A course in statistical methods was part of my statistics major program at Iowa State College. Mail surveys were covered in the course—for about six seconds. “We won’t bother with that since you can’t get a decent return percentage,” the professor said. Imagine my surprise when I went to work for Meredith Publishing a few years later only to learn how wrong the professor was.

We did mail surveys with subscribers of Better Homes & Gardens and Successful Farming and achieved response rates of 80 to 85 percent. The last one I did for Successful Farming several years later got 75 percent. These days, employing all the tricks, I can still get 50 percent. One approach is the use of an incentive—typically a dollar bill—with the survey letter. The dollar adds little weight to the postage but carries a lot of weight toward the success of the survey. It’s too small for people to consider it payment but it gets their attention so they will read the cover letter—and that’s paramount because the magic is in the letter.

Recently, I was hired to do some research by the city of North Liberty, Iowa, and my first recommendation was to do a mail survey. North Liberty is just north of Iowa City and is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the state. The city had some specific needs regarding demand for public transit and had tried to do its own surveying previously, without success. Dean Wheatley, city planner for North Liberty, explains the purpose of the project: “We needed a good unbiased understanding of how residents feel about specific existing and potential city services. In these times of lean budgets and ever-increasing demands, it is important to focus attention where it is most needed and not to try to be the provider of everything every person or group is interested in. For this survey, we were expecting to provide assistance to a transit committee and to a parks and recreation committee by helping to narrow and define public interests. We also asked questions to help staff and the city council understand the level of satisfaction with existing and potential services and projects.”

Questions

1. What were the advantages of mail surveys in the applications discussed in the Practicing Marketing Research feature? Would you always have these advantages in any mail survey application?

2. What are the biases in mail surveys discussed in this application?

3. Are mail surveys always the best option? Why/why not?