Want to get more people to take your surveys? Optimizing your survey invitations can help. Many survey creators use email invitations as the primary way to get respondents to take their online surveys - and as they know, a good survey invitation can make or break your survey. In this short document, SurveyGizmo offers a number of survey invitation best practices, as well as a quick email invitation template to help you get up & running. For more information on how to make your survey invitations more effective, check out: http://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-features/email-invites/

1. How To Improve Your Survey Email Invitations
The survey email invitation plays a key role in persuading your target audience to complete
your survey - or not. SurveyGizmo has put together the following best practices along with a
email template to help you create effective and compliant online survey email invitations:
- Be sure that the recipients have agreed to receive emails/offers from your company
- Your ‘From’ name should be easily recognizable, including the company name or the name of
an individual
- Subject lines should be kept short (35 characters or less). Avoid using all caps, exclamation
points, or dollar signs and avoid words that trigger spam filters such as "important message"
and "free"
- Include personal information, such as the recipient’s name, wherever you can
- Thank the recipient in advance for their participation and assure confidentiality of their
responses
- Mention the purpose of the survey and let recipients know how participating in the survey will
benefit them
- Indicate how long the survey will take. On average, respondents can complete 5 closed-
ended questions or 2 open-ended questions per minute
- Include a deadline for survey completion; deadline dates encourage people to complete the
survey right then
- Let respondents know that that they are part of a select group invited to participate
- If offering a sweepstakes incentive include a link to the rules
- Include the survey URL and instructions for accessing the survey
If you are sending email to people within the United States, it is also important to follow the
rules set forth by the CAN-SPAM Act.
Here’s a rundown of the main requirements:
- Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your ‘From’ ‘To’ ‘Reply-To’ and routing
information - including the originating domain name and email address - must be accurate and
identify the person or business who initiated the message
- Don’t use deceptive subject lines; the subject line must accurately reflect the content of the
message
- Tell recipients where you’re located; your message must include your valid postal address

2. - Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include
a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you
in the future
- Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process
opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message and you must honor a
recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days
Sample Survey Email Invitation:
Dear respondent,
In an effort to goal of the survey, company name is conducting a research study with select
group invited/target audience. Your input can help us goal of survey that will survey
participation benefit to recipient. We estimate that it will take you approximately __ minutes to
complete the survey.
Simply click on the link below, or cut and paste the entire URL into your browser to access the
survey:
Survey link
We would appreciate your response by deadline
Your input is very important to us and will be kept strictly confidential (used only for the
purposes of research for this project).
If you have any questions or would prefer to complete a paper survey please call us at
__________ or email me at ______
Sincerely,
Name
Title
Company
Address
Phone
Email
If you experience technical difficulties accessing or submitting the survey please contact
_______ at _______
To be removed from this or any future mailings, please click here or reply to this message and
enter "REMOVE" in the subject line