Surveys… Show
Sigh… Every tip may not be applicable to you, but implementing the ones that are will improve your response rates by 30 to 55%! 1. Disguise your survey as a quizThe word “survey” often has a bad connotation, especially in people’s inboxes. One effective method to get them to fill out your survey is to disguise it as a quiz. We’ve seen that “take our quiz” has double the open rate of “take our survey”. Ask five or six quiz questions and add a rating question with a text box at the end. People won’t mind, they won’t even notice it. Allow them to voice their compliments or concerns. Dissatisfied customers whose complaints are taken care of are more likely to remain loyal, and even become advocates, as those that are ‘just’ customers. Filter out people who give long positive answers and get in touch with them. They make great brand ambassadors! 2. Limit the number of surveysThere’s definitely something like too many surveys. People WILL grow tired (survey fatigue exists, people!) or even frustrated if you sent them surveys on a regular basis. Our rule of thumb is the following table:
3. The ideal survey lengthHow long is too long? Generally, surveys that have more than 15 questions are considered “too long” and your completion rate will start to drop. In our experience, you can get anything you need from your respondent in maximum 10 questions if you don’t have a prior commitment. Shorten your survey as much as possible and remove all unnecessary questions. A nice workaround if you need more than 10 questions is doubling your sample size and splitting your questions over those samples. For example, if you have 20 questions, double your subset from, let’s say 200 people to 400 and ask 10 questions to each set. 4. How to find your demographicSome surveys require responses of certain demographics. It’s important to identify what those demographics are and focus only on these people, so you don’t waste time and effort on respondents who don’t match. If the survey topic is important or relevant to the recipient, response rate raises between 12 and 14 percent. Make sure you segment and target your database to achieve this. Use Clearbit Sheets, prospect.io, ContactOut or similar tools which allow you to analyze your database and automatically determine attributes such as gender and industry. 5. The respondent’s experienceMany researchers get caught in the trap of making questionnaire administration easy for the organization, but completely overlook the needs and experience of the respondent. They forget that for some people this might be their first ever contact with your brand. Seize the opportunity and leave an impression. Turn your questionnaire into an immersive experience:
6. The right type of questionThere are a lot of question types out there. Be sure to check out this guide on how to pick the right question type and find the most suited question types for your research. Have an impact by using interactive question types such as star or smiley ratings, image choice or more advanced gamification features that will make your survey more engaging, resulting in a higher completion rate, better insights and even boost brand recognition and awareness. 7. Respect people’s privacyPeople are more reluctant than ever to share personal information. Having a clear privacy disclaimer will make people more likely to answer honestly. And have
a positive
effect on the response rate of your survey.
Only collect the minimum of personal information necessary. Put your disclaimer in your invitation email and near your demographics in the
survey. We recommend adding a link that opens in a separate window, which will legally cover your bases. 8. How many responses do you need?Unless you’re working with a very small population, you don’t need to survey everyone in your target audience. But only a sample. Calculate your sample size by entering your population size below. Sample: 377 This is the number of surveys you have to collect for a statistically relevant result. The sample size doesn’t change much for populations larger than 20, 000. (We used a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 5%, but let’s not turn this into a statistics class, shall we?) 9. Branded surveysMake your questionnaire clear, unambiguous and appealing to look at. Your design is your first impression and you don’t get a second chance… Look at the design from the point of view of the respondent, because there really is no better way to boost your response rate than having a well-designed, respondent-friendly survey. Some tools offer a white label solution, which allows you to completely brand your survey. A strong display of corporate identity results in a higher credibility towards respondents, which in return raises response rates up to 10%. That’s why we recommend branding your surveys. You spend all this time and effort in branding all your media and communication channels, so why wouldn’t you brand your surveys? Use your brand’s logo and colors to familiarize your respondents from the get-go. This can easily be done with our logo widget. 10. Use a progress barShowing a progress bar gives a clear indication of the total length of the survey and will encourage respondents to complete your survey, boosting your completion rate with 12%.
11. Make the first page simpleOnce people have decided to take your survey, get them started ASAP.
Try to do this in a concise manner. Think of your instructions as a manual: nobody reads a manual from A to Z, they just skim through it (at best). So limit the introduction to less than 400 characters. If you can’t do it in less, put the “what you will do with the results”-part at the end, close to where you ask for demographics, it will serve as a reminder and improve the respondent’s willingness to share his personal details. 12. Where to ask for demographicsThere is one common practice we must exterminate: Do NOT start with the respondent’s demographics. This is a big turn off and will steer people away from your survey, resulting in a lower response rate. It’s a lot easier to get that information at the end when the respondent is already committed to filling out your questionnaire. 13. Optimize your surveys for all devicesIn a world where mobile reigns, responsive design has become the standard. Not sure if you’re doing it right? Run your survey through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see how mobile friendly your survey is, if it can be done on the smallest of screens, it will work on bigger ones as well.
14. Apply skip logicMake your survey automatically skip to the next relevant question for your respondent. Skip logic doesn’t only give a sense of personalization, it also increases efficiency, by showing only what matters to your respondent. 15. Use pipingPiping gives your respondents a tailored experience. Their answers are used in the next question, making your survey “smart” and more conversational, plus it will increase your completion rate by 6%. 16. Review the questionnaireDon’t let all that hard work go to waste and check yourself before you wreck yourself. A friend, colleague or even your mom make great (and cheap) proofreaders. Have no friends? Check out Reverso’s spellchecker to avoid any spelling- and grammar mistakes. 17. Send out pre-notificationsBy now, your survey is ready to rock and roll. But you still need something to prep your audience first. How? By communicating in advance. The more contact there is between the respondent and you, the higher the participation will be. Studies using samples of the general population found that pre-notification letters or emails increased response rates by 4 to 29 percentage points. The template below shows all the necessary components of such a mail.
Hi [First name], As part of our participation in a [name project, topic] project, you will soon be asked to complete a [name survey]. This survey is part of our efforts
to continuously improve [condition1] and [condition2]. It is important to answer as honestly as possible. Please contact [contact’s name] on [email address and/or phone number] if you have any questions. Kind regards, [name sender]
18. Avoid the spam filterThink about when you call a company and can’t get a hold of an actual person. It’s frustrating, right? This goes for email as well. People can spot an automated mail from miles away, and you’ll get flagged for spam faster than a speeding bullet. Thanks to the number of emails people get these days, most people hesitate to open email from unfamiliar senders. Instead, use your name or the name of the person responsible for the follow-up. In some cases, it works to use the name of the CEO to give your mail more authority. But remember: “If the sender’s name doesn’t sound like it’s from someone you want to hear from, it doesn’t matter what the subject line is. In the inbox we shouldn’t sound like marketers, we should sound like someone that the subscriber knows.” – Copy Hacker’s Joanna Wiebe 19. The Anita-effectTake notice of the Anita-effect which suggests that, within a male-dominated business, open rates are higher when the sender is female. 20. Personalize your emailsEmails with a personal touch result in an average will get you better survey results. It starts with your salutation. Begin with “Hi Tom, ” or “Dear Mr Smith, ” rather than “Hi There, ” or “Dear Mister/Miss”. Use the data you gathered from tip #4 and leverage it to personalize your email if you have their name: use it! And increase the feeling of proximity if you have a location as well. 21. Think of a catchy subject lineNo matter what they say, people judge emails by their
subject lines. One sneaky method for great subject lines is stolen from Quora. They always put a question as their subject line. It’s perfect for survey emails as well. Choose an intriguing question relevant to your survey or topic as a subject line:
Oh, and avoid using the word “Survey” in your subject! 22. Use buttonsIf you want people to click, use buttons. There are plenty of case studies on the topic. Campaign Monitor, for example, got a 28% increase in their click-through rate with a button in their mail. What should your button say? When writing a call to action, Make your button copy complete this sentence: I want to ________________ For example:
Other call to actions that don’t follow the rule above:
23. The email checklistBefore you press that big send button, check if your mail contains the following:
24. Do your follow-upYou HAVE to follow up, repeatedly, with those who don’t respond. This shows the respondent that their participation is important. You will get a higher participation rate if you send multiple reminders. According to contentmarketer.io, following up increases your chances of a response by 58%. In general, sending up to three reminders gets you the best results. If you’re on a tight budget sending follow up emails are a cheaper way of increasing your response rate than using incentives. Add a little bit of extra value to each mail to make your follow up relevant and worthwhile for the reader. Put another reason why they should fill out your survey in there, or incentivize them. And don’t forget to filter out email addresses of people who do not wish to be contacted again. 25. Repurpose unopened emailsThere will always be people who won’t open your emails. A nice trick to squeeze out an extra few eyes on your survey without much effort is sending your survey again to those who didn’t open your first email, but with a different subject line and/or sender. You will be surprised of the results. 26. IncentivizeBasically, the participant is more likely to participate when the reward of participation outweigh the cost. The average increase in response rates when offering incentives was 19.1 percent for monetary and 7.9 percent for non-monetary rewards. Incentives don’t have to be expensive to increase response rates. For example, branded goodies or a free sample of your new product are reasonably cheap prizes, which could also benefit your brand: a real win-win situation. Note that larger monetary incentives tend:
27. Some people just want to voice their opinion37% of people will complete a survey just to voice their opinion. They might even prefer to just share their views rather than receiving a reward, so consider making your incentive optional. For example: allow them to choose to be included in a raffle or give them the option to donate to a relevant cause. 28. Invoke reciprocityReciprocity is the behavioral norm that says people should treat others as they have been treated. If a benefit has been provided to the participant, some sort of reciprocal benefit should be in turn provided. In human language: ask the respondent to fill out your questionnaire after a service has been provided. 29. No hablo españolSometimes you might want to ask questions to people with a different mother tongue. If there’s no professional translator or native speaker around you can use Yandex, which is basically Google Translate on steroids. 30. Use images strategicallySurveys don’t always need fancy graphics, sometimes they even distract from the content or influence answers. But there are a few ways to use graphics to improve your survey responses. Using an image choice question for example. This will make it easier to illustrate what exactly you are talking about. 31. Offer the opportunity to share the surveyFor promotional surveys: include an option to share the questionnaire with friends, colleagues or family. It’s a quick win to get extra responses. Encourage sharing by promising a better chance of winning an incentive, if their friends and family take the survey. Make it easy and include a button to share via email or Facebook. 32. Have someone at the other endHave all replies to email invitations go to a live person who can quickly respond to any questions or concerns. Make it easy to contact someone on your end by adding a clickable phone number or email address in your invitation email or survey. When surveying people on the street or at an event, have someone nearby who can assist if necessary. 33. Publish your results and act on themIn general, most respondents will want to see results. Communicating the survey’s results and what was done to the survey audience will maximize participation in future
surveys. Some may even want to stay in the loop on future developments on the matter. Publish your results and, more importantly, act on them, if it’s possible (privacy or confidentiality clauses or concerns may prohibit sharing data). When possible, also include numbers and statistics, they give the results more authority and show the scale of research the respondent was part of.
Bonus tip: People who show interest in the results, make a good target audience for a follow-up survey. 34. Be gratefulIt’s the cheapest and easiest trick in the book, and I’m sure your parents have been telling you ever since you were still a little surveyor. Say thank you. For their time. For participating. For helping you build your brand. Not only will it give people a positive experience with your brand, but it will also boost participation in future surveys. Here a couple of nice outros:
35. Give personal feedback in a customized reportRespondents put their precious time into filling out your survey. It’s more than nice when they get something in return. People are engaged with the content of your questionnaire and want to know: “Hey, I concentrated on answering all these questions, but what’s in it for me?”. Do they get recommendations or tips based on their answers? Do the results confirm their expectations, or are there any surprises? What if such a personalized report could be extracted from a survey? That would come in handy, right? Pointerpro has such a unique feature for you! All the answers to your questionnaire can be poured into a customized report, in which the respondent can take a look at the conclusions, consult charts and graphs, all in your corporate identity style! Your respondents might be surprised about the outcome 😉 And you? You have taught them something more about themselves, leaving a positive mark! Bonus tip: A/B test everythingP.S: Don’t forget to add a strong P.S.Chances of your respondent reading
your entire invitation mail or letter are slim, so make use of a P.S. or postscript. Because they stand out, which gives you the ultimate opportunity to stress the importance or value of the survey to the recipient. You’ve made it to the end of our
list! Congratulations! Now, let’s turn those words into actions! And feel free to share your results with us. Create your questionnaire for free!What is the best way to improve response rates on a mailed survey?How to Increase Mail Survey Response Rates. A Compelling Cover Letter.. Reduce Length of Survey.. Use Reminder Postcards and Pre-Notification Letters.. Ensure Survey Return is Simple and Convenient.. Brand your Survey.. Use Incentives.. How the response rate can be improved in the survey method?Guide to improving survey response rate. Offer something in return for participation. ... . Give customers a gentle nudge. ... . Pick the right time to survey customers. ... . Keep things short and sweet. ... . Use fullscreen mobile-friendly forms. ... . Pick the right channels to display surveys. ... . Make sure you approach the right audience.. What are the ways to improve response rate?14 Tips to Improve Response Rates. Administer a pre-survey email. A pre-survey email can easily help warm up your respondent sample to the idea of completing your survey. ... . Introduce yourself. ... . Don't use sales jargon. ... . Keep it short. ... . Engage. ... . Limit insignificant questions. ... . Limit the amount of scrolling.. Which method of increasing response rate is most effective?According to the literature, the most effective method to increase response rates to surveys is to offer incentives to participants [8,9,10,11].
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