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The Effect of Cover Letter Appeals and Visual Design on Response Rates in a Government Mail Survey |
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Abstract:
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Previous research has demonstrated that altruistic appeals (explaining how society serves to gain) have been shown to elicit greater response from academic-sponsored surveys. In contrast, egoistic appeals (how a person can expect to gain personally) are more effective when they originate from commercial institutions. However, empirical research is lacking as to whether an appeal beyond simply asking respondents to answer the survey is necessary at all, or if it is, which appeal works best with government surveys. Thus, we developed four cover letters that differed in their appeals. The first delivered an altruistic appeal, and the second, an egoistic appeal. The third letter was based upon a burgeoning body of research suggesting that authoritative appeals(especially invoking any mandatory nature of a survey) have been shown to impact response, and the fourth letter simply asked people to complete the survey. These appeals were tested against the original letter in the National Survey of College Graduates. Approximately 27,000 cases were assigned to each letter type. We also created an additional version of the altruistic letter in which each of its paragraphs started with a question in boldface. Preliminary results show that all of the test letters were in the expected direction of increasing response versus the original letter. Similar to academic-sponsored surveys, the altruistic appeal elicited the greatest response, with the egoistic eliciting the least (ignoring the letter with questions in boldface for now). An interesting finding is that the authoritative letter was second best at eliciting response. But the most interesting finding was that the treatment delivering questions in bold undid the gains of using the altruistic appeal in the first place. This result adds to evidence suggesting that simple alterations in the visual design of information can have powerful and unforeseen consequences on the underlying verbal message. |
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Association:
Name: American Association for Public Opinion Research
URL: http://www.aapor.org
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Citation:
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MLA Citation:
| Redline, Cleo., Oliver, Julia. and Fecso, Ron. "The Effect of Cover Letter Appeals and Visual Design on Response Rates in a Government Mail Survey" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs, Phoenix, Arizona, May 11, 2004 <Not Available>. 2009-05-26 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p115930_index.html> |
APA Citation:
| Redline, C. D., Oliver, J. and Fecso, R. , 2004-05-11 "The Effect of Cover Letter Appeals and Visual Design on Response Rates in a Government Mail Survey" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs, Phoenix, Arizona <Not Available>. 2009-05-26 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p115930_index.html |
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Previous research has demonstrated that altruistic appeals (explaining how society serves to gain) have been shown to elicit greater response from academic-sponsored surveys. In contrast, egoistic appeals (how a person can expect to gain personally) are more effective when they originate from commercial institutions. However, empirical research is lacking as to whether an appeal beyond simply asking respondents to answer the survey is necessary at all, or if it is, which appeal works best with government surveys. Thus, we developed four cover letters that differed in their appeals. The first delivered an altruistic appeal, and the second, an egoistic appeal. The third letter was based upon a burgeoning body of research suggesting that authoritative appeals(especially invoking any mandatory nature of a survey) have been shown to impact response, and the fourth letter simply asked people to complete the survey. These appeals were tested against the original letter in the National Survey of College Graduates. Approximately 27,000 cases were assigned to each letter type. We also created an additional version of the altruistic letter in which each of its paragraphs started with a question in boldface. Preliminary results show that all of the test letters were in the expected direction of increasing response versus the original letter. Similar to academic-sponsored surveys, the altruistic appeal elicited the greatest response, with the egoistic eliciting the least (ignoring the letter with questions in boldface for now). An interesting finding is that the authoritative letter was second best at eliciting response. But the most interesting finding was that the treatment delivering questions in bold undid the gains of using the altruistic appeal in the first place. This result adds to evidence suggesting that simple alterations in the visual design of information can have powerful and unforeseen consequences on the underlying verbal message. |
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