Recent statistics on open rates and click through rates for email have provided some interesting reading on the what is happening in the African email environment. Email open and click through rates are dwindling to such an insignificant number for online research that it has prompted the question is the online survey dead. Luckily there is some hope but first, let have a look at the statistics for some clarity.
Recent statistics by Getresponse in their email marketing benchmark based on 2 billion emails analysed, highlighted the difference between Africa and the rest of the world when it comes to opening emails. The global email interaction is still well alive with an average open rate of 24.29% and a click rate of 3.9%. When we look at the difference in Africa, this number becomes significantly less. With 17.2% open rates and 2.61% click through rates, it brings the international number down. By comparison Europe(28.03%), Oceania (28.02%) and North America (20.73%) has performed substantially better.
To be able to convert the 2.61% African click through rate to a completed survey provides quite a challenge. More than half of the 2.61% fall out due to scary long academic ethics documents & introduction pages as well as surveys that are too long. Then we still have to account for survey target population groups. Many researchers, especially in the business field, aim their surveys at particular target populations, including busy business executives. These target groups have meagre response rates and get targeted by many research campaigns.
To enable academic institutions to communicate with willing research participants in the online spectrum we have started the Citizen Science Institute. The institute's aim is to bring together people that are prepared to conduct scientific & academic studies online and for university researchers to give something back to the amazing people that do research surveys for academic institutions. Being in the form of recognition for research surveys completed and for making a difference as well as knowledge transfer from these studies. We trust this initiative will provide solutions for academic researchers who are searching for respondents to their imported research projects.
To join the Citizen Science Institute newsletter and be updated on the latest research projects please go to http://researchupdate.gr8.com/ each email is personally drafted by me you won't get any spam I can't type that fast or read a little more about the community with a purpose at http://citizenscience.institute