Your invitation email should follow four basic rules. It should:
1) Avoid spam filters
Spam filters may be triggered by various things. Avoid these common offenders in your invitation email:
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all-caps subject lines
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exclamation marks in the subject line
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trigger words in the subject line or body of text, like 'free', 'urgent matter', 'act now', 'last chance'
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an email with one big image and little to no text
- lots of different fonts, font sizes, and text colors
2) Invite your customers to open the email
Your subject line should be brief, straightforward and friendly. Often a question works well. Examples of good subject lines:
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How did we do?
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We'd like your feedback
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John, how was your experience?
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We'd love to hear from you
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Would you recommend us?
Examples of bad subject lines:
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We would really appreciate your feedback about your recent purchase at out Eshop - too long
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Give us your feedback now - too demanding
- Did you miss this last time? - too patronizing
3) Convince your customers to click on the survey link
Some tips to increase the number of customers who will click on the survey link:
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The text of your email should be brief and clear - don't expect your customer to read multiple paragraphs of text
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Avoid shouty logos and varying fonts/colors - stick to a stylish and simple layout
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The survey link should be obvious and easy to find (no need to scroll down) - a button always invites people to press it!
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Mention how short the survey is - people often avoid surveys because they worry it will take them half an hour
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Personalize the email with your customer's name (but make sure you have clean data!) and potentially with relevant transaction information
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Put a face to the feedback request: for example use your CEO's name and photo in the signature
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Tell your customer how you intend to user their feedback - make a promise
4) Be mobile-optimized
A significant and ever-increasing percentage of your customers will read your invitation email on a mobile device, so it's crucial that your template is optimized for a variety of screen sizes. Once you've finalized your invitation text and layout, you should view the test email on various devices - desktop, tablet and phone.