Ok the survey is a go … exciting times! :)
Whether you are using common or personalized invitations (see here for my comments on the benefits of personalized invitations), the following applies regardless and will help set up the environment so the send out goes smoothly.
Notify your IT people
Particularly if you are using an external service and the email is coming from outside the company, contact your IT people and they might be able to “white list” the email address that the invitation is coming from. Even if your invitation is coming from an internal email address, a sudden burst of emails from one sender over a short period of time can trigger your email server’s “spam” filter, and either flag your invitations as spam, or block them altogether. “White listing” the sending email address can often get around this.
Let your employees know it’s coming
As part of your overall internal communication about the survey (see Pro Tip 3 – Developing a robust communication strategy), make sure that everyone is expecting your invitation email to arrive at a certain time on a certain day, so that if it DOES get relegated to the “spam” folder people will go looking for it and/or let you know if the invitation hasn’t arrived.
Which email address ? Work vs private
Per the email addresses you are going to send the invitations TO, an internal business address is the obvious choice – but we have run into situations where not everyone you want to include in the survey has one (particularly if they are part-time or contract).
All is not lost though, as many firms have a clause in their hiring agreement that allows emails regarding company business (just like this) to be sent to a personal email address provided by the employee – so check that to see if this route is available to you as well.
Ok the environment’s set up – let’s get to creating the invitation email.
Next: “Getting it out there (Part 2): Designing your survey invitation email.“
