Recruitment Directory's Blog - Australia's #1 Recruitment Technology Blog!
SMS is an important marketing medium, but has limited application in Recruitment/Job Search. Most of the messages you could send are transactional. The key to a successful SMS marketing campaign relies on the 3 pillars - planning, content and execution. In this blog post I have just summarised my thoughts and ideas into various groups - Uses in Recruitment, Advantages, Disadvantages, Measuring SMS, Questions to ask yourself before sending SMS, Tips and Common mistakes I hear from recruiters.
We use SMS in our own business mostly as a notification service for myself and other admins. When a sale, or new directory listing is submitted we are notified - as I belive it is important to process a sale as soon as possible. I have also integrated it into our various job boards - When a new job, client order, or client wants to sms a user. But how can you use it?
Uses in Recruitment
- Notify job seekers when a new role matches there profile "Thomas, 2 new roles with CLIENT, PAY, LOCATION. For more info URL"
- Remind candidates about attending interview. "Thomas, just a reminder you have a interview with CLIENT, TIME/DATE, LOCATION. Problems call me"
- Administration "Thomas, 5 new resumes from JOB BOARD" or "Thomas, JOB AD TITLE is about to close"
- Please call "Thomas, please call RECRUITER regarding MESSAGE"
- Timesheets "Thomas, timesheet due DATE/TIME, questions CONTACT"
- Payroll "Thomas, $PAY deposited to bank account DATE. Check email for pay slip. URL"
- Referrals "Do you know a JOBTITLE? LOCATION, PAY RATE, REFERAL REWARD more info URL"
- Most ATS or Recruitment Databases have an SMS function or module available to use
Advantages
- The personal nature of mobile phones makes SMS marketing a very powerful tool.
- Most mobile users keep it on them all the time - meaning they can be effective for time sensitive messages.
- Users are inclined to read virtually every SMS they get - unlike email and other means of advertising.
- Bulk SMS marketing is very economical and one can send thousands of text messages to consumers at low prices.
- Bulk SMS saves time - instead of writing a message and then sending it to each mobile subscriber, one message is created and then sent to a whole group of subscribers.
- Tracking of SMS delivery and responses is very easy.
- Automated
- Delivery of the text messages is almost instant.
- Sending SMS can be done from a software application or through a internet website
Disadvantages
- Opt-in. Need to get permission from users before sending SMS
- SMS message is 140 - 160 characters long. You may need to refer the user to a website or email for further information
- Impersonal
- Can dilute a message
- No emotion, mechanical
Measuring SMS
- Open rates
- Traffic to URL/Website links
- Offer acceptance
- Replies or response numbers/rate
- Redemption rate
- Brand awareness
Questions to ask yourself before sending SMS
- Why are you communicating via SMS? Should you call? Email?
- What do you want to achieve?
- What is your message? You only have a limited number of characters. Use them wisely
- When should the message be sent?
- Can we personalise the message?
- Who are we targeting?
- Is viral marketing a possibility?
- Do you need to cap the responses?
- Do we have you systems to send out messages, handle the volume and responses?
- Who is identified as the sender?
Common mistakes I hear from recruiters
- We did not target the right market, the message was not relevant
- We did not identify ourselves as the sender, we received many responses "who is this" and so forth
- Poor ad copy
- Targeting wrong audience with wrong offer/message
- Messages sent out at wrong time
- Not allowing recipient to unsubscribe
- Spelling mistakes and typos
- No personalisation
- SMS system fails
Tips
- Personalise - "Hi FIRST_NAME, just a reminder about your interview with CLIENT_NAME at TIME/DATE, LOCATION"
- Always include details to unsubscribe
- Talk in the same language as your customers. Lrn txt spk-especially for youth markets
- Test different networks (ie. Telstra, Optus, 3, Vodaphone)
- Check to see if the appropriate replies are sent etc
- If it is a competition, plan for unusual/wrong answers and have suitable replies in place.
- Test language, typos and technical (not all symbols will come out as you expect).
- Shop around for the best SMS wholesale provider. I use http://www.clickatell.com
Article URL: http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/using-sms-in-recruitment-a61.html
Article Tags: 
Hide Comments (0)
Back to Menu
