Soliciting email addresses to re-contact online survey respondents: Results from web experiments

Abstract

There are many occasions where contact information needs to be collected from survey participants in order to achieve future contacts and conducting follow-up surveys. This article reports findings from two experiments into collecting respondent emails and sending the second survey invites. In the email collection experiment, when only one follow-up survey was mentioned, more respondents provided their emails, compare to when the emphasis was on the research purpose of the follow-up survey. However, the follow-up survey participation rates are similar among respondents who provided their emails regardless of the wording of the request. The invitation email subject line experiment shows that a generic requesting for opinion reduces the follow-up survey participation compared to the elements emphasizing survey sponsor and specialty opinions.