Incentives for reader surveys?

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Permalink Reply by Robin McCabe on June 13, 2008 at 12:58pm

First you need to define successful, surveys can do different things,
A) Prove a point,
B) Engage readers in the product,
C) Discover who your readers are, (as compared to recipients)

Incentives always increase return response but there is always the question of what bias the type of incentive imparts on the responce. Simply increasing total numbers does not make a better survey.

For example if you want a survey to find out what the hot issues are for xyz market place, I would think you only want issues that motivate people to speak out because the issue is important, not because they might win something. On the other hand if you are trying to prove a point any extra numbers, biased or otherwise would be considered a success.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Abell on June 16, 2008 at 3:56pm

We are looking to do a reader survey that will help us shape our editorial calendar and gather some demographics.

Thanks for your input.

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Permalink Reply by Robin McCabe on June 17, 2008 at 11:51am

Something you might want to try is an exit poll.
Contact all the people who are dropping their subscription and ask why?

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Permalink Reply by Shelly Sherman on June 13, 2008 at 12:59pm

We have recently tried Reader Surveys by email, something new for us (in the past this would have been a fax/mail item).

First we tried, this survey without a prize and had (as we anticipated) almost no response (but it was worth the experiment anyway). We then tried "complete the survey and be entered to win..." type programs. Generally the prize will be cash (and is typically in the $50-100 range), but we've tried iPod Nano as prizes as well. Either way, we get overwhelming response.

Hope that helps!

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Abell on June 16, 2008 at 3:58pm

Thanks for your suggestion, I think we will end up doing a drawing of some kind.

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Permalink Reply by Katy Tomasulo on June 13, 2008 at 3:48pm

For surveys in which the results will be particularly beneficial for the participants' businesses (such as one that would result in market-specific sales data), try offering participants a first look at the results or an exclusive look at a larger portion of the results than non-participants will see.
For surveys where we really just need lots of responses for internal use (such as "how can we improve your Web site experience"), we keep them very short and offer a drawing for a $100 AMEX gift card.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Abell on June 16, 2008 at 3:51pm

Thanks for your help

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Permalink Reply by Mike Zawacki on June 22, 2008 at 12:44pm

We've been successful with offering our readers incentives to take online surveys. We've seen the best response from offering every-day type of incentives such as Starbucks cards and fuel cards. Nothing major. The incentive is for them to give 10-15 minutes of their time to complete an online survey, in return their name is entered into a drawing to win one of 10 or 15 $25 gift cards.

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Permalink Reply by Melis on June 24, 2008 at 3:37pm

You should run a sweepstakes with a grand prize, AMEX gift cheques are great. If you want to go smaller or less grand, everyone loves a Starbucks card.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Doyle on July 17, 2008 at 9:23pm

At Today's Hospitalist magazine, we go out to a fairly highly-paid physician audience, so we tend to be fairly agressive with incentives for surveys and research. We do an annual readership survey with a $10 incentive, which produces modest results. For a career and compensation survey, we offered a combination of $10 incentives AND a grand prize drawing of a $500 Amex card. It was a bit pricey, but we received about 800 responses, which is overwhelmingly better than what we've ever received for the readership study. It's possible that our readers were more interested in participating in the career study because they knew that to get reliable results, they had to participate. One other note: We did a combination online/direct mail survey, so one reason we went with high incentives was that we didn't want to have to do a second mailing in case the response rate was low.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Mazzuca Toops on December 11, 2008 at 2:12pm

We have had very good responses to e-mail surveys, which I periodically conduct both to determine reader preference and to tie in to specific issues. Admittedly, we have better responses when we enter participants into a drawing for an Amex gift card!

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Permalink Reply by Paul B. Beatty on January 24, 2009 at 9:15am

Business-to- Business editorial and advertising pages drive more buyers to sellers Web sites than any other medium......if you don't measure the connections you are not with it.

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