You probably have heard that you can’t improve the performance of your business if you can’t measure it. Well, one way to measure your business performance is to conduct survey research. The problem with such an approach is that you may not get the kind of response that you need to improve your brand. This is mostly because a majority of prospective respondents prefer not to participate in surveys. Sadly, there’s little you can do with a low response rate because you need to get a comprehensive and conclusive evaluation.

Here are some of the best tricks that you can use to improve the response rate of your survey research:

Know You Audience In Advance

While this is something that you are taught in a survey research training class, some researchers forget it. However, it’s important to prioritize it since you need demographics like the average age, the majority gender, and occupation to create target-specific survey research. Which methods would they prefer to respond with—email, SMS, online etc? When, where, and what time are they likely to respond to your survey questions?

Prepare Your Respondents Beforehand

Just as it’s important to know your target audience in advance, it’s equally important to prepare them for the survey beforehand. They should know what the survey is about, what you intend to do with the data collected, and how long the exercise will take.

Make the Survey Personal

If you are looking to grab the attention of a prospective responder, you have to be a little personal. For example, you can start your email with ‘dear name of responder’ if they are on your email subscription list. The research survey should also be branded, so consider adding a logo or customizing your survey template.

The Power of Anonymity

When it comes to the questions, you don’t have to be too personal. You need to at least provide the responder with the option of not answering in the case of personal questions. Additionally, you should assure them in advance that their responses will remain confidential.

Offer Some Incentives

Most people don’t participate in surveys because they see it as a waste of time. However, if there are incentives like free gifts or discounts, they’ll feel motivated to participate.

While the above tricks are central to improving the survey response rate, it’s important to know that nothing can substitute survey research training. With the right training, you can learn the discussed tricks and many others that you can use to gauge the performance of your business.