As a marketer, you know how important it is to get survey responses. Surveys are one of the best ways for companies to gather feedback from their customers and figure out what they want or need. Unfortunately, surveys can be challenging because many people don’t want to take them. In this blog post, we will give you 10 tips on getting more survey responses so that your company’s needs are met!
Get to the right people.
Ideally, you will want to contact people who are relevant to your niche and will be interested in taking the survey. You can either build your list through opt-in forms and social media activity, or hunt down the leads yourself. Opt-ins and landing pages will certainly get you solid followers that are more than willing to hear what you have to offer, but that will take you time and a lot of effort.
On the other hand, choosing to build your list manually can be a bit tricky, especially since it can be difficult to track down each lead’s contact information — even if the contact details are public, there’s no guarantee that you can easily get to them. In that regard, you can use specialized lead search engines such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find leads that are fit for your survey outreach. You may use tools such as ContactOut and Hunter to enrich your data.
In any case, you are supposed to actually reach your leads and convince them to get on with the survey. The key here is rich data that you can use to send personalized outreach messages that, in turn, generate engagement and delivers results.
Make it more about your respondents than the survey itself.
You will want to make your respondents understand that you value their opinion, and you will have to make them feel special if you want to get them through what could potentially be a Q&A slog. You can do this through the way you present your survey’s message. Try asking for responses in a friendly, casual way and be sure that they are central to your messaging.
In essence, you will want to talk more about your respondent’s role in the completion of your survey and how they can benefit your company. In turn, you will want them to know how the results of the survey will benefit them as well.
Respect is also crucial in this instance. You need to ask people to take your survey in a very respectful manner. You are going to take them out of doing something arguably more important for them in order to accomplish your survey, so a little humility will be useful in this regard.
One thing that you should avoid, though, is pandering to your potential respondents. You may end up coming off wrong or will look like you are trying too hard to appeal to their interests, and that can easily turn people off. You do not want to be too business-like either, as you will need a language that your respondents can relate to.
Give them a great experience.
One solution for getting your respondents engaged and answering the survey is giving them an enjoyable experience while taking it! If you want more people to take your surveys, then you will want them to feel great after having accomplished it.
You can gamify the survey. You may tie up the completion of a survey to points that your survey takers can trade for rewards. You can also drop some interactive elements into the survey and turn it into a highly engaging minigame. This is a great way to get people interested in your survey and get your creativity to go wild at the same time.
Now, when you give your survey-takers a memorable experience, you cannot just expect that it will stop just right there. You can expect your respondents to talk about your survey as well. It’s free word-of-mouth marketing, and not only will it convince more people to take your survey but it will also shine more light on your brand.
It’s all about the incentives!
Instead of trying so hard asking people to take your survey, why don’t you just give your respondents a reason to take the survey in the first place? You can also incentivize respondents with rewards for taking surveys, and these do not need to be monetary. You could hold monthly drawings for prizes or create an exciting point system where they have more chances of winning if they take more surveys. One
Now while we are talking about incentives here, this does not necessarily have to be a financial reward much like in many survey websites out there. It could be a free downloadable e-book, an exclusive discount on your products for survey takers only, or even a simple chance to win something.
It is best that you have specific prizes in mind when doing this and that they are limited so that people want them more. When your respondents know what is in store for them, they are more likely to bite into your offer so long as there is a modicum of interest.
Avoid wasting your respondents’ time.
Keep the survey brief and straight to the point. You should not beat around the bush; after all, your respondents gave some of their precious time to complete the survey that you have asked them to — or at least make the attempt — so you will need to treat them with respect.
No one wants to sit down for many minutes answering surveys that mean nothing to them. That said, if you want anyone to actually take on that questionnaire of yours, you have to make sure that it is worth their time.
