Tired of Unsubscribes? 5 Email Tips Every Recruiter

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Recruiters, marketers, automators... If you’re running regular email campaigns to candidates or clients, with tech like Bullhorn Automation, unsubscribes are either a fact of life or something you dread, and may even be the reason you are not ambitious enough with your outreach.

Through the free consultation calls I have with recruiter / leaders / automators who have Bullhorn, I’ve been finding myself talking a lot about managing recruitment campaign outputs, and dreaded unsubscribes.

Unsubscribes can feel like a blow to your efforts, but there are ways to prevent them which I'll explore below.

💡Be sure to also read my other blog: How Recruiters Can Turn Bounces and Unsubscribes into $£€- so that when you get an unsubscribe or hard bounce, you could actually create more recruitment opportunities.

5 Ways to Reduce Your Candidates and Clients from Unsubscribing

I've got lots of tips to share, that we coach in our Automation Buddy programs, but here's 5 to get you started today.

1️⃣Clean up / segment your data

I guarantee you have data which you no longer need (old sectors / job titles you no longer recruit for).

Perhaps the data you need isn't coded well enough for you to segment it, hence you risk hitting parts of your community with the wrong content.

But, don't procrastinate over this - you don't need a 100% clean database to start a campaign, or to make an approach. Clean up some data, and hit it. Then move on to the next layer to attack.

2️⃣Subject lines need to punch above their weight

Keep them short and sweet, but personalised (about them, not you (or recruitment) and relevant to your community.

Think "mobile first" and ensure that your subject line can actually be read on a mobile device. For example, the Mail app on iPhones displays up to 78 characters in the subject line area.

Emojis can help you stand out in a big list of emails, too.

3️⃣Content, creating contentment (not consternation)

I'm still seeing way too much recruitment content online, and not enough sector-specific content form recruiters.

I yawn at interview tips / what to wear to interviews etc... It works less well than content aimed at your sector and job titles.

At a stretch "Interview tips for Accountants" is better than a more generic topic, but even so, if that's the best content you can create, you need to try harder.

What tech does your community use? Find out and talk about it.

How is AI / world events affecting them? Find out and talk about it.

It's never been easier to find out more about what makes your community tick - ask them, ask Google, ask AI!

4️⃣Formatting to attract attention (but be WCAG-aware)

I recently spotted a recruitment campaign where the email content was centred throughout and black and white - very uninspiring, and actually quite difficult to engage with.

In the very least breath your brand colours into your content and check WCAG guidelines to ensure that you're not inadvertently muting your content.

If your community uses Instagram / Facebook etc... be sure that they expect your content to have a life beyond black and white copy. Colour, emojis, personality - shine!

5️⃣"Pitch" the unsubscribe

What does the unsubscribe footer in your mailers look like?

Is it simply an invite to unsubscribe? Or have you pitched that if they do, they'll miss out on future helpful content, and life-changing jobs?

I see way too many campaigns that look like the goal is to generate unsubscribes! Ironically the footer is often more engaging than the mailer itself.

"We're fixated on helping our teaching community stay up to speed with the best tips, tricks, and jobs. You can unsubscribe, but then you may miss your next best teaching hack, or career move"

...is better than...

"Unsubscribe".

A great tip is to allow candidates and clients to "Update their Preferences" which can provide your community with a way to help you make ore relevant the communications you are sending to them and/or update you on what they do find interesting. This can be done within Bullhorn Automation and is a useful way to reduce the Unsubscribes.