At ASGR or A Sales Guy Recruiting -for ya’ll just tuning in, we are constantly challenging ourselves to be ahead of the curve for the better of our clients, candidates and partners. So @keenan, our Chief Antagonist, came up with an idea to have a drawing from a small pool of people who referred ‘hired’ candidates to ASGR for a chance to win an all-expense paid trip to Vail, CO- Click Here For Details . Because we understand that around 70% of Millennials say they hear about companies through friends and job boards (Collegefeed, March 2014) we gathered that our WOM business was a must-have-focus for 2015. We knew it was a priority to develop relationships with A+ Players who were fantastic at their jobs, so they can then in turn refer us to their fantastic friends 😉 But was ASGR missing opportunities to extend our reach on this promotion? I felt like I was… I can work ten clients and fifteen different opportunities, sourcing and interviewing at one time and already I felt stretched a little thin! C’est la vie and now I was making excuses for myself for not having enough time to take advantage of this killer opportunity to draw in referrals… @keenan would kill me… SO, in continuing with the theme of constantly challenging the norm- I started brainstorming with a colleague Kira, @wutangbunny, on how we needed to optimize this opportunity further. A hop, skip and a coffee spill later we realized we do have personal close relationships with our candidates, so we should be capitalizing on the information we already have, so as to maximizing our reach most… **lightbulb** PHONE NUMBERS….Text message communication! Communication between text messages allows for a high level of customization and personalization, you can address your text message directly to your candidates needs and you can create a conversation that best suits their interests (i.e a trip to Vail, CO). People look at their phones, an average of 150 times a day (mobilecommons, 2014) and we have the chance to reach them because of this volume. 89% of people believe a mobile device is an important tool for job searching (Glassdoor survey, April 2014). So, what I refer from this information is that the consistency of the messaging shouldn’t stop with our referral program, but extend to directions in our candidate processes, reminders, client company updates etc. all personal mobile. But that’s another blog post for another time and I digress… ALL THIS BEGS THE QUESTION: Is this combination of facts and content marketing ideologies, enough to support that text message marketing is, in fact, a good idea, or is this spam? By using a text-message service, (free is for me)- I signed up with eztexting.com, where I can input numbers, contact and group my candidates into active, past etc. and let them know about this contest! Rather than waisting my energy on an e-mail gone unread or a tweet un-retweeted, I can reach my candidates, first hand and incentivize them personally. Or perhaps, A Sales Guy Recruiting will pop up into their minds while their friend Bob, is complaining about his current gig… they’ll say “You should talk with ASGR”, but what they’ll be thinking is “I could be on the Vail slopes by Christmas…” Now, you could be thinking SPAM, SPAM, SPAM. But like all things I do, nothing in excess… So I plan to test this study group idea and report back. I also want to get your feedback…Do you think this is a good idea or is it spam? Stay tuned for more follow-up, findings and follies here with me, La Femme Badass.
Texting for Referrals: Genius or Spam?
