SoccerWire has launched a new content series featuring advice from anonymous college recruiting experts, including coaches with extensive experience at the highest levels of the college game. SoccerWire’s recruiting experts will provide answers to some of the most common and challenging questions that come up from players and parents on issues surrounding the recruiting process.
Read Post #1 on how to gracefully back out of a verbal commitment, and Post #2 on what to do when you’ve hit a dead end in the recruiting process.
Continue reading for a look at the 3rd edition of the new series. New recruiting questions can be submitted anytime to [email protected] or via direct message on social media on X, Facebook or Instagram.
Question: When is the best time after a college showcase event to send ‘Thank You’ emails to college coaches who attended my games?
A lot of recruits get this wrong and send out the post showcase emails IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE SHOWCASE ENDS, thinking the sooner the better. In reality, college coaches typically take a day for travel purposes, then take a day to organize all of their scouting notes, take a few days to focus on ‘urgent/important things that came up while they were gone at the showcase, THEN set up a meeting with their entire coaching staff to compare notes on players and fully discuss every recruit they saw. Lastly, if the showcase is in the Winter or Early Spring, they are also already busy with Winter and Spring training as well as Spring friendlies which is time consuming for them as well.
So in short, if a recruit sends out a POST SHOWCASE email in the immediate days that follow that showcase, the chances of that email getting buried in a coach’s inbox and NEVER EVEN READ are extremely high. Typically, it seems like waiting a week to ten days after the event ends is the perfect time to send, and gets the highest ’email open/read rate’ which helps increase any potential response rates of the emails sent.
