How to Email an HTML Survey

Email a link to an HTML survey to your subscribers.

As a marketer, you can use an email survey to gather valuable information about your subscribers’ interests and use that data to more effectively market to your target audience. As you plan to conduct an email survey, resist the urge to simply embed an HTML form in your email message. Most email clients strip out or disable HTML forms. Instead, create a separate HTML survey and link to it in your email message.

Instructions

1. Build your survey by using HTML to create a form. Embed the survey in a page on your website if you have this capability. Alternately, use a web-based survey tool like SurveyMonkey, which does not require you to know HTML to create a survey. Do not simply embed your HTML form directly in your email message because the form will not function in major email clients like Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Yahoo! Mail Classic, AOL Webmail or Windows Live Mail. In addition, some anti-virus programs may prevent your subscribers from submitting a form embedded directly in an email message.

2. Keep your survey questions relevant to your subscribers—for example, if you own a clothing business and typically send emails about your latest fashions, focus your survey on apparel and accessories. Plan ahead and decide how you will use the data you gather from your survey. Only ask for information that you will use to better serve your customers. Test your survey thoroughly. Submit test responses and verify that you receive the survey responses, either in the reports provided by your third-party partner (like MailChimp) or in the database to which your website links.

3. Note the full URL (including the “http”) to your survey, regardless of whether you hosted it on your website or through a third-party survey company. Embed that link in your email message by using the “a href” HTML command. Send a test email message to a small seed list. Access your test email accounts, open the email messages and test the links in your message. Verify that you can access your survey using the link you embedded in your email. Send your email message to your subscribers and monitor the results of your survey.

Tips & Warnings

• If you insist upon building your survey in HTML directly in your email message, ExactTarget recommends adding a link close to the “Submit” button that allows recipients to view your entire email as an external webpage. Subscribers who cannot view or use your embedded form should see a functional form when they view the message as a webpage.

References

• Campaign Monitor: Using Forms in Email
• MailChimp: How to Send Surveys via HTML Email
• ExactTarget: Including Surveys in Email

Resources

• SurveyMonkey