When requesting input from someone, remember that you’re asking the person to take precious time and energy out of their day to help your organization. In cases when you’re not offering an incentive for participation, it's important to keep in mind that you’re essentially appealing to the good nature of your contacts. (The hope is that after all those metaphorical back scratches you’ve given, they'll be willing to scratch yours.)So whether you’re soliciting feedback via a website page, an email, or some other means, you'll want to emphasize why it’s worthwhile for someone to weigh in. Specifically, what will your organization do with the information your respondents provide? Why should your respondents care about that? How will your respondents benefit from sharing their perspectives?

Here’s a little secret: In nearly every case, survey responses help your organization serve your customers and potential customers more effectively, right? Include that in your introduction. If you make it easy for people to see how completing your survey may improve their lives, they often feel more inclined to participate.

Set expectations properly.

Have you ever taken a survey that felt like the Energizer bunny of surveys? You know, the kind that keeps going and going and going and ... you get the point.

By the end of it (assuming you even made it that far), you probably felt like you’d taken the Bar exam. (And any lawyer will tell you that's definitely not the experience you want to create for your respondents.)

Suffice it to say, much has been written about considerations for survey length. Whatever the final question count turns out to be, it’s in your best interest to help your respondents plan accordingly.

For starters, tell them approximately how long they should set aside to complete your survey. This will help to ensure that they don’t have to rush or abandon the survey because of a time constraint. In some instances it can also be beneficial to use a survey tool that indicates the respondent’s progress throughout the survey using a progress bar.

When creating survey, there’s often a temptation among marketers to make the phrasing of questions as dry and bland as possible. For many, this is probably rooted in the fear that inserting superfluous language may influence the results of the survey.

That’s a legitimate concern. After all, surveys aren’t supposed to entertain -- they’re supposed to elicit meaningful feedback. But surveys don’t have to be boring. In fact, surveys can and should engage the participants enough to inspire creative and constructive input that can be used to empower you to enact real change.