A Factor Interactive Investigation of Mail Survey Response Rates from a Commercial Population

The results of a factorial experiment showed that a 10¢ incentive significantly increased the response rate from the commercial population surveyed by mail. No significant main effects were noted for the other factors tested, questionnaire color and cartoon illustrations included on the questionnaire. No significant interactive effects were found. The results of this investigation, in combination with those of earlier investigations, support the hypothesis that the importance of monetary inducements stems primarily from the psychological impact of receiving money (as opposed to the monetary value itself). Thus the hypothesis can be generalized with greater confidence to commercial populations. However, the results imply that there apparently is a threshold value for increasing response with monetary incentives which is lower for commercial populations (10¢) than it is for general public populations (25¢).