If your survey is as much about politics as it is about getting an answer to a question, then you have to balance making the respondents feel that their opinions will be heard and putting a good face on the survey for your employer. Email Email is becoming a perfect replacement for postal mail. Just as we automatically disregard junk mail, people have become trained to ignore junk email. We asked 14 questions, gave people plenty of opportunity to write in their comments, and used a text-only email with simple formatting. The next time you find yourself reading a solicitation for a magazine subscription, look carefully at it.
Chances are, the letter is written in a plain, black, typewriter font.
The direct mail industry has learned that people are more likely to respond to a simple mailing than a fancy, graphics-intensive mailing. In 2000, popup web surveys were a popular tool for professional market researchers. They allowed you to force someone to see your survey, without changing the layout of your main website. This aspect of forced behavior is always appealing to web designers, but there is now a backlash against it. Many people even use software to block popups , and Google will not link ads to pages with popup windows.