How To Increase Survey Response Rates: 14 Proven Strategies

More importantly, surveys with low response rates are essentially unusable, as they distort data and misrepresent potential conclusions. If you use them, you’ll only make bad decision after bad decision.

Fortunately, it’s possible to increase survey response rates on a budget and without extensive marketing knowledge.

In this article, you can learn all about 14 business strategies to increase response rates and revolutionize your surveys right away.

According to research studies and published works, the human attention span has been declining. For example, according to a book by Gloria Mark, in 2004, people averaged 150 seconds on a screen. Flash forward to 2021, and the number has dropped to 47 seconds.

It means people are getting bored more easily, making long surveys far from ideal. We recommend building surveys with a maximum of five to ten questions that respondents can complete in under five minutes.

In a nutshell, respect your target audience’s time and you’ll see an uptick in survey responses.

How many times have you disregarded or deleted generic mass emails without even opening them? The truth is that nowadays we’re all bombarded with endless newsletters, survey requests, and ads, which is so overwhelming that we have stopped caring.

To counteract this tendency, personalize all invitations by using the recipient’s name, referencing recent interactions (e.g., ‘thanks for your product or service name order’), and other specific information.

As shown by the 2024 ‘Enhancing Response Rates in Web-Based Surveys: The Impact of Direct Participant Contact’ study, personalized surveys may generate response rates nearly 15% higher than generic ones.

You know the saying ‘first impressions count’? It applies to surveys, too. Poorly designed surveys are perceived as amateur, which can significantly damage credibility and response rates.

To avoid this potential problem, ensure that your surveys’ designs are clean, neatly formatted, typographically consistent, and have a logical question flow.

Fortunately, survey software like SurveyMonkey is an exceptional tool for creating unique and aesthetically pleasing surveys that stand out from generic ones.

With a handy AI survey builder, more than 500 professional and customizable templates, and white label branding, you don’t need survey design expertise to send out professional-looking surveys.

Survey response rates vary significantly depending on when you send them.

For example, for customer feedback, you should send surveys and engage with customers within a day of purchase or interaction.

In contrast, for B2B surveys, you should avoid sending surveys on Monday mornings due to inbox overload, and Friday afternoons since it’s usually when people mentally step back from work.

For global audiences, schedule your surveys to be sent according to each country’s time zone.

When sending surveys via email, you should give special attention to the subject line. For every 100 email sends, 47 recipients will open it based on the subject line, as reported in a study by Zippia.

Here are some tips to write clear and compelling subject lines:

• Make them short and clear
• Personalize them
• Ask questions
• Offer discounts and benefits
• Create a sense of urgency
• Be honest and direct
• Avoid spam triggers (free, offer, reward, etc.)

Offering incentives is an effective way to significantly increase survey responses. However, small businesses should stick to small guaranteed rewards that make them seem attainable by the audience, such as:

• Minor discounts
• Free shipping
• Gift cards
• Charitable donations
• Early access to new products

If you opt for larger prize drawings, the survey may appear spammy and more like a scam rather than being genuine.

A study conducted by SurveyMonkey found that, in 2024, six out of ten surveys are completed via mobile devices. That’s why optimizing surveys for mobile is a non-negotiable.

One effortless way to create mobile-first surveys is by using survey software, which automatically optimizes surveys for all platforms.

It adapts surveys so they look professional and function smoothly, no matter if respondents answer them via phones, tablets, or desktops.

Forgetting is a natural part of human nature, but well-timed reminders can help mitigate this unfavorable trait. However, emphasis on well-timed. Reminders that don’t follow timing best practices get annoying and lose effectiveness.

Make sure to send a maximum of two or three friendly survey follow-ups: one after three or four days, another after a week, and an optional third after two weeks. It’s essential to write different messages so you don’t sound repetitive.

Here’s an example of a friendly reminder:

‘Quick reminder – we’d still love your feedback. Your input = better [product/service] for everyone.’

When done correctly, reminders can boost survey response rates by up to 50%.

It’s essential that you inform all respondents about the duration of the survey and the number of questions it contains off the bat.

This type of transparency encourages users to finish the survey instead of abandoning it after a few minutes.

For example, you can include a disclaimer stating, ‘This survey takes just 2 minutes to complete.’

However, when conducting long surveys, avoid using elements like progress bars and use small encouragement phrases instead, such as ‘almost done’. As reported by RelevantInsights:

“If you try to trick respondents by omitting how long the survey will be, think again. Respondents can always figure it out from the progress bar. They will leave in the middle of the survey if they perceive it as too long.”

The way you formulate questions on your surveys matters. Irrelevant or poorly structured questions cause people to abandon surveys, so make sure to pay them special attention.

Here’s a short guide about survey question quality.

Making sure that your survey is easy to understand is halfway to generating more data. You must avoid long, repetitive, and complex questions at all costs. Otherwise, the survey’ll cause respondent burnout and inevitably lead to survey abandonment.

The channel you choose to distribute or share your surveys also significantly impacts response rate.

Depending on the audience, you might want to use one channel over another, so make sure you know your public well before sending surveys.

Here’s how different channels work differently:

• Email: Ideal for a broad group of people who check their email regularly. Example: small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
• SMS: Best for on-the-go audiences, retail shoppers, and service industries.
• In-app: Well-suited for SaaS platform users, gaming communities, and home banking.
• QR code: Most appropriate for on-site customers (stores, conferences, campus environments, etc.).
• Website pop-ups: Recommended for active website visitors, returning visitors, and online shoppers.
• Social media: Optimal for young demographics, brand followers, and prospective customers.

We recommend using this information to target your audiences across multiple channels accurately. As supported by research papers, such as the one published by Ascend2, 86% of marketers claim that a multi-channel marketing strategy is becoming increasingly effective.

For people to engage with a survey, you need to give them a reason to do so. Ultimately, no one’s gonna answer questions just for the sake of it.

Your audience must feel their input matters, and you can do this in a few different ways.

• Include a statement explaining the purpose of the survey and how you’ll use the survey’s results to help your audience. For example, ‘Your feedback will help us improve our delivery services so you get your product much faster.’
• Share how a previous survey helped improve customer experience. For example, ‘Last month, 87% of you asked for different payment methods, so now we accept payments via PayPal and cryptocurrency’.

In short, if you want high response rates and honest feedback, you have to be transparent and clearly show how taking the time to answer a survey can impact them.

Even if your audience is clearly interested in your survey, they might postpone taking it (especially true for open-ended surveys). To address this, you must set a clear deadline for submission and communicate it clearly.

For example, if your survey includes a deadline or countdown timers, such as ‘the survey closes in 4 days’, your audience is more likely to answer it right away. If they don’t, at least they’ll know until when they can.

That’s why being genuine about deadlines is fundamental. Beware, though, never create fake deadlines, as you’ll lose credibility and trust.

Creating successful surveys is rarely a one-time deal. It’s usually an ongoing process.

A/B testing is excellent and helps you transform poor surveys into state-of-the-art questionnaires with impressive response rates.

All you have to do is test your survey with different communication styles, subject lines, incentives, lengths, send times, and distribution channels. Then you can refine your survey based on the results of each version.

You can do all these tests easily by using survey software platforms like SurveyMonkey. They include A/B testing and in-depth analytics, which show you fundamental insights like drop-off points.

At its core, software like SurveyMonkey enables you to track all your surveys, learn from each campaign, and optimize them for the best possible results.

We can confidently say that improving survey response isn’t about tricks, deceptive tactics, or shortcuts. It’s the opposite.

It’s about respecting your audience’s time by being transparent and honest. We covered 14 important strategies in this article, but if we had to choose just three that you can’t go without, we would pick:

• Making surveys feel relatable by personalizing them.
• Choosing the right distribution channel for each audience.
• Be clear about the survey goals and how it will help the respondent.

One of the best ways to put these strategies to use is by using survey software like SurveyMonkey. It helps you design beautiful and professional surveys across platforms, seemingly track your campaigns, and optimize them to achieve full completion rates without requiring you to be a survey expert.

The best part? SurveyMonkey doesn’t require any significant commitments. You can try it with the free plan and then upgrade if you feel it’s worth the price.