How to Introduce a Marketing Survey

Maximize survey results with your introduction via subject, incentive, graphics and text.

You've spent time and money developing your marketing survey and want responses and return on investment. While the survey questions are the meat of your survey, without qualitative and quantitative answers your investment has little value. Often an afterthought and sometimes ignore, the introduction can be your marketing survey's most valuable component by getting the audience's attention and keeping it throughout the survey. The introduction deserves as much attention as the questions. Keep your introduction simple, but have fun with it while keeping your audience in mind.

Instructions

1. Write an intriguing and concise subject line that will entice your audience to participate in the survey. Think of it as a magazine article headline. Have fun and be clever with, but keep it relevant to your company and survey objective. Your invitation may be via mail, email, a message on your website or social networking. No matter where the audience sees the invitation, the concept is the same. Keep it simple.

2. Offer participants an incentive. At a minimum, the incentive should be something that adds value to a regular customer even if he doesn't get something "extra." It could be a plea to "improve our customer service." Ideally, the incentive could be a percentage off the next order or a gift card for a free cup of coffee, for example, at a local business or national chain.

3. Design your survey to match your branding. Your survey is an extension of your business. Even if you're using a template-based survey company, many offer simple customization, such as a graphic upload and/or color choices, at no extra charge. Add your company logo and/or other graphics in a prominent place on the first screen of the survey (the "Introduction") and use as many of your company colors as you can if that option is available.

4. Write a compelling introduction on the first screen of the survey that should include who you are, why you're conducting the survey and when you require submission of the survey. The introduction should also answer the question "how long?" Tell readers on the first screen how long the survey should take. Keep it as close to or under three minutes as possible for maximum return on investment..

References

• MarketingProfs: Seven Rules for Achieving Higher Online Survey Response Rates
• MarketingProfs: Twelve Tips for Conducting Effective Surveys
• WorkZ: Introduce Your Survey Effectively