Targeted response inducement strategies for self-completion surveys with address-based sample frames

Summary

Targeted response inducement strategies have become increasingly popular in recent years. A number of studies have shown that such strategies can be a cost-effective way to bring about a useful improvement in response rate and/or sample balance. However, the design and implementation of targeted strategies depends on prior information about sample members, for example from an informative sampling frame, to identify groups to target. Furthermore, many of the successful implementations of targeted methods have been on interviewer-administered surveys, where the interviewers can be the conduit of the targeted procedures. The design of targeted procedures is therefore particularly challenging in the case of self-completion surveys with address-based sample frames, as there is neither an informative sampling frame nor are there interviewers who can behave in targeted ways. In this article, we attempt to identify and describe promising approaches to targeted design in this situation. We also identify a research agenda which could lead to better-informed survey design and hence more effective survey data collection by self-completion in future.