Editor’s note: Nigel Lindemann is digital marketer at computer software firm, Survey Anyplace, Antwerp, Belgium. This is an edited and shortened version of a post that originally appeared here under the title, “34 ways to improve your survey response rate.”
Getting people to fill out and complete a survey can be quite a hassle. Some surveys have response rates as low as 10 percent. Here is a list of tips to help you avoid a low response rate.
Find your demographic
It’s important to identify your key demographics and focus only on these people. 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 survey only the most relevant potential respondents. In order to do this you can use tools such as Clearbit Sheets or prospect.io which allow you to analyze your database and automatically determine key attributes to your survey such as gender and age.
Privacy
People are reluctant to share personal details. 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. Include in your disclaimer:
- what personal data you are collecting;
- how the data will be used and whether it will be disclosed to anyone else;
- how respondents can contact you: provide contact information; and
- if and how they change or delete their personal information.
Collect as little personal information as possible. Put your disclaimer in your invitation e-mail and near your demographics in the survey.
Keep it simple
Once people have decided to take your survey, get them started ASAP. But you can’t just throw them in the deep end and hope for the best. First, inform them on:
- why you are surveying;
- what you will do with the results; and
- what’s in it for them.
Try do this in a concise manner, keeping it to less than 400 characters. Think of your instructions as a manual: Respondents will just skim through it (at best).
If you can’t do it in less, put the “what we will do with the results” part close to where you ask for demographics instead of on the first page. Here, it will serve as a reminder and improve the respondent’s willingness to share personal details.
Optimize for all devices
In a world where mobile reigns, responsive design has become the standard. This is especially true when you use an online survey, since you have no control over which devices your respondent will use. You must make sure your survey can be filled out anytime, anyplace and on any device, not only cross-browser but cross-platform too!
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. A few things to keep in mind:
- Keep your survey text and questions short.
- Make sure there’s minimal to no horizontal scrolling.
- Avoid matrix questions or image choice questions with more than six images – they will kill your completion rate on small screens.
Incentivize
Basically, the participant is more likely to participate if the rewards of participation outweigh the costs. Luckily, incentives don’t have to be expensive to increase response rates. For example, a free sample of your new product can be a reasonably inexpensive prize, which could also benefit your brand awareness: a real win-win situation.
Note that larger monetary incentives tend to produce respondents who will put greater effort in completing the questionnaires, as measured by the number of short answers and comments provided, and the number of words written. It may also produce comments that were more favorable toward the survey sponsor. Giving too big of an incentive will return more positive answers, which may cause a biased result.
Publish your results and act on them
In general, most respondents will want to see results. Communicating the survey’s results to the respondents will maximize participation in future surveys. Some may even want to stay in the loop on future developments.
Publish your results and, more importantly, act on them, if it’s possible (privacy or confidentiality clauses concerns may prohibit sharing data). Include numbers and statistics to give the results more authority and show the scale of research the respondent was part of.
People who show interest in the results make a good target audience for a follow-up survey. The following are a couple of examples you can use to communicate the effect of the respondent’s time and effort:
- if and how you changed your product;
- benefits or improvements you made because of their feedback;
- how your company’s new branding looks like;
- new services you offer or have altered.