Here are our tips for writing an effective invitation email that encourages respondents to join and participate in your research project.

1. Keep the email subject short and clear

If people don’t understand the subject line, they probably won’t open the email—and they might miss the study entirely.

2. Personalization matters

Use the respondent’s name in the greeting. The Quallie qual platform makes it easy to personalize bulk emails. Simply insert the merge tag {greeting_name} into the email text, and Quallie will automatically replace it with the name. You won’t need to write each invitation manually.

3. Brief introduction

Keep your email content simple. People often skip long or complex messages. Focus only on the essential information respondents need to know before the study begins. You can provide additional details during the session.

4. Motivate participation

Ideally, respondents should be intrinsically motivated. For example, highlight:

  • Their chance to improve products or services they use or like
  • The value of their opinions
  • The opportunity to join an interesting discussion
  • A reward (e.g., your product or service, cash, gift vouchers, loyalty points, or other relevant incentives)

5. Explain how to join and schedule

This is the most important part of your email. Usually, participants join by visiting a project-specific URL. In Quallie, you can include a personal login link using the {url_project_login} merge tag. This tag will be replaced with a unique URL for each respondent, allowing them to access the session directly without entering a username or password.

Always include the session date, time, duration, and any other relevant scheduling details. Don’t forget to specify the time zone, especially if your study spans multiple regions.

6. How to prepare

For text-based activities, respondents only need a computer, tablet, or smartphone with internet access.

For video sessions:

  • Ask them to connect from a quiet location without distractions.
  • The area should be well-lit so their faces are clearly visible.
  • A stable internet connection is essential—cellular data can be unreliable and quickly consume their data allowance.
  • Recommend using headphones with a microphone.

If you plan to present stimuli on a whiteboard, ask participants to use a device with a larger screen (computer, laptop, or tablet), not a smartphone.

Formal or informal tone?

This depends on your topic and target audience.

  • For serious topics or B2B audiences, use a formal tone.
  • For younger or more casual audiences, an informal tone may work better and feel more engaging.

Avoid using too many colors, emojis, or humorous images, as this can reduce your email’s credibility.

Images and interactive elements

Images are often blocked by email clients like Gmail due to privacy concerns. Always ensure that all critical information is included in the text so recipients get the full message—even if images don’t load.

Use images only for decorative purposes. Don’t rely on them to communicate key information. Avoid scripts or interactive elements; these can trigger spam filters or security warnings.

Don’t let your email end in a spam folder

Emails can land in spam for many reasons. Anti-spam filters are sensitive to certain words like Win, Deal, Discount, Limited offer, Rewards, etc. While some of these terms may be relevant (e.g., for incentives), use them cautiously and sparingly.

Send a test email first

Before sending your invitations, test your message by sending it to your own Gmail and Outlook inboxes. If the email doesn’t arrive, it may have been caught by a spam filter. In that case, revise your content accordingly.

Tip: How to send bulk invitation emails in Quallie? After adding respondents to your project, go to the Emails section and create a new email. Add recipients, craft your email content, and include the personalized URL. Send a test email to yourself first. Once everything looks good, send the bulk invitation to all respondents.

When should you send invitations?

In our experience, it’s best to send invitations at the start of the project—when the activities are already available to participants.

Some organizers send invitations before the activities are available. As a result, when participants click the invitation link, they may find that the project isn’t accessible yet—which creates a poor experience. At the very least, participants should land on an invitation page with some information.

Our recommendation: Prepare everything in advance, open the project and at least a few activities, and only then send out the invitations.

Invitation email template to an online focus group

Hello {greeting_name},

Thank you for agreeing to participate in our focus group session.

Your opinion is very valuable to us! We encourage you to share your thoughts and feelings with me and other participants.

To access the discussion, please click this link:
{url_project_login}

The study will be open from ___ to ___ .

FOR DIARY/BULLETIN BOARDS: After you have completed your initial responses, please revisit the page at least once a day to respond to others’ comments, as well as answer any questions that have been posted to your own responses. You should make your initial response by __ , and make any final comments by ___ .

FOR VIDEO FOCUS GROUPS: Please use a calm place where nobody will disturb you and make sure the room is light so we can see your face. Please check that your webcam is working before the session. We recommend using a computer for this study, but you may also participate using a phone. You can use headphones with a microphone for better sound quality. A quick and stable internet connection is necessary.

When answering please keep in mind that there are no wrong answers. We expect you will have different opinions from other respondents, so please don’t hesitate to say what you really think – even if in stark contrast to what other respondents in the focus group have to say on any given question. Feel free to engage in conversations with other participants as well. The study is anonymous and other participants will only see your first name.

Each respondent who will complete the study will receive a < reward>. You need to complete all topics to be eligible to obtain the reward.

Thank you and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

I look forward to your participation!

Name, contact