I think the answer depends on what sort of information you want to get and from which types of people.

I work in the government sector: For me, I want to make sure I'm getting data from people who don't have internet access- I need representative samples sometimes. I would send them the full questionnaire and have someone code it in after we get the answers.

But if that isn't a concern for you, urging them to visit the web could be a solution that saves a lot of man hours manually coding responses!

You could also still generate personal links: Generate the personal URLs and use mail merge to generate your postcards based off that data.

Like Kate suggested it depends on what you need from them and the resources you have available. If you provide more details we can properly brainstorm with you.
If you suspect that they don't have internet access and that is why there is no email, you can send them the link on a postcard but you should also have an alternative - such as call this phone number to give your answers (this would require having a lot of staff available or contracting with a survey center). Possibly in a third wave you would send out a paper copy of your survey with a BRE to ensure that you are making it as easy as possible for people without Internet to participate (but the BRE and multiple printing can cost considerable money).
If you need to connect it back to Contact List information then you can generate the personal URLs but that could be a pain to type in. It also has increased cost to inkjet the custom link on the postcard. An alternative is to add an authenticator to your survey and have them type in a short code for access. You could include this code as part of the address block on the labels that you are applying to the post cards.
In any case of sending the anonymous link through a post card, I would discourage printing the actual link, they are long and nonsensical so hard for people to type in accurately. If you have the resources/capabilities you can add it as a QR code or a redirect link (e.g. bitly for shortened URLs).

Hi Kate
Thank you for your suggestion. "You could also still generate personal links: Generate the personal URLs and use mail merge to generate your postcards based off that data."
Could you say a little bit more about this? How to generate the personal URLs? What is the meaning of "use mail merge"?

Hi @bstrahin
My clients are retired professors. So you can tell some of them are the elder, and we don't have their information on email account. I don't believe they don't have access to internet. Just when they log their information in retired associations, they don't report email -accounts.
"you can generate the personal URLs but that could be a pain to type in...." This is also my concern.
"An alternative is to add an authenticator to your survey and have them type in a short code for access." Sounds good. But how should I do this? I'm a newcomer to Qualtrics.
"you can add it as a QR code or a redirect link". I know QR code, but I don't know a redirect link.
Finally, let me take the example of QR code, since this is what I know. Let's say 3 professors (A,B,C) receive their postcards. And they find a survey and a QR code in the postcard. Then they fill in the survey. The QR code is the same? Or I have to design different QR codes for everyone?

yaozhao This comes down to what you can do to customize the post cards you are printing. A screen print of customized QR codes sounds expensive. As does creating individualized redirect links through a service like bitly.
Also, a good question is will your retired folks know how to use a QR code? If you think not, then printing a QR code that goes to your survey doesn't make sense. You will likely want to use a shortened URL redirect link. (Resources for doing this here: https://themeisle.com/blog/best-url-shortener/. Also check with someone on your IT/web team who might know if your company has this capability internally create shortened links.).
I think an authenticator (go to this support page to see how to set one up) that asks people to put in a short ID screen printed on their post card is the best way to get to people on your list without email address and still have their Contact List information connect to the survey (although really ask if you need that to happen or not, because if not you can save yourself and them a headache of having to use the authenticator). If you don't need contact list information to pull into the survey for any reason then you can spend your postcard with a shortended link that redirects to the full anonymous link. You will collect their answers but won't know who they are, but really ask yourself WHY do you need to know who they are when deciding how to approach your survey.

@bstrahin I talked with several retired professors who are responsible for this survey. They rejected the QR code plan, since they think most of retired folks won't understand it. So you are right. This plan is not considered any more.
Yesterday we decided not to print the link on their postcards, because a.) if we print the same link on every postcards, then this method is wrong because only 1 link is corresponding to only 1 person. Please tell me whether this is correct. b.) if we print the distinct link on every postcards, like you said, this will be very expensive and time-consuming. We have 14000 emails, and only 750 retired professor don't have email account information. We will tell them the survey on the postcards, though no specific website link. And we hope those 750 retired professor will send the email back including their email? (I am asking the team leaders to confirm this question.) I will update this page once I get more information.
By the way, I'm surprised that you're also from UW-Madison. I'm a student at UW-Madison and this survey is for UW-M retired professors. The world is small!

yaozhao check your messages for some more clarifying questions. I am happy to use my experience at UW-Madison to better understand what you are trying to accomplish and give you ways to explain the best approach to retired faculty who may be very strict given their likely history of doing things to a publishable standard.

yaozhao thank you for your explanation through messaging that you need contact information if someone shows interest in participating or leading a special interest group. Below is my recommendation:
yaozhaoI think the best way to address this is the cost and time savings you will get from having an anonymous link on the post card. I would also avoid using the authenticator in this case - in my 5 going on 6 years of using Qualtrics at UW people struggle hard with the authenticator. They mistype something or use the wrong credential to try to log in (nick name versus formal name, a secondary email address - this even happens when we tell them to use the email they get notifications about their class at).
My recommendation to you is that you verify contact information/collect contact information in the survey. How this will work:
1) For those that you have emails for

• Distribute the survey to them through Qualtrics email distribution


• Collect their responses to your survey


• At the end of the survey or directly after the question you pointed out (depending on how many different places you have that would make knowing their identity necessary - just one then right after, multiple then at the end of the survey) confirm their contact information


• The question will state something like "You indicated you are interested in teaching a special interest group..." Or "You indicated you are interested in participating in special interest groups..." "Please provide the best way to reach you in the fields below. If the contact information below isn't the best way to reach you, please write over it. You must fill in all contact information to continue as this is vital to successfully creating and launching these groups."


• Collect: name, address, phone, email


• For this group you will use piped text to prefill the fields from the contact list

• Distribute the survey to them through a shortened link on a post card (UW calls these vanity URLs in the format go.wisc.edu. You can reach out to DoIT to get one for your survey: https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=27541)


• Collect their responses to your


• At the end of the survey or directly after the question you pointed out (depending on how many different places you have that would make knowing their identity necessary - just one then right after, multiple then at the end of the survey) collect their contact information


• The question will state something like "You indicated you are interested in teaching a special interest group..." Or "You indicated you are interested in participating in special interest groups..." "Please provide the best way to reach you in the fields below. If the contact information below isn't the best way to reach you, please write over it. You must fill in all contact information to continue as this is vital to successfully creating and launching these groups."


• Collect: name, address, phone, email


• The piped text will appear blank for this group, as long as you force response to the question you will have the necessary information you need to contact them later about the interest groups