12 Tips To Help Increase Your Survey Response Rates

A compelling survey invitation will increase the number of recipients who open your email, and increase the number who click on the survey link to complete it.

5 Tips to improve the open rate of your email:

1. Make your ‘From’ name easily recognizable by including your company name, or the name of an individual
2. Keep subject lines short – 35 characters or less
3. Subject lines should avoid words that trigger spam filters such as “important message” and “free”. Avoid using all caps, exclamation points, or dollar signs as well.
4. Send no more than one survey a week to each respondent
5. Attractive emails are more likely to be opened. Create attractive messages by using the formatting toolbar to format the text and include images. Many email programs allow recipients to preview the email before opening it.

7 Tips to increase the click rate on your survey link:

1. Include personal information, such as recipient’s name, when possible
2. Thank the recipient for their participation
3. Mention the purpose of the survey
4. Tell invitation recipients how the survey will benefit them. For example, will you use the data you are collecting to improve your service to them?
5. Indicate how long the survey will take. You can estimate that 5 closed-ended questions take one minute, and 2 open-ended questions take one minute. Send the survey to colleagues or peers to test the time it takes to complete the survey.
6. Assure confidentiality of responses
7. Provide information about the incentive if you are offering one

Incorporating the above tips into your survey email invitations should help you increase your overall response rates. If there are any additional tips that have worked well for you, please share them with us!