Great marketing starts with knowing your audience. Surveys are a simple yet effective way to learn more about them.

Here are 3 tips to get you started with writing your survey questions.

Number one write questions that are simple and to the point. Make your questions easy to understand by using simple language. The goal is to write a question that your reader will easily understand without having to reread it. Using everyday language is the best way to accomplish this. A good exercise to practice is to write questions that you can see yourself asking friends or colleagues.

Number two use words with clear meaning. Avoid phrases that are left to the reader’s interpretation. Words like most, numerous, many, and several mean different things to different people. You want to use words that are more commonly understood such as almost all, a majority of, almost none, and a few.

Number three limit the number of ranking options. When you ask your respondents to rank items in order of preference, or importance try not surpass 6 items. Asking them to rank a long list can result in an abandoned survey. If you need to get feedback on all the items on your list and you have more than 6 consider making two questions out of the original one.

Once you’ve completed the questions for your survey match them against this list and see how you did. Many times small edits can make a world of difference. If a question is in need of a rewrite it’s worth making the extra effort to get it right.

So those are all the tips I have for you today. If you’re looking for more email marketing advice visit Constant Contact.