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Postcards, letters or e-mail: Which is right for your recruitment campaign?

One of the questions we are often asked is whether postcards, personalized letters or e-mail serve as the best medium for a recruitment marketing campaign. From our perspective, there are two variables to consider:

Postal mail versus e-mail
Postcards versus personalized letters

Here are some guidelines to help you make your choice:

Recruiter - Search FirmE-mail versus Postal Mail

E-mail Pros

In a perfect world, e-mail would almost always be your first marketing option. Like a letter, e-mail is personal and private. And similar to a postcard, e-mail can deliver a high degree of visual impact.

  • E-mail is measurable and offers seamless integration with the Web.
  • For large mailing lists (5,000+ recipients), e-mail is less expensive than postal mail.
  • E-mail campaigns can often be designed and deployed in just a couple of days.

E-mail Cons

The biggest concern with e-mail marketing is the fact that it reaches a much smaller percentage of your targeted audience. There are several reasons for this:

  • E-mail lists have fewer recipients than comparable postal lists.
  • E-mail lists are less accurate than postal lists. People change their e-mail address more frequently than they change their postal address. And, many people have multiple e-mail addresses, including addresses they rarely view or have abandoned.
  • E-mail lists are less deliverable than postal mail. The combination of spam filters and the propensity of users to delete e-mail from people they don't know significantly reduces the number of recipients who will actually view your message.

Postal Mail Pros

No medium comes close to matching the reach and reliability of postal mail. According to the United States Postal Service, 98% of consumers bring in their mail the day it's delivered and 77% of consumers sort through it immediately.

  • Postal mail is an intrusive "tap on the shoulder" that won't be sent to a spam folder.
  • People trust personalized letters more than a message sent via e-mail.
  • Postal mail is physical. You can hold it in your hand. It's portable and can be kept as a reminder.

Postal Mail Cons

Postal mail can be expensive and does not offer economies of scale comparable to e-mail marketing.

  • Postal mail is more difficult to measure than e-mail marketing.
  • Unlike e-mail, postal mail does not seamlessly connect with the Internet.
  • Postal mail campaigns generally take anywhere from 7 to 10 days (concept to delivery).

Recruiter - Search FirmPostcards versus Letters

If you decide that your best alternative is postal mail, you must choose a format for your campaign. Fortunately, this choice is easy to make.

Postcards

Postcards are like personalized billboards. When you have something you want to broadcast – an open house, a new surgical unit, higher pay rates – postcards are perfect. Postcards are a great way to "spread the word."

Letters

When your communications require a high degree of discretion, you should use a personalized letter. Letters are a trusted source of information, and they are very effective in building one-to-one relationships. Finally, letters allow you to communicate sensitive information (e.g., salary ranges, reporting relationships, etc.) to prospective employees.

If you would like to discuss ways to use geo-targeted mailing lists as part of your sourcing strategy, please contact Chris Taylor, 610-227-0400, ctaylor@davis.jobs.

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