Automated Recruitment Email Benchmarks & Tips – Mediarails

Recruiting new partners to your program can take time and effort. Using Mediarails' automated emailing tools allows you to scale your recruitment efforts and reach out to hundreds, or even thousands, of prospects monthly.

Like any form of cold-emailing you'll want to cast a wide net to get a higher response rate and ultimately more conversions.

After years of analyzing the stats of various brands and channels, we've put together some basic benchmarks of using Mediarails for automated emailing and recruitment.

Keep in mind that these numbers can vary greatly by your brand's vertical, audience, and brand-recognition.

Mediarails Automated Email Average Benchmarks:

Channel	Open Rate	Reply Rate
Affiliates	50%	10%
Influencers	63%	12%
Combined Recruiting	57%	11%

Measuring Success Rates:

Mediarails percentages are based off the total number of messages sent - not the total number of recipients.
- For example: if you reach out to 100 prospects in a 3-stage email (initial email + 2 follow ups), you are sending a total of 300 emails. If the email list on the Email Workflow page were to show a 10% response rate, it would mean that 30 recipients responded out of the total 300 messages sent to those same 100 prospects.

Suggestions for Email Workflow Sequencing:

The typical Email Workflow structure we suggest includes 3-4 stages of emails in the following cadence:

Email 1 - Initial Email
Email 2 - Follow up 5-7 days later
Email 3 - Follow up 7-14 days later
Email 4 - Follow up 30+ days later (optional)

Within the first 4 weeks we suggest sending no more than 3 outbound messages and we suggest increasing the time in-between each subsequent round of messaging that goes out.

We most commonly see a total of 3 or 4 messages, with the 4th set up 30-60 days later than the last email. We do not suggest many more stages due to the increase of Spam risks.

Workflow tips and findings:

The second stage of an email tends to receive the highest response rate across all verticals and partner types.
The first and third stages typically have similar numbers at slightly lower than the second stage, and any later stages will increasingly taper off.
Mondays and Saturdays tend to have the lowest response rates.
Mid-week (Tue-Thurs 8am-5pm) tends to have the best response rate.

Things to include in your initial outreach email:

A brief introduction of your brand and the products/services you would like them to promote.
Why you think they would make a good fit to promote your brand.
Talk about your goals, “We are looking to expand our Twitter reach.”, "Our brand is launching this new, exciting product." etc..
A Call To Action that includes further communications (i.e. “if this is something you’d be interested, respond to this email for more details” or "Sign up to our program here").
Tip: witty, comedic subject lines get a great response. If possible, try to come up with a catchy subject line to grab the reader's attention.

Influencers

Influencers want to partner with brands that align well with their own brand and voice. Make sure your messaging aligns with the tone and style of the influencer group that best fits your brand's tone and style.
Spending time reviewing each prospect to find these perfect-fit influencers will pay off.
Influencers are interested in building lasting relationships rather than just offers for one-time paid gigs, so assure them you are looking to build a long-term partnership
Mention special incentives like extra exposure on your social platforms to get them interested in your offer
Be brief. Influencers respond better to simple, short and casual partnership inquiries as opposed to emails that lay out your entire posting guidelines and terms right away

Affiliates

Mention your program details and benefits
Mention any remarkable recent press releases about your brand
Share any interesting benchmarks other affiliates have reached in your program ie "We've had coupon sites earn over XXX in commissions within 3 months of joining our program" etc..