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How to build response rates for online surveys

Following a few simple guidelines could see response rates to your demographix surveys improve dramatically

1. Use incentives if appropriate

• An incentive (such as a store voucher, an mp3 player or even real money) can improve the response rate of your survey.
• At the margin, an incentive may just encourage some people to take the survey who wouldn't otherwise.
• Make the incentive appropriate to your audience.
• It's unlikely that anyone will be deterred from taking your survey because of an incentive.
• Don't make the incentive too big or else your survey will be circulated widely to people with no relevance to your survey who are just after the prize.
• Mention the incentive (and show a picture, even of money) at appropriate places (see below).

2. Think carefully about the wording of your email invitation

Your email to a potential respondent has to feel like a personal invitation.

The subject line has to show benefit or value to the respondent because that may be all they read.

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The text of the email should be brief and direct.

If you know the first name of the recipient and can customise the emails then start off

Dear Jennifer

If not then either say

Dear customer

Dear subscriber

Dear member

or whatever your relationship is to the recipient.

or say nothing.

Do NOT say "Dear friend" as your email immediately sounds like some shady offer and may be marked as spam. "Dear Jennifer Smith" has the same effect.

In the body of the email:

• Explain why you are contacting them ("As a valued customer we'd really appreciate your comments on our service...").
• If there is an incentive then mention it.
• Include a call to action ("Click the link below to start the survey")
• Remember to say "Thank you"
• Put a real person's name and job title at the end.
• Keep it brief. People rarely read unsolicited emails more than once or bookmark them for later attention. You want them to read the email and act on it immediately.

3. Send the email invitations at times that match your respondent's email habits

If you are emailing a largely home/consumer audience then sending emails out most times of the day and days of the week is OK.

Remember that many people only read their emails occasionally, maybe at the weekends. Viewing the demographix Response Rate graph for your surveys will show you the trends.

If emailing business people then consider sending emails to arrive when the recipients are likely to have a little "down time" (or are kicking their heels waiting to leave the office). Just after lunch on a Friday is often a good time.

Emails which arrive at work addresses on a Monday morning will be buried amongst the weekend's spam and so will be easily lost (or inadvertently deleted).

Even consumers may have given you a work email address.

4. HTML or plain text?

HTML emails are increasing in acceptance and can make it easier to brand your email invitation as coming from a trusted source.

Don't put any vital information in an image unless it is repeated in the text. Many email programs don't show images automatically. Make sure the content and purpose of the email is clear without any images.

Send your HTML emails as "multi-part". This means that anyone reading it on a mobile device or email client which doesn't display HTML automatically will still see the text of your email and not a load of HTML code.

5. Promoting a survey on your web site

When promoting a survey via links on a web page include all the courtesy, enticement and calls to action that should be included in an email invitation.

Avoid automatic pop-ups - they're likely to be blocked.

Don't display a survey automatically. A visitor who has clicked a link to a survey (because of your carefully worded invitation) is far more likely to answer it honestly and complete it than one who is shown it involuntarily.

6. Top and tail your survey

The survey itself has to follow the same rules as the email invitations.

Have an opening page which thanks the respondent for taking the survey and tells them its purpose and how long it will take. (Check out the Properties Summary of your existing demographix surveys to see how long on average people took to complete them).

If there is an incentive show a picture of it with a brief description.

Put a real person's name and job title at the end of the first page if appropriate.

If you need to include a set of rules for a promotion, competition or prize draw then put them on the second page. But make this page conditional and have a check box on the first page for people who want to see them. You'll find this easy in demographix.

At the end of the survey, once again thank people for completing it, remind them they need to press one more button to complete the survey and, if appropriate, be a contender for the incentive.

Use the demographix "Invite a friend" feature to allow survey respondents to promote it to their friends and colleagues. We've found that as many as 30 per cent of people who receive such an invitation will then go on to complete the survey, adding even more responses (and fresh data).

6. Good survey design

Building online surveys with demographix is fast and easy. But don't get carried away by asking for lots of non-essential information. Follow the advice in our Online survey best practice for more tips.