PRODUCING SUCCESSFUL EMAIL RESUME CAMPAIGNS
by Wendy S. Enelow, CPRW, JCTC, CCM
President – Career Masters Institute
Should you consider investing time and money in an email broadcast campaign to get your resume out to hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of companies and recruiters? Here’s some solid information about these types of job search campaigns that will help you make an educated decision.

The Value Of Email Campaigns
Email campaigns have largely replaced the traditional "print mail" campaigns that many job seekers have used in the past to contact prospective employers. With the emergence of email technology, campaigns can now be produced faster, easier, and more cost effectively. These types of campaigns are an efficient technique to contact a large group of employers, but must be WELL TARGETED to the right audience in order to produce solid results. The old-school strategy of "mass mailings" does not work and is a significant expense that you can avoid by carefully targeting your prospects.

Identifying Your Targets
There are 3 basic groups of prospects that you’ll want to consider targeting. Listed with each group are the recommended criteria to use when sorting the list to select your specific targets.

1. Recruiters. Use your industry and/or profession specializations as your #1 and #2 search criteria. You can also select either retained or contingency firms, although inserting a dollar value for minimum salary of candidates they place (e.g., $75,000, $100,000) is often a better strategy since the line between retained and contingent has blurred over the past several years. Geography is not a particularly good search variable since a recruiter in NYC can be doing a search for a client company in Detroit.
   
   
2. Companies. Use industry as your #1 search criteria. You can also use geography if your search is confined to a specific region and/or annual sales volume if your search is focused on a particular size of company.
   
   
3. Venture Capital Firms. Use industry specialization as #1, adding in a minimum and/or maximum for capital assets under management if you are targeting a specific size firm. Generally, VC campaigns are only appropriate for senior-level executives (e.g., CEO, CFO, COO, CIO) or individuals with a wealth of experience in investment finance, VC funding, Wall Street road shows, and the like.
   
   

Producing Your Campaign
You have two basic options for producing your campaign. You can buy the data and produce the campaign yourself (most cost effective, yet most time consuming), or you can pay a company to produce it for you (more expensive, but if you’re not a techie whiz kid, it might be much faster and easier).

Getting The Data
You can specify your criteria and buy data and/or emailing services from a variety of sources. Some of my favorites include:

http://www.YourMissingLink.com
http://www.ProFileResearch.com
http://www.careerresearchinternational.com
http://www.KennedyInfo.com

Each of these firms is well-known and well-respected. However, be sure to closely compare costs and services. Also, ask how often their databases are updated. No database is going to be 100% accurate. However, you should work with a company who updates their data on a regularly scheduled basis. I recommend either monthly or quarterly.

After having worked with thousands and thousands of job seekers over the past 20 years, I’ve seen direct mail work time and time again! However, it generally only works if targeted to the specific audience that would be interested in a candidate with your qualifications. Take your time, select your data carefully, and you too can generate winning results!

About the Author: Wendy S. Enelow