3 Tips for Drafting a Pre-Survey Email

Most well run online surveys rely on email to reach their potential sample. They send an email asking the person to take the survey, and maybe send a reminder or two later. It’s been found that pre-survey emails are a good way to warm the audience up to the idea of taking a survey.

These emails are sent before the survey is active, and are meant to help improve response rate. But pre-survey emails need to be carefully designed. Here are several tips for creating a pre-survey email and improving your response rates.

No Selling The pre-survey email is not a time to try to hard sell the customers. You need to get them to want to fill out the survey accurately. Indeed, you want to get them to fill out the survey at all.

If your email reads like an aggressive sales tactic, or uses sales language that gives the recipient pause, it is more likely to be ignored. You may even want to give your email a personal tone, although this is not a good idea for businesses that are trying to maintain a professional/impersonal appearance. Stress Incentive, Not Benefits to You With some exception, your sample is not going to care how the survey benefits you.

They probably don’t care if your survey might improve something in your company because even if it benefits them, it is unlikely to be that important. The incentive, however, is something they can appreciate, and the most important thing to discuss in the pre-survey email. Avoid The Appearance of Spam Spammers have used “online surveys” from large companies as a way of stealing information.

The best way to ensure your pre-survey email is read and doesn’t look like spam is to avoid things that are spam related. Links are a great example. If you avoid links in the email, then your email will not look like an attempt to steal their information.

For some researchers, pre-survey emails improve the response rate of online surveys . Sending out a pre-survey email can prime your sample to fill out the survey and improve the quality of your data. But your pre-survey email must be written correctly. Do a bad job, and the email with either have no effect or decrease the response rate to your survey.