The answer is yes, you can. To make a simple survey, it is enough to use the internal tools of ESPs, for more complex services — use specialized services like Google Forms, Survicate, SurveyMonkey. Either way, you shouldn’t have too much trouble creating a survey and inserting it into your newsletter. We’ve written a handy guide further.
Surveys can be used to create a portrait of a subscriber, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the email campaign, get feedback and find out what your customers think. Let’s look at when using surveys in emails might be useful.
If you doubt the quality of your email marketing content or want to collect opinions about a product, it’s a good idea to do it with the help of a survey in the email. In this way, the subscriber can:
If you are launching new products, subscribers can become your focus group. Select those customers who fit the new project’s target audience and conduct research through an email survey:
If a subscriber comes from a subscription form on the site, they are usually asked only for their email address and name or just the address. In this case, you can collect more data about the customer through the survey: their date of birth, gender, city, product categories of interest, suitable content type, and more.
For example, knowing their date of birth, you can send happy birthday emails with bonuses and gifts. If you know what products the customer is interested in, you can send a personalized message with promotions specifically for this category of products.
There are several different types of survey questions you can ask in emails. Here are some of the most popular:
This is a question to which you give answers and ask the reader to choose one option. This survey format is suitable for collecting feedback when you want a one-syllable yes or no answer.
For example, if a subscriber liked your newsletter, would they be willing to receive similar emails in the future? Or you can offer to choose their age category from a list of variants: from 20 to 30, from 30 to 40 and so on.
Quizzes often use a single-choice question:
The single-choice question type often contains demographic questions. Demographic questions are used to collect information about a respondent’s background, income level, or other personal characteristics. This type of information can be used to segment your audience and gain deeper insights into your target market. Demographic questions typically ask for information like age, gender, occupation, or relationship status.
Same as with single-select questions, you also provide answers, but the client can choose several options at once. It comes in handy if you offer to choose what kinds of emails a subscriber would like to receive in the future.
For example, you could ask if they would like to receive email updates with new product discounts and information. This way, you can tailor the content to better match their interests. Not sure what kind of products to send out? Ask your subscribers directly and they will let you know what they are interested in.
An open-ended question is a great way to encourage respondents to provide detailed feedback about their experience with your product or service. This can be particularly useful if you are looking to gather qualitative data on a particular issue. Open-ended questions, on the other hand, are answered less frequently since they take more time to respond.
In this regard, such inquiries are better posed to those who are dedicated to your service and have been with you for a long time. For new subscribers, it’s preferable to provide easier questions where they can select their answers.
Rating scales are one of the most popular types of survey questions. They allow respondents to rate something on a scale, usually from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. This type of question is often used to gather feedback about products, services, or experiences.
This type measures how much respondents agree or disagree with a statement. Other rating scales may ask respondents to rate their satisfaction with something on a scale from “very satisfied” to “very unsatisfied” or “not likely” to “very likely”.
They allow respondents to select an answer from a list of options. Dropdown questions are often used to ask respondents about their age, gender, income, education level, marital status, etc.
Image choice questions are a popular type of survey question that allows respondents to choose an image that best represents their feelings or experiences. This type of question can be used to gauge customer satisfaction, understand how people feel about a product or service, or gather feedback about an experience.
These are questions that ask respondents to click on a specific area of an image in order to answer a question. This type of question can be used to gauge people’s opinions on a variety of topics. Why not ask people which part of your website they find most appealing? You could also try asking them about the item on a shelf that captures their attention.
Google Forms is a classic way to take a survey in a newsletter. The survey can be completed entirely within the email for subscribers with Gmail addresses. If anyone is having trouble displaying the survey, they can follow the link and fill out the survey on Google Forms.
The data goes into a table and is updated in real time. There is an option to enable notifications that will come every time the user fills out the form.
The service is completely free, and the functionality is enough to conduct a full-fledged survey. Here’s a step-by-step plan of how to embed a Google survey in an email:
To set up a Google form, start by logging into your Google Drive account. Then, click on the “New” button in the top left corner.
You can either choose from one of the templates that come pre-designed by Google or you could start completely blank if there’s something specific in mind for your intended use.
This will open the form builder, which will allow you to create and customize your form to your liking. You have a lot of options available to you to make the perfect form.
When your survey is ready, click “Send” in the upper right corner to open the submission options.
It’s simple to include your form within an email. Follow these steps:
The “Include form in email” field is useful because it’s the one that actually embeds the form in the email, rather than forcing recipients to proceed to the survey (which they may also be reluctant to do). It is also useful that you can type and send your own text in addition to the form.
For Selzy users, there are two ways to embed a survey in email – create one from scratch in the service itself, or embed a link to an existing survey designed with the Google Form. Let’s look at both options.
There are two methods for creating a survey in Selzy. The first is to track link clicks and take a survey with answer choices or urge the subscriber to rate it, which is known as counting link clicks. The second option is to automatically add contacts to separate lives, allowing you to obtain information on which answers were chosen and segment them.
Consider the creation of a short survey with pre-written responses.
Make sure that the “Opens” and “Click rate” options are selected in the “Advanced Settings” part of the message before sending it.
Great! You have created a brief survey in Selzy. Your email is now ready to be sent. When the first statistics are available, go to “Campaigns history” and view the email survey report.
We can examine how many people responded positively and how many did not in the “Visited links” tab.
You may also use contact segmentation in Selzy to create a survey. With this survey, you can quickly partition your contacts by response type. If you want to send different emails to subscribers based on the survey results, contact segmentation is the ideal option.
Every contact list has its own ID, which is a unique number. Everything proceeds in exactly the same way as with the previous survey. For each answer button, we’ll set a variable equal to {{SubscribeListUrl:NNN}} for the link, where NNN is the ID of the contact list to which the person will be added after clicking on this button.
Consider implementing a survey from Google Forms in Selzy editor.
To help you get started, we’ve put together a collection of survey email examples. They come from various businesses in different industries and highlight what makes an effective survey in an invitation email.
Surveys in email help you get better and evolve in the market. Ask your subscribers how to do this. Mention how important your subscribers’ feedback is to you as well as how their opinions may assist you to enhance your service/product. It’s a good format to get a free pool of ideas for product development.
Typeform and Dropbox use a scale-type survey to learn about the attitudes of their customers:
This type of survey email is similar to requests for service assessment, but here the answer helps to develop existing products/services or create new ones. The survey may ask customers what they think about the company’s products/services, what needs improvement, and what new products/services they would like to see.
In the following emails, Dairy Queen and Sightglass Coffee ask their customers about the quality of their service. The survey provides an opportunity to talk about wishes. The examples below are good options for survey email marketing for restaurants.
Surveys are able not only to improve processes but also to improve customer relations. Some surveys are purely for entertainment and do not serve any greater purpose. You can find out what customers are interested in and offer them a distraction from the mundane aspects of their life, offering gifts or other incentives.
For example, Skillshare has entertaining quizzes called “How are you doing today?”. The company asks people to share their moods, which results in class recommendations based on their moods. This increases reader engagement.
If you want people to take your survey, consider offering discounts, rewards, or coupon codes as an incentive for them to do so. For example, Alchemer claims that offering incentives can increase the response rate from 2.2% to 11.5%.
There are several reasons why you might want to embed a survey in an email:
The best way to get your email surveys to your subscribers is to create them directly in the ESP editor you use or with the help of special services, including Google Forms.
There are several different types of questions that can be included in a survey to collect feedback from subscribers. Among them are single-select questions, multiple choices, open-ended questions, rating scales, etc.
