Recruitment Marketing Public

Today, over 4.3 billion people use email, a number expected to soar to nearly 4.9 billion by 2027. On average, we receive 121 emails a day, with 96% of us checking email daily. Millennials lead the charge, spending an average of 6.4 hours a day on email.

Why Email

Despite the rise of social media and other digital communication channels, email marketing continues to be a powerful tool for those in sales and marketing, and, of course, recruiting. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Direct Communication: Email allows recruiters to reach out directly to potential candidates, making the communication more personal and targeted than a social media post, for example.
2. High ROI: Email marketing is cost-effective, with a high return on investment compared to other marketing channels.
3. Segmentation, Personalisation and Scheduling: Emails can be segmented, personalised, and scheduled to send – ensuring that the right message reaches the right candidate at the right time.
4. Measurable Results: The effectiveness of email campaigns can be easily tracked and measured, allowing recruiters to adjust their strategies for better results.
5. Wide Reach: Email can reach a large audience quickly and efficiently, making it ideal for mass communication.
6. Less Obtrusive: Candidates can filter or route emails to suit their information needs and preferences, giving them more control over if/when they choose to acknowledge and engage. This is in comparison to a cold call or text message, for example.
7. Multi-generational appeal: Emails are accessible to and accessed by all five generations present in today's workforce; The Silent Generation (born 1925 to 1945), Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964), Generation X (1965 to 1980), Millennials (1981 to 2000), and Generation Z (2001 to 2020).

How to craft an email that converts

Emails are often seen as more formal and professional, making them suitable for detailed communication and initial contact. Candidates might be more likely to check their email regularly for job-related messages. Text messages are generally more immediate and can have a higher open rate, but they might be seen as less formal and could be overlooked if the candidate doesn't recognise the sender's number.

Ultimately, the best approach might involve using both methods strategically based on the context of the communication and the preferences of the candidate. For example, an email can be used for a first introduction and detailed information, while a text message can be used for timely updates or follow-ups.

The Clinch CRM gives users the ability to create and send several different types of email, including Campaign, Workflow, Job Alerts, and one-to-one Candidate Conversational emails. Regardless of the type, the guidelines for crafting effective emails remain consistent.

• Craft short, persuasive messages, 50-125 words is ideal.
• Ensure that all communication, including subject lines, leverages personalisation tokens.
• Test your emails across different devices before sending to candidates.
• Include a minimum of three messages per automated nurture sequence/workflow to increase your response/interest rates. Keep subject lines to 30-50 characters, or 3-5 words.

Always remember to make your message's purpose clear from the outset. Whether you're highlighting a job opportunity or event, sharing some insights into your company culture, or looking to connect with a candidate on a call, let your reader know what to expect in the subject line – and make sure the email body delivers on that expectation. Include a Call to Action to make the next step easy, enrich the candidate experience and, where relevant, return them to your careers site. For example, "View this opportunity now", or "Check out a day in the life of a software engineer at X".

LinkedIn CRM Connect

Clinch is proud to be one of the first organisations globally to partner with LinkedIn and offer the new LinkedIn CRM Connect integration between your Clinch CRM and LinkedIn Recruiter. Using LinkedIn CRM Connect, you can import candidates sourced on LinkedIn directly into your Recruitment Marketing CRM for a centralised database of talent and more organised, more streamlined outreach.

As these candidates themselves have not opted in to your CRM via your careers site, any email outreach you conduct should be put in context. We've included examples below that can be used to guide your initial correspondence.

Example 1: The personalised introduction

When reaching out to potential candidates, it's important to make a personal connection and show that you have taken the time to review their profile. A personalised introduction can help you stand out and increase the likelihood of a response.

Example 2: The job opportunity pitch

If you have a specific job opening that you're looking to fill, you'll want to make a strong pitch to potential candidates. In this template, you can highlight the key requirements for the position and explain why you think the candidate would be a good fit.

Leverage Clinch's AI Content Assistant for email

Recruitment Marketing's AI Content Assistant can help you take your candidate outreach to the next level. Enlist the AI Content Assistant within the platform's Email feature to "Rewrite", "Proofread", and/or "Title" your drafts in the style of your choosing, elevating your existing email content for optimum impact and candidate engagement. Designed to boost productivity and drive efficiency at scale, the AI Content Assistant can be used to enhance conversational emails with individual candidates or to optimise email templates for inclusion in campaigns or workflows.

When to send

Research shows that Tuesdays and Wednesdays tend to see the strongest email engagement rates in terms of opens, with 8 am, 10 am, and 4 pm proving the most fruitful times of day. Consider experimenting with a weekend send, too, as data shows that messages can perform well during those "off-work" days with Saturdays, in particular, garnering open rates of >=66%.

Establish benchmarks for success

The process of creating and sending emails is iterative; you can and will make changes to your messages and sending schedules over time, based on the performance and engagement data available to you in Reports.

When measuring the success of your organisation’s efforts to engage and convert candidates via email using Recruitment Marketing, it can be helpful to keep the following benchmarks in mind:

• Average open rate (No. Emails Received → Opened) for email type Workflow: 64%
• Average open rate (No. Emails Received → Opened) for email type Campaign: 67%

These averages have been calculated using data from over 300 client accounts, far surpassing the average open rate for emails across all industries – 21.33%, according to a 2024 report by backlinko.com.

Additionally, our own customer data has found that 34% of Job Alert recipients who opened the email started a Job Application and 55% went on to complete the application.

Conclusion

While new tools and platforms continue to emerge, email remains a cornerstone of effective recruitment marketing strategies. Indeed, our research has shown that the job search experience is emotionally loaded, with candidates perceiving a lack of timely, personalised, or accurate messaging as an informal rejection. It may be an employer-driven market, but the demand for top talent –spanning a range of backgrounds and career stages– remains strong. With the importance of a robust and authentic employer brand coming into sharp focus in 2025, getting a handle on your candidate outreach is imperative. Given its effectiveness at reaching and engaging a multigenerational workforce, mastering email, in particular, is key. Enhance your recruiting efforts with these best practices to position your company for hiring success.