Approximately one week after the first text message was sent, a reminder text was sent, excluding any respondents
who opted out.
The text message invitations were divided into two pilot groups. Group 1 was sent a text invitation that offered a $10
Amazon.com gift code for completing the survey.
Text 1 (160 characters): Participate in the CT Dept. of Public Health & CDC Study, receive $10 gift code
https://www.healthdepartmentsurvey.org/ Login ID CT8xxxxx Reply STOP to opt out.
Text 2 (132 characters): As a thank you, we will send you a text containing a $10 Amazon.com gift code
approximately 4-8 weeks after you complete the survey.
Group 2 received the same text invitation, however with no incentive offer.
No Incentive Group (136 characters): Participate in the CT Dept. of Public Health & CDC Study
https://www.healthdepartmentsurvey.org/ Login ID CT7xxxxx Reply STOP to opt out
One week after the first invitation was sent, the same text was sent as a reminder to all who had not opted out.
Incentive delivery text: Thank you for participating in the CT Dept. of Health and CDC study. Your $10
Amazon.com gift code is: xxx-xxxxxx-xxxx.
Results - Using Text Messages as an Invitation to Web Survey
During the two month experiment, a total of 4,847 text invitations were sent to BRFSS cell phone non-responders.
Nine percent, or 425 respondents, replied “Stop” to opt out of the web invitation. Only 36 respondents participated
in the web survey after being sent the text invitation.
Table 5
shows the number of invitations sent in each group and
the percent of those which completed the web survey.
Text Group
Text Invitations Sent
Web Surveys Completed
Percent Completed
Group 1: With Incentive 2,424 26 1.1%
Group 2: Without Incentive 2,423 10 0.4%
Total 4,847 36 0.7%
Table 5: Web Survey Participation after Text Invitation.
The text message invitations produced a much lower response than the mail invitations that are sent to the landline
BRFSS non- responders. The invitations that were mailed to the landline sample yielded 263 completed web
surveys, a completion rate of 8.2%.
Mail Invitations Sent
Web Surveys Completed
Percent Completed
3,208 263 8.2%
Table 6: Web survey participation after mailed invitation.
Demographic data was then compared between web respondents that were recruited from the landline non-
responders by mail, and those recruited from the cell phone non-responders via text messages. There were two
demographic areas, marital status and age, that stood out as having significant associations between the mail and text
recruitment modes. More non-married completes, 31%, came from the group recruited by text with incentive, then
either the text without incentive or mailing groups. However, only the mail vs. both text recruitment groups