Online Surveys, Part 3: Real-Life Tips and Tactics

For this final installment, we're going to do a brief rundown of some tested tips and tactics -- in survey form.

What Incentives Work to Get People to Complete a Survey?

• Amazon gift certificates
• Electronic devices such as iPODs, digital cameras etc
  
• Cash Incentives
• Detailed reports (where the content has value to the participants)

Carol Nelson, group marketing director of Advanstar Communications, has used digital cameras as well as Amazon gift certificates and cash incentives. Her response rates for surveys for Sensors magazine and Sensors Expo & Conference are typically 15 to 20 percent.

A drawing in which entrants (a.k.a., survey participants) could win one of five $50 gift vouchers worked for Julie Chapman, marketing manager at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Her survey generated a 34 percent response.

Another possible offering, employed by Ellen Sills-Levy, president and CEO of Strategic Surveys International, is partial sections on a relevant book as a download. Sills-Levy got good results with the strategy.

The beauty of online incentives, such as gift certificates, is no fulfillment costs are involved. You can also offer them in relatively low denominations, or hold a drawing, to keep your premium costs affordable.


What's the Best Format for Online Surveys?

• Rolling surveys (with all the questions on one page)
• One question per page

• One week after the event
• Two weeks after
• Three weeks after

While you would want to talk to recent attendees while the experience is fresh in their minds, you also need to give them some time to get settled in back at work. They're not going to read or respond to your survey the first week after the conference, since they have to catch up with their overloaded inboxes. Timing will for different situations but a general target would be to send the survey two to three weeks after the event.  A reminder can be sent a week or two after the initiial invitation.

 

Final Note: From a Copywriter's Perspective

Survey results -- especially written responses to open-ended questions -- can be considered to be golden nuggets of marketing information.

For example, reading the responses to a survey from Sensors Expo & Conference, it was possible to understand the nature of the networking that happened at the event. It wasn't about making valuable career or sales contacts. It was about engineers finding the right products and talking to vendors face to face to see if they had the knowledge and expertise to solve the engineers' design problems. As a result, an article written about the event  was able to target the copy more closely to the actual attendee experience -- and use actual testimonials to give the copy more credibility.