Targeted response inducement strategies on longitudinal surveys

Targeted response inducement strategies involve varying features of survey design between sample subgroups in a way that is anticipated to achieve the best trade-off between costs and non-response. The features could include prenotification letters, incentives, between-wave mailings, website content, telephone calls, and so on. Such strategies are not much used on longitudinal surveys. We discuss why this might be the case and we describe the steps to identifying and implementing an effective strategy. We also present four examples.