Getting individuals to take surveys might be tough. Surveys are notoriously time-consuming, and prospects don’t need to waste minutes (and typically even seconds) finishing them—even when essential so that you can enhance your services and products.

Thankfully, there’s a much less tedious work-around. 

As an alternative of sending your recipients a hyperlink to go and full a survey in your web site or one other utility, add your complete survey to your electronic mail. That is (you guessed it) an electronic mail survey.

Beneath, we’ll present you a couple of greatest practices to extend your opens, response charges, and the general high quality of your electronic mail surveys. First, let’s get on the identical web page about what an electronic mail survey is.

What are electronic mail surveys?

Any time you ask your prospects a query in an electronic mail, it could possibly be thought of an electronic mail survey. 

Nonetheless, once we say electronic mail survey, we’re considering of a extra tech-savvy resolution that permits you to embed survey questions in your electronic mail’s HTML code. When a consumer clicks a hyperlinked reply, it information the response—and you may analyze the collective leads to an electronic mail survey instrument or integration.

11 Greatest practices for sending electronic mail surveys

These greatest practices will assist you eradicate friction and enhance your electronic mail surveys. You’ll be capable to lower the fluff and concentrate on the fundamentals to extend the amount and high quality of your responses.

1. Prioritize the knowledge you want

Give attention to what you need to get out of the survey. Do you need to perceive buyer satisfaction or get suggestions on a brand new product? Are you curious about the standard of a checkout course of? Or do you need to know the way prospects loved a webinar?

As soon as you realize the knowledge you need, it’s time to border the survey for straightforward responses. And whilst you may favor well-thought-out written responses, most individuals received’t take the time to jot down their ideas (until they’ve an incentive—extra on that later). So write out questions that recipients can reply with a sure, no, or Likert scale. 

2. Maintain it brief and candy

Survey fatigue is actual, particularly when customers are of their inbox with 20-plus different unread messages. That’s why it’s essential to get to the purpose and make it as straightforward as doable for patrons to enter their responses.

Some survey software program lets you embed a number of questions into an electronic mail, however resist the urge to go overboard. Shorter surveys may have a greater completion price, and the less questions you ask of your prospects, the happier they’ll be.

3. Use A/B assessments on surveys

Take a look at your surveys and buttons to see which performs greatest. For instance, you can attempt altering the colour of your reply buttons to affect the completion price. Then, if you discover which variations carry out the most effective, ship the higher model to the majority of your recipients.

4. Optimize for cell

Many recipients will open your electronic mail survey on their cell units, so guarantee an optimized cell expertise the place they’ll view the survey (and the remainder of the e-mail). Even higher, use responsive templates that’ll scale appropriately relying in your buyer’s machine. 

5. Ship on the proper time

Ship your electronic mail survey on the unsuitable time, and also you’ll tank your completion price. For instance, if you happen to ship the survey too early earlier than the client has time to expertise the product, they’ll possible ignore the e-mail and by no means return to it. Nonetheless, if you happen to ship it too late, they may have forgotten about their expertise fully.

So check sending your electronic mail at completely different instances to nail down your sending. You may discover that your viewers tends to open and reply higher early within the morning or that they’re extra prone to end the survey in the event that they get the e-mail after work.

6. Throttle your surveys

Keep away from survey fatigue by spacing out your ship time to prospects. For instance, you don’t need to ship them a survey for one product on Monday and one other on Tuesday. As an alternative, prioritize which survey you need outcomes from and provides your consumer a break from the opposite.

7. Optimize your topic traces

Excessive electronic mail survey response charges begin with excessive open charges, and excessive open charges come from well-written topic traces. So prioritize writing topic traces that entice your recipients to open your electronic mail and take part within the survey. And don’t do any clickbait—simply write a top-notch topic line (simpler mentioned than finished) that pairs nicely together with your preview textual content.

8. Take a look at your sender tackle

The sender is among the most influential components in figuring out which emails get clicked and opened. First, it must be a sender tackle that recipients will acknowledge and affiliate together with your model. For some, that’s so simple as your model’s identify or a well known govt. 

Then, check completely different addresses and names to see which works greatest. You may discover that “Mike from McDonald’s” will get higher open charges than simply “McDonald’s.”

9. Incentivize responses

Reply the query, “What’s in it for me?” In spite of everything, your prospects are taking precious time away to reply your electronic mail survey, and typically they want a delicate nudge to get them to the end line. That may be so simple as an entry right into a sweepstake, or (in case your survey is time intensive) you may even give respondents credit score at your store or a free delivery coupon.

10. Present that you simply’re listening

Recipients don’t need to waste their time filling out surveys that get put in a file cupboard. So present that you simply learn the responses and take motion. For instance, if somebody has a brilliant constructive or detrimental expertise, take into account reaching out to them personally. You may even ship a follow-up electronic mail to your respondents to allow them to know the survey outcomes and the way you’ll take motion on the insights gained. 

11. Use electronic mail advertising software program

Whereas you need to use a easy electronic mail service supplier like Gmail to ship electronic mail surveys, you’ll have extra management and capabilities with a whole electronic mail advertising service like Twilio SendGrid. With SendGrid, you need to use built-in instruments so as to add electronic mail surveys to your emails, then use our sturdy software program for listing administration, automation, scheduling, and top-notch design. 

Begin sending electronic mail surveys with Twilio SendGrid

Need an electronic mail resolution to ship your electronic mail surveys (and virtually every other electronic mail marketing campaign) at scale? Belief Twilio SendGrid to get the job finished. We make it straightforward to combine your instruments, get arrange, and ship very quickly.

Join a free account (no bank card required—the true type of free) and see for your self.