Increasing Email Invite Open Rate

April 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Getting a survey invite to your willing respondent has become increasingly difficult. Continuing our checklist series, here are some tips that will help increase your response rates:

Use a from name and address that is recognizable. If the respondent doesn’t know who you are, they will most definitely mark your email as SPAM or just delete it.
Similar to above, use a descriptive subject about the email that is short and concise.
Don’t use a misleading subject line. This could get you in legal trouble, but more importantly, your respondent won’t be too happy with you.
Too much punctuation or “ALL CAPS”. Either of these will get your email caught up in an automated SPAM filter (plus its pretty annoying).
Know the preview pane. The first few words or sentences are going to show in the preview pane – make sure your call to action is in the beginning.
One call to action. Some people might disagree on this, but for online survey email invites, there ought to be just one call to action: the link to your survey.
Link to your survey multiple times. Place the survey link throughout the email so respondents can have multiple opportunities to get to your survey.
Use images in your email. People love nice images in their email. Hyperlink all these to your survey as well.