL CAPS or multiple exclamation marks!!!
- Remove claims of urgency such as “Last chance to apply!”
- Poor formatting signals that the email is coming from an illegitimate source (multiple text sizes or colors)
- Subject line keywords such as “free” tend to trigger spam filters
Need some inspiration?
Check out our Sample Messages.