How to write a survey reminder email

In a perfect world, once you’ve done the hard work of designing and delivering a survey to your audience, you can sit back and wait for the responses to roll in. Unfortunately, it usually doesn’t work that way. That’s why learning how to write a survey reminder email is so important. Plus, survey reminder emails can increase response rates by as much as 36 percent.

In this article, we’ll cover what a survey reminder email is, when to send one, how to write a survey reminder email, and how to use Jotform to set up reminder emails for your forms.

What a survey reminder email can do

A survey reminder email is an email you send after your initial survey invitation to politely urge respondents to complete the survey. Or, in the case of respondents who started but didn’t finish the survey, a reminder can encourage them to finish the remaining questions.

Your audience may have every intention of completing your survey, but may forget about it once the initial survey invitation is buried in their inbox after a few days. A survey reminder email can be just the nudge respondents need to finish what they started – especially if there’s an incentive involved. It’s also the ideal opportunity to remind your audience that you value their opinion and want to use their feedback to help you improve your business.

When to send survey reminder emails

When it comes to the timing of your survey reminder emails, you have to walk a fine line between annoying your audience and waiting so long to check in that potential respondents have no memory of what you’re reminding them of — which can also be irritating.

Studies suggest the ideal timeframe to follow up is somewhere between 24 and 72 hours after sending the original survey invitation. This timing will depend on the response to your initial survey — if you’re getting the response rate you want within 24 hours of sending a survey, a reminder email may not be necessary. But since the odds of that are near zero, you might as well prepare to send one or more reminder emails.

And that brings us to how many reminder emails you should send.

To follow best practices, you should aim for two to four reminder emails. You’ll have to gauge what’s right for your specific situation, depending on how well you know your audience and how responsive they are to the original survey invitation.

Ideally, you’ll determine the response rate you need for success prior to surveying, so once you reach that number, you can stop sending reminder emails. Your survey response rate will depend on how engaged your audience is and what size your survey sample is, but for context, 33 percent is considered an average response rate.

How to write a survey reminder email: 5 tips

Now that we have an idea of when to send reminder emails, let’s review how to write an effective survey reminder email, using these five tips:

1. Choose a compelling email subject line 

Your subject line can make or break your email open rates, so choose wisely. Using the word “survey” in your subject line may not be the best approach, since some folks will consider your survey “homework” and want to avoid it. Instead, consider mentioning how much their feedback matters or suggesting there’s something in it for them.

Here are a few subject line ideas:

• We’d love to hear your thoughts on [topic of your survey].
• Your feedback matters. Share it with us here.
• Your opinion is important. Let’s chat.
• Here’s another chance to tell us how we can do better.
• Have three minutes? We’d love your feedback.
• How’s 30 percent off for your thoughts?
• What did you think? Tell us here for a $10 gift card [or whatever amount makes sense for your brand].
• Help us improve and get 20 percent off.
• Share your honest feedback for 30 percent off your next purchase.

2. Personalize the email 

According to Campaign Monitor, people are 26 percent more likely to open emails with personalized subject lines. Mention the recipient’s name in the email body for added personalization, and if you have relevant customer data, you can even remind email recipients of other ways they’ve interacted with your brand in the past.

3. Emphasize the value of customer feedback

Mention the importance of customer opinions and the ways in which you’ll use feedback to improve the customer’s experience with your brand, business, or organization.

4. Offer an incentive

You can offer a gift card, a percentage off a next purchase, branded merchandise, or entry into a sweepstakes or giveaway. There are lots of options here to increase your survey response rates. What you offer will depend on the length and complexity of your survey; shorter, simpler surveys require less of an incentive.

5. Provide a deadline

Deadlines work. Remind survey respondents how many days they have left to complete the survey, and encourage them to finish it by that date so they’re eligible for the incentive.

Survey reminder email template

Let’s look at an example survey reminder email that incorporates all these elements yet still manages to be short and to the point. Use this template as a starting point to craft your own survey reminder email.

Subject line: 30 percent off for your thoughts, [First Name]?

Hi [First Name],

Just a quick reminder that the final day to complete our survey is [include date here], and we’d love to hear your thoughts. 

The survey takes just [number] minutes to complete, and we’ll use your valuable feedback to [insert goal of your survey here, such as “improve X product,” “improve our customer service,” “determine our new product suite,” etc.].

Survey link: [insert link]

To show our appreciation, we’ll [insert information about your incentive, such as “send you a code to take 30 percent off your next purchase,” “enter you into a drawing to win [name of prize],” “send you a gift card for $10,” etc.].

Don’t miss this chance to make your voice heard.

Thanks for your time!
Best,
[Your name]

How to send reminder emails with Jotform

Sending out reminder emails doesn’t have to be a nuisance — you can use Jotform to automate the process with a few simple steps:

1. Schedule reminder emails by opening your survey in the Jotform Form Builder and navigating to the Publish tab in the top menu.
2. Select the Email option on the left side.
3. Choose Schedule a Reminder Email.
4. In the Email tab, enter the subject line and text of the email.
5. In the Recipients tab, add the recipient email addresses and customize the sender name and reply-to email address, if needed.
6. In the Schedule tab, you’ll have the option to schedule your reminder emails at a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence. You can choose the send date and time, the time zone, and the start and end dates for reminders. You can use the start and end date function to send a reminder email just once, rather than on a recurring basis, if that’s your preference.
7. You can also choose to send recurring reminders on specific days. For example, you can select Weekly in the Repeat tab, then use the Send Date dropdown to select the day of the week you want to send reminder emails, such as every Monday.
8. Once you’ve configured all the above settings, simply click the Save button, and you’re all set.

Check out our easy-to-follow tutorial here that includes a video, screenshots, and step-by-step instructions.

We’ve covered what the basics of sending a survey reminder email are, how to write one, how often to send them, and how to automate the process. Now all that’s left to do is schedule your reminder emails so you can gather meaningful feedback to improve your business or organization.

Photo by Artem Podrez