Email marketing for U.S. Army and Special Operations Forces (SOF) recruiting

Abstract

United States Army and Special Operations Forces (SOF) Recruiters in the U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) currently use four prospecting strategies to recruit Future Soldiers. These include telephone, referral, face-to-face, and internet or email prospecting. The four prospecting strategies have proven to be effective, but email prospecting continues to remain the most under utilized. Ironically, email prospecting is the most efficient strategy, yet most recruiters either refuse to try it or they use it incorrectly. This study will demonstrate that U.S. Army and SOF Recruiters can use email as a legitimate marketing tactic and powerful tool. The introduction will include the purpose of this study, background information that led me to this topic, and my hypothesis. The second chapter will discuss the four recruiting strategies that are being used by U.S. Army and SOF recruiters with a concentration on email prospecting. In the third chapter, I will conduct two case studies on organizations that successfully used email marketing to increase recruitment and improve sales. I will also conduct a case study on the Raleigh Recruiting Company and demonstrate how email marketing was used to increase recruitment during Fiscal Year (FY) 2006. The fourth chapter containing a model to demonstrate the efficiency of Email marketing/prospecting when compared to phone prospecting and I justify an estimated Return on Investment (ROE) if the Army were to outsource an Email Service Provider (ESP) to assist recruiters with their email prospecting efforts. The final portion of this chapter will determine whether or not USAREC is properly aligned to execute an effective email marketing campaign and I provide additional email marketing strategies that can be used by the Army and SOF. Chapter V concludes the study and contains references, and the distribution list.