Best Practices for Creating a Physician Recruitment Direct Mail Piece

The death of direct mail in physician recruitment has been greatly exaggerated. While many recruiters denounce the practice as ineffective, the fact is that direct mail continues to be a fantastic way to source passive physician candidates as part of a physician recruitment effort. But while they can be effective, certain best practices need to be followed in order to get the return on investment that you want.

Below are five best practices for direct mail pieces you should follow in order to get the responses you want:

1. Avoid Images of Physicians

Everyone can agree that humans are visual creatures, making adding images to your mail piece a good idea.Yet for some reason, many individuals think including stock photos of physicians to their mail piece will make it stand out. Instead of a stock image of a physician, try using an image depicting the community, activities, or impressive facilities that your opportunity offers. At the end of the day, a candidate isn’t going to pick of the phone and call because of an image of a doctor with a stethoscope – but they might if you show off the outdoor and cultural activities available.

2. Keep It Brief

Just like with recruitment emails and voice mails, candidates have very little time to read dense paragraphs of text in direct mail pieces. Because of this, you need to select the most compelling aspects of your opportunity and present them to prospective candidates in condensed form. If possible, use easy to read bullet points and short bursts of text.

3. Provide Multiple Ways to Learn More

A great mail piece will provide interested candidates with multiple options to learn more. Including not only a phone number and email, but also short URLs to social media pages or even a QR code to a landing page, give candidates options in how they want to engage with your mail piece. Additionally, providing a way for candidates to text you to learn more can give candidates an efficient and effective way to reach out to you.

4. Use an Eye-Catching Tag Line

The tag line on your direct mail piece is one of the first impressions you make on prospective candidates. Just like the subject line in an email, it can be the deciding factor as to whether or not they continue reading about your opportunity. Make sure to highlight the best parts of your opportunity (location, scope of practice, collegial atmosphere) and sell it in the tag line.

5. Choose Your List Wisely

Who you mail to is just as important as what you mail. Choosing who you mail to (including experience level, community ties, and sub specialty certifications) can all affect the type of mail piece you send out, and the way you sell your opportunity.

CONCLUSION:

Direct mail is still a very effective form of candidate sourcing. But the main reason so many fail to notice is value isn’t that mailings are flawed – instead it is that the way they structure their mailings and who they send them to are not done to induce responses. By following these five best practices, you can ensure that your next mail piece is a success.