How To Maintain Survey Response Rates in Long-Term Studies

Anyone who has conducted a survey knows the struggle of getting responses, especially for long-term studies. In fact, the average survey response rate for academic studies is only around 30%.

As a researcher, you need plenty of data for your work to be meaningful, so you'll need ways to incentivize responses, such as implementing a rewards program that gives respondents points or bonuses for sticking with a survey campaign. 

In this article, we’ll look at a few ways to boost survey response rates and how you can use a points-to-rewards program to keep people engaged during your longitudinal studies.

How Do You Get Better Survey Response Rates?

A lack of responses might be due either to the survey being too long or convoluted or because the respondent lacked the motivation to complete the survey.

Many factors influence how likely someone is to finish answering your questions, but here are a few strategies you can use to increase the chances. 

• Offer incentives for completing surveys
• Keep the surveys as short and clear as possible
• Inform the audience about the purpose of the study
• Give a gentle reminder to finish the survey
• Make the format easy to use and understand
• Personalize the invitation to take the survey

Using Incentives to Increase Survey Engagement

Incentives are a powerful tool for increasing engagement. There is a myth that data from people who take a survey just for the reward will be low quality, however, a controlled study on the effect of incentives on data quality found no evidence that incentives had a negative impact. In fact, their results suggested that incentivized respondents gave higher-quality answers than the non-incentivized respondents. 

What If I Don’t Have Time To Send Rewards?

While incentives sound helpful, you might think it takes a lot of work to send rewards to each survey participant. After all, you have to buy the gifts, send them, and track them on top of your already busy schedule. Fortunately, there’s Giftbit! We make it easy to do all that and more. 

Our software can help you send digital gift cards in bulk with just a few clicks and you can track how much you send as well as the redemption rate. You can also choose to automate with Zapier to send a reward upon survey completion. Just connect Giftbit to the survey app you're already using!

If you decide to use a points-to-rewards program (great for longitudinal studies), our API integration allows you to send gift cards automatically when a user reaches a certain number of points. 

How to Create a Points-to Rewards Program for Longitudinal Studies

With a points-to-rewards program, you can give points to survey takers when they complete surveys or answer a few in a row (hot streaks). When they reach a certain number of points, they get a reward. 

You also need to decide how many points they will get for each action and how many they’ll need for the reward. If your survey goes on longer, you might want to build point accumulation more slowly so that you don’t have to send too many rewards and end up going over budget. 

This type of rewards program suits longitudinal studies since building points is an ongoing process. If you choose an enticing incentive like a digital gift card, you’re motivating more people to respond, and you’ll get plenty of high-quality data.

Get More Survey Responses When You Send Rewards With Giftbit

An internal survey has a typical survey response rate of 30 to 40%, while a customer survey might not even exceed 10 to 15% of the target audience. Incentives can boost survey response rates to help you get more actionable insights, even for long-term studies.

We understand how much work goes into research projects, so we offer efficient, easy-to-use software for sending rewards.

Sign up for free to try Giftbit today!