An email survey is a data collection methodology used to get in touch with customers or users and get feedback from them using emails. Emails have, since its inception, remained one of the most popular and widely used forms of communication. Quick as light and smooth as a breeze, an active internet connection and a valid email address are the only requirements to set off contact with an email survey. Businesses everywhere take customers and their experience very seriously nowadays. When you communicate with your customers, the medium you pick is essential.
Set-up your email survey. Create surveys & import contacts
A/B test and share the email survey at the optimum time
Uncover inestimable insights from the responses
Build effective strategies to boost business, revenue & brand value
While social media is still a great way to reach your customers, the open rates for an email are very high, making email surveys a viable and cost-effective means of collecting feedback. In other words, the users who have subscribed to your email newsletter are much more inclined to fill a survey than someone who follows you on a social media platform. Thus despite the umpteen data collection tools, an email survey is one of the most result-oriented ways amongst those.
There are many online survey software available in the market today to fulfill your data collection needs. However, the best surrey makers of them will have multiple survey share options, and an email survey is one of them. SurveySparrow has an in-built email survey module that’ll help you get data and feedback from a mass audience at one go. Here are some of the best features SurveySparrow offers as your email survey tool.
Brand your email surveys and share them. Configure every aspect of your email, the subject, body, and add the logo of your brand. Personalize the email survey by using contact params, which you can use with audience management. Share emails from a custom email address of your choice. This builds trust with your customers—no hint of SurveySparrow. Maintain your brand’s identity.
Automate your periodic email surveys using the recurring survey feature. Configure the time, day, and frequency of sharing the email surveys. Set it once and forget about it. SurveySparrow’s email survey platform takes care of the rest. For instance, this comes handy while measuring employee pulse and customer satisfaction quarterly.
Import contacts easily to your email survey platform. The import can be using CSV, Excel, or any applications like Salesforce, Hubspot, Google Contacts, Intercom. Create custom lists to group your audience, for instance, team-wise, and add Custom Fields for them. These Custome Field properties help you group contacts and filter responses.
Create conversational email surveys that help you bring quality responses. Add personalization features like contact params, custom params, and question piping for higher user engagement. Include logic branching like Skip Logic & Display Logic for posing only relevant questions and skipping the rest.
Embed the first question of your survey to get higher response rates. The criteria for this feature is to set the first question of your email survey as the Opinion Scale Type. This feature comes handy while sharing NPS surveys to your customers and measure employee engagement in your organization.
Configure and automate reminder emails for your respondents to increase the response rates. You can configure reminder emails for partial responders and non-responders. Add the subject and email body, just the way you want, and decide the interval after which you wish to share the reminders: a day or two, or a week.
Schedule the reports of your email survey to your inbox at any preferred time. You do not need to login to your email survey platform to check the reports and analyze the data. SurveySparrow captures the data in real-time, helps you analyze with Advanced Reports Filters, cross-tabulate with Compare feature, and export data in PDF, Excel, SPSS formats for offline analysis.
The more you understand about your objectives and the needs of the end-consumer, the better will be your prospects to create the desired email survey. Here are some email survey strategies you would find extremely useful.
The first step in any marketing outreach campaign is to know your target audience. Without identifying the user persona, your marketing campaign will be akin to shooting a dart in the dark. Don’t spam.
Once you identify your target audience, the next step is to determine the survey objective. Draft relevant questions based on the survey goal and keep it clean and crisp. Create personalized content and brand your emails to build trust with the audience.
You’ll notice that some days bring excellent open rates while some others, like a Friday, are dull. Round-in on the best date and, more importantly, the time of sharing the email. Run a couple of tests, and then you’ll be able to trace a pattern and make it work. We’ve found Tuesdays to be ideal for sharing email surveys.
Timing is essential when you send an email survey to your customers. Sending an email as soon as a customer interacts with you will elicit higher response rates than when you send the email survey at a later time. Keep in mind to send it based on your customers’ preferences.
Offer your audience incentives that will make them spend those 2 minutes taking your email survey. Think of the entire process as an exercise in Marketing and therefore warranting a budget for it as well. Offer a small discount to customers who finish the email survey. We’ve Rybbon Integration to incentivize your surveys easily. You can choose rewards from a wide range.
The decision to open an email has a lot to do with the subject. Therefore, prepare a catchy subject line that propels your audience to open the email and gets you high CTRs. Subject lines like “Customer Satisfaction Survey,” “Please fill out this survey,” and “Spend 2 minutes to fill this survey” are a big ‘No-No.’ Here are a few that works like a charm:
Did you like the experience with us? Please take this survey
We would love to pick your brain
Here is a 20% offer on your next purchase with us if you fill this survey
The multitude of emails arriving in an inbox every day means that you need to make your email survey as attractive as possible. The email survey you draft must instill a sense of curiosity in the end consumer. This is when you get high open rates and survey completion rates. When you spend a considerable amount of time drafting the email content, it is only wise to invest a little more time in embellishing it with a great design.
Being redirected to a website from their email inboxes might not be something that many customers would prefer. Why not remove the problem by embedding the survey questions in the email survey you send? It is not possible to include the entire survey within the email, but adding the first question or two can provide a higher click-through-rate.
Although it might seem counterproductive, providing the unsubscribe button in the email survey gives a sense of freedom and flexibility to your audience. In this manner, they can be sure that the company respects their wishes and privacy.
You never know what your audience would love, so be open to trying out variations in building your survey and the entire approach for feedback collection. A/B test your email surveys and round in on a strategy that has given you the best results. Don’t play out the traditional guess-games & gut-driven strategies and hoping they’ll pan out for good.
Email services today come with a plethora of functions that make it a handy form of a communication channel. The ability to combine multiple types of content makes an email survey a handy data collection tool. Let’s see why email survey supersedes the alternatives like telephone, in-person interviews, focus groups, postal mails, and so on.
The best email survey platforms come with a reporting module that captures the data in real-time and creates insightful reports instantly. You don’t have to spend time in cross-tabulating the data. The platform breaks down the data into meaningful information.
One of the most significant advantages of using an email survey is the ability to add multiple content formats. External clickable links, audios, images, call-to-action buttons; the list is endless, and so are the possibilities. Make the email survey more entertaining and informative by educating the respondent about your products.
The cost of conducting an email survey is meager compared to other methods. All that it requires is an account, an email service provider, and an active internet connection. On the other hand, postal mails need spending on marketing collaterals; in-person interviews require substantial investment regarding both money & time and, phone calls burn a hole through your wallet!
The simplicity and speed email survey are impressive. While postal surveys take ages to get a response in hand, the responses via email survey arrive as soon as the respondent hits the submit button. Using an email is no rocket science, either. Couple the two, and you have a very proficient form of feedback collection right at your fingertip.
Here are some of the popular use-cases where you can employ email surveys.
Relational NPS Surveys: Sending NPS surveys quarterly or bi-annually to gauge how happy customers are with your product/services.
Transactional NPS Surveys: Sharing NPS surveys right after purchase or interaction to measure the effectiveness of support.
Find Product-Market Fit: To understand the position of your product in the market.
Know your Customers: Study the market and find out first-hand from your customers how they use your product:
Improve User Engagement: Share personalized email surveys to engage with users and build long-lasting relationships.
"Smart, varied and loaded with opportunity for users to share insights they might not otherwise feel comfortable sharing..."
Digital Producer at Heat + Deloitte Digital
Market Intelligence & Strategy Manager at Paysafe
Business Manager at Brella
Founder at Parisa Consulting
Business Advisor at Exceeding Limits