How to Increase Survey Response Rates
Surveys help businesses collect important information from their market. A lot of work goes into creating surveys to ensure that you’re obtaining the information you need. However, if your survey response rate isn’t what you were expecting, this work won’t turn out to be as beneficial as you had hoped. Working on getting a healthy number of responses for your surveys is just as important as making the surveys themselves.
Here are a few steps you can take to make sure you’re doing all that you can to get the most responses for your surveys.
Speak Directly to Participants
Whenever you reach out to someone, it’s important that you’re speaking directly to them if you want a response, and this goes for surveys as well. Some surveys may be too generic, which makes it obvious that your business sent it out to multiple people, without really considering anyone. This doesn’t make people feel like their input is valuable, even though you know that it is, so it’s easy for them to ignore it.
Let them know the importance of their response for your business and why you’re reaching out to them in particular, such as them buying a certain product. If possible, personalizing surveys can help have a better impact. For example, rather than using a generic greeting, use the participant’s name. This will be more eye-catching than something that looks like it could have gone to anyone.
Use Multiple Channels
How you reach out to participants can make a big difference in how many respond to your surveys. This is why it’s important to reach out to them on multiple channels, rather than focusing all of your efforts on just one. Doing this helps ensure that they see it and don’t accidentally forget about it or glance over it. When possible, you should use a mix of different channels, including text messages, emails, web pages, and social media platforms. Of course, you want to be careful not to overdo it and risk giving some people a negative experience.
Keep Surveys Brief
Some might be tempted to make surveys a little bit longer to get the most amount of information from respondents. However, this can end up hurting your response rate. If people see a long survey, they might decide they don’t want to spend that much time on it, whereas they would have completed it had it been shorter. Longer surveys might also cause people to put less thought into providing feedback. Short, brief surveys allow respondents to spend more time considering their answers when they don’t have to worry about responding to multiple other questions that might be that important. Consider what information you really need to gain from this survey, and only include what’s necessary.
Offer Incentives
If people are giving up some of their time to respond to surveys that provide your business with valuable information, they deserve something in return. Many people won’t want to participate in a survey if they know they get nothing out of it. This is why it’s important to provide proper incentives for respondents. This can include things like gift cards and discount codes that respondents can actually benefit from. When people know they’ll be rewarded for the time spent participating in your survey, they’ll feel much more motivated to respond to it and give you the information you need.
Contact Focus Forward for the Help You Need with Surveys
There’s no better way of getting the information you need from respondents in a survey than with Focus Forward. We have vast experience handling online surveys for businesses in many industries to ensure they get the data they need to make important decisions. Our team understands how to find the right participants for your survey and all the best practices that can help achieve a high-response rate. We’ll help you every step of the way.
If your company plans on needing a survey, contact Focus Forward to learn how our survey services can help.
