Recruitment marketing is about relationships; connecting with candidates, and attracting, engaging, nurturing and converting the best for your organisation. Trust is paramount, and key to establishing –and maintaining– that trust, is good communication.
Sure, it’s good to talk. The irony, however, is that sometimes, this is easier said than done. Luckily, recruitment marketing comes complete with CRM and Automation functionality designed to make candidate communications a breeze.
Here are some top tips for rolling out a communications strategy that not only engages and converts, but saves you time, too.
Know your audience
When you know who you’re talking to, it becomes much easier to know what to say and how to say it. For example, once you’ve identified “all candidates based in London,” “all candidates with a demonstrated interest in engineering,” or “all candidates moved to ‘Interview’ stage,” it makes sense to get the conversation started with messaging that speaks to that specific shared attribute. Your candidates will appreciate more targeted correspondence, as opposed to an impersonal catch-all message.
Pro tip: Use the ‘Lists’ feature in your PageUp Recruitment Marketing CRM to filter and sort your broader talent network into smaller pools based on one or more shared attributes.
Speak their language
Recruitment marketing software gives you the tools to connect and engage using a combination of both brand and personal voice. Make the most of visually engaging, HTML-friendly email themes when emailing many candidates at once to showcase your company’s brand colours, fonts, imagery and language.
Pro tip: When context calls for a more personal touch, for example, requesting further information from an individual candidate, or inviting them to interview, try the more conversational plain text email feature and send a message directly from the candidate’s profile.
Think outside the (in)box
Brief, immediate and with noticeably higher open and response rates than email, it’s easy to see why SMS is the communications method of choice for both candidates and today’s forward-thinking recruiter.
Pro tip: Demonstrate your willingness to communicate with candidates on their terms and improve outreach efficacy by using text messaging in conjunction with email and/or phone calls. Recruitment marketing software not only makes this hybrid approach possible, but easy, too.
Plan ahead
Embrace a proactive communications model. Plan and build your emails and or SMS text messages in advance so that candidates receive personalised messaging that’s on brand and on time.
Pro tip: Map out your candidates’ journey and craft messaging that speaks to each of the key stages and milestones along the way.
Automate it
Leverage Workflows to trigger personalised emails and/or SMS texts to candidates automatically. For example:
- Candidate opts-in to your talent network; workflow sends a personalised email thanking them and reminding them to check their inbox in a few week’s time for their first newsletter.
- Candidate’s status changes in the ATS. Workflow triggers an SMS inviting them to check their email for instructions on how to proceed.
Pro tip: Set up an auto-nurture campaign in your PageUp Recruitment Marketing CRM to capture candidates who started an application but haven’t yet completed and watch your conversion rate jump.
Measure and modify
Track the success of your automation. Understand which nurture campaigns, emails and text messages are getting most traction through real time actionable insights, and rewrite / reschedule as required.
A communications strategy, when implemented successfully, can make all the difference to your recruitment marketing efforts. By actioning the tips featured here and leveraging the tools and user-friendly functionality available to you through PageUp Recruitment Marketing, you are on course to deliver a stand-out candidate experience that will position your company as an employer of choice, bolster your employer brand and, in turn, can help your recruiting team meet those key objectives like shorter time to fill and reduced cost-per-hire.
