Best Practice in Surveys Guidance
How to get your survey read by participants
Set a goal for your response rate
As part of a communication and marketing plan, a goal for the response rate should
be set, with planned interventions and promotional activities set throughout the
fieldwork stage of the survey. Don’t just rely on the initial email and the subsequent
reminder emails to promote the survey – create an integrated campaign involving a
range of tools. These tools could potentially include word of mouth (from professional
support staff, academics, student academic reps and students themselves), print
materials (e.g. posters, flyers, leaflets, bookmarks, pens, beer mats), web sites, and
social network sites (such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace).
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. For example:




The International Office needs your help
Spill some secrets and you could win an iPod
How are we doing?
Is our departmental web site doing its job? We need your feedback
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 with “Dear Jennifer”. If not then
say, “Dear student”, or whatever your relationship is to the recipient.
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
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.
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. 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 tick box on the first page for people who want to see them. 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.
Send the email invitations at times that match your respondent's email habits
Emails which arrive at an email address on a Monday morning may be buried
amongst the weekend's spam and may be easily lost (or inadvertently deleted). So
try sending them out at another time, such as an Wednesday afternoon or a Tuesday
morning, for example.
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. However, 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.
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. 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.
Adapted from:
http://www.demographix.com/resources/how_to_improve_response_rates.asp
Accessed:10th March 2010
Further advice and support can be found from a range of sources including:

Bristol Online Surveys

Introduction to Questionnaire Design

How might we achieve higher response rates on our Online Unit Evaluations?