10 Tips to Make Sure Your Online Survey Invitation is Opened

Having trouble getting people to open the fun, clever, important survey that you slaved away to create? Un-opened survey invitations can feel like the online equivalent of being stood-up. Thankfully, there are some quick, simple tips to help you increase your survey response rate, so you’ll feel like the cool kid in the chat room.

 1. Make sure the sender’s email address has the company or individual’s name in it, so the recipient doesn’t confuse it with spam

2. Keep the subject short and sweet—35 characters or less

3. Avoid those pesky spam filters by leaving out words like “free” and “important message.” Also avoid using all caps, exclamation points, and dollar signs. Spam filters search for these and may send your survey invite straight to the spam box if you include them.

4. Stick to the golden rule of survey deployment—no more than one survey per week, per person

5. Make it pretty. Attractive emails are more likely to be opened, plain and simple, so don't forget to add images and get creative with font and color

6. People are more likely to do what you ask if they feel like you’re personally asking them yourself. So include their name or other personal touches, when possible

7. Explaining who you are and the purpose of the survey will help people to feel in the loop, and will make them more likely to complete your survey

8. Let your recipients know how long they can expect to spend on the survey. Five closed-ended questions, or two open-ended questions, generally take one minute to answer. If you’re not sure how long it will take, send it to a couple friends to take, and time them

9. Nobody likes a tattle tale. Assure your recipients that survey responses will be confidential (only if they will be!)

10. Appeal to respondent’s selfish side. Will their answers help you improve their service? Are you offering incentives to them for answering your survey? Tell them! If you can’t offer incentives, at least thank them in advance and let them know how much their participation helps.

Here at Zoomerang we’ve tested and proven these 10 tips to push your response rates into super-hero range. Try them out, and see for yourself. Happy surveying!