Getting Your Survey Invitation Opened

Your survey invitation gets past the spam filters and shows up in someone's email inbox. Now the recipient will have two or three items at hand to decide whether to click Delete or to open your message:

• From field - The From field consists of the sending email address and the alias for that address. Nothing will get your email deleted faster than having an impersonal email address without an alias, such as - a particular favorite! - noreply@example.com. Always include the alias. What type of alias works best varies by organization; examples to experiment with for your invitations include:
  • The name of an individual - The name of an employee managing the survey or commissioning the survey can be very effective.
  • The name of the brand or company - While this can be impersonal, it may outperform the names of individuals for B2B vendors.
  • Brand name + "Surveys" - For some organizations a From field such as "Acme Surveys" works best.
  • Hybrid - Some panel companies test combinations such as "Acme Surveys & Jane Doe".
• Subject line - The text of the subject line will have the biggest impact: "Your Feedback Needed", "Some Quick Questions for You", "Help Us Serve You Better", "Learn What Your Peers Think About -----" are all subject lines that have been successful for survey invitations. Your organization will need to experiment to determine what works best for your audience.
• First line of the invitation - Some email programs display the first line of the invitation in grayed-out text immediately after a bold subject line. All the more reason to pay special attention to the copy you use in the body of your invitation.

What tactics have improved your organization's open rate on surveys?