The Complete Guide To Using And Facilitating Online Polls

Online polls and surveys are some of the most popular marketing tools that will help businesses get genuine feedback from their customers and use the data gathered to make informed business decisions. A few years back, online polls were used in a very static way — in simple words, the online polls were integrated into the websites and shared on social media platforms to gather feedback/reviews/opinions of the customers (target audience). But in the current scenario, online polls are serving a lot of purposes. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, all social gatherings were prohibited, and this, in turn, gave rise to virtual meetings, webinars, etc. In the current situation, online polls are used in many of the virtual sessions like an interactive tool to gather instant responses from the attendees and to keep them engaged with the session itself.

So now the question is, how to use and facilitate the online polls and make the best use of them. 

Here we provide you a complete guide that will help you in using and facilitating online polls. To make the process simplified, you can follow the steps given below. 

#1 It Is Always Better To Focus On Adding Interactive Points In The Online Poll: 

You must understand that interaction points are added in the online polls in order to stimulate engagement among the attendees. This will also help in making the event more dynamic. To add the interaction points, you need to go through the entire flow and then choose the essential portions where you can easily insert the interactive points to make them effective.  

#2 You Can Use Online Polls To Initiate Discussion: 

Whether it is a meeting, a live session, or a webinar, it is essential to make sure that the attendees are taking a keen interest in it and are not getting distracted due to the virtual nature of the event. For this, you can make use of the online polls. Because online polls have the potential to trigger discussion, they make webinars more effective and interactive. People would like to provide their opinion, which, in turn, would help in improving the insights gathered from the polls. 

When you keep getting instant feedback from the online polls, it would be an efficient way to guide the attendees and keep providing them the structure for the discussion. Moreover, with the help of poll results, you would be able to design concrete discussion phrases and use them in the live sessions. 

#3 Use The Online Polls In A Constructive And Contextual Way: 

You already know that the online polls can be used in live sessions or webinars, or even meetings to increase interaction. But this is not the only goal. Online polls can also be used for facilitating the flow of the event — whether it is a meeting or a webinar. Besides this, you can use the polls to ensure that the attendees have understood the context of the event properly. The briefing will help them to have a good understanding of the event and make it worthy of their time. You can also utilize the poll result to go over certain points in a more thorough manner.

#4 Make The Poll Results Practically Usable: 

What do you do after getting the poll results? You could analyze it and use it for your business growth and improvement. Also, you may display the poll results generated to the attendees so that they know the actual picture. But to make it more interesting for your audience, you can help connect the dots between the poll results and the event you are conducting. The audience would be more engaged after getting to know the results and focus more closely on the next segment of the virtual event.

#5 Facilitating The Online Polls To Highlight The Essential Points Of The Event: 

You can facilitate the online polls even while you are planning to wrap up the event. The effective way to use the online polls is to display the highlighted points of the events and make them available to all the attendees. You can let the attendees understand and get their opinion whether the points mentioned are right or wrong. 

Summary: 

Online polls are not just helpful in getting genuine feedback but also for making your customers, clients, and the audience feel valued. They feel that their opinion matters and can be useful in making informed decisions for your business. If you are planning for any virtual event and want to integrate polls, then you can use PollDeep. It is an online platform that allows everyone to create dynamic online polls free of cost.

Different Online Poll Question Types

Online polls are one of the best ways to understand the market scenarios and get insights into the most important data that can be gathered from the customers, clients, and prospective target audience. With the help of online polls or surveys, you have the opportunity to grow your business and take it to the next level. The insights you get from such survey results will help the business analysts to take major actions, which are beneficial for the business growth and revenue. However, the most essential aspect that many usually skip is to ensure that the surveys or online polls should be designed in a perfect way so as to get the maximum responses. If the feedback, reviews, or opinions are genuine and in large volume, only then it would be possible to make informed decisions for your business or brand.

The questions that are used in online polls are integral because they are helpful in gathering useful information. This information, in turn, can be used by the business for research purposes. When you are using the right questions in online polls, you are in a way ensuring that you would get data, which is accurate and actionable. 

To make your online polls effective, it is essential that you have complete knowledge of the different types of online poll question types. If you want your respondents to actively participate in the online polls and provide their genuine feedback, then it is essential that you are forming good questions and of the right type.

So what are the different types of questions that you should include in the online polls to make them effective? And what are the differences in these question types?

#1 The Simplest Online Poll Questionnaire — The Dichotomous Question

If you are conducting polls on a regular basis, then you might be aware that the dichotomous questions simply mean those questions that require — Yes or No as an answer from the respondents. When the answer is received in the form of yes or no, it means that the questions are close-ended questions. According to the experts, the dichotomous questions used in the online polls or surveys get proper feedback from the respondents. These are not only the best but also the most simple type of questions. Which makes it easier and faster for the respondents to provide the answers. 

#2 Effective Online Questionnaire Type — Multiple-Choice Questions

Multiple-choice questions are yet another type of online polls questionnaire which is more effective than dichotomous questions. Although multiple-choice questions are also closed-ended questions, they provide various options to the respondents. The respondents have the flexibility to choose the most suitable option from the list of options. When the multiple-choice questions are used in any online polls, then they are organized in such a way that it provides the best matches with the expected outcomes. The multiple-choice questions are usually denoted with the help of checkboxes that need to be ticked by the respondents. 

#3 You Can Use The Rank Order Scaling Questions 

This is another type of online questionnaire that will help in making the online polls or surveys more effective. How? Well, with this type of questionnaire, you are offering the respondents the option to easily rank their preferences in a particular order. Moreover, the respondents will be able to see at a glance which choices are having more weightage and which ones are having less weightage. In this type, the questions are asked, and the options are provided with a drag-and-drop feature. The respondents can choose the options from the drag-and-drop section and arrange them in an order of their preferences. The ranked order will provide great insight to the business analysts who would be taking major business decisions.

#4 Open-Ended Questions — Subjective Answers

These types of questions usually are not often used for quick online polls or surveys. In this type of question, the respondents have to provide dedicated time to give answers to the questionnaire. These questions are usually helpful in getting in-depth knowledge regarding various important aspects, such as knowing the positioning of the business brand in the market or the quality of the customer services provided by the company. 

Summary:

These are the major types of online poll questions, which can be used to make your surveys effective and help you get the best insights. With Polldeep, the most popular online poll creator you would be able to create and share these types of online polls easily across various platforms.

10 Online Polling Mistakes To Avoid

Online polls or surveys are considered as one of the essential tools of the digital world that can be used for market research purposes. With the online polls, it has become easier to conduct multiple surveys and get the opinion of the customers, clients, and even the employees of an organization.

Moreover, it helps in making accurate analyses of the survey and supports the business officials to make an informed decision. So, today people consider online polls as one of the most effective tools, which help in growing the business and understanding their customers.

But still, there are a few who are unable to tap into the potential of the online polls and could not make the right use of it. In simple words, these people are not aware of the mistakes they are making while using online polls and thus end up making wrong decisions. 

So what are those mistakes that should be avoided while using online polls? Here is the ultimate list of such mistakes that you should understand and make sure you are avoiding. 

#1 It Is Not Good To Add Too Many Questions In The Survey: 

This is the most important thing that you should consider and avoid as well. Your customers or target audience are ready to take up the online surveys or polls, but they are not free to sit around all day to provide answers to all the questions. Too many questions in the survey will make it boring, and respondents would not provide answers to all the questions.

Tip: You should not include more than 5 to 6 questions in the online poll. 

#2 You Must Not Include Personal Questions:

Usually, people are put off by questions of personal nature, and they would not feel like providing answers to them.

Tip: Do not include any sort of personal questions in the online polls.

#3 Your Focus Should Be On Multiple Choice Responses And Not Subjective Answers:

While creating an online poll, you should understand the fact that most respondents do not have a whole day to write answers for the subjective questions. It is better to include multiple-choice questions where you are offering options to the respondents. This would be an effective way to get genuine and right answers to the questions. It will increase the rate of respondents. 

Tip: Always opt for multiple-choice questions

#4 You Should Have An Objective For The Online Poll/Survey: 

When you have a proper and defined objective for the online polls, it would be easier for you to frame the right questions. You would also be able to organize them in proper order. Most often, the survey organizers do not have clear ideas about the objectives of the online polls. For instance, are you conducting a poll about customer satisfaction for your current products, or are you intending to find out what the customers would like to see in an upcoming product? These surveys would have entirely different questions. If the objective is not defined then you won't be able to frame the right questions.

Tip: Start with a clear survey objective.

#5 You Should Avoid The Usage Of Manipulative Questions:

Many poll creators ask manipulative questions to the respondents in order to get the desired results or answers. But this is not a good approach. Manipulative questions are usually very confusing and do not let the respondents provide the right answers to the questions. In such a situation, instead of getting accurate and precise answers, you can get biased and perspective-based answers. Such answers will not be helpful in any way.

Tip: Always ask simple and direct questions.

#6 You Should Not Include Questions That Are Asking For Unnecessary Information:

You should not try to get any sort of unnecessary information from your respondents. It will increase the number of questions, and you won’t find that information useful. 

Tip: Omit questions not necessary to your survey.

#7 You Should Not Have A Boring Design For The Online Polls:

This is considered one of the biggest mistakes that usually survey designers make. Your focus should be on keeping the respondents engaged until they finish the survey. So the design of the online surveys should be engaging and not very boring. 

Tip: Interesting layout and color scheme a must for surveys.

#8 Use Proper Working And Language: 

While framing the questions, you must ensure that the language and the words you are using must be easily understood by your audience/respondents. If they do not understand the questions, then you won’t be able to receive the right answers. 

Tip: Avoid technical words while framing questions.

#9 You Should Not Include Any Company Advertisement Or Branding In The Online Poll:

It will irritate the respondents, and there are chances that they might abandon the survey in the middle.

Tip: Have a clean and simple layout.

#10 Do Not Include Multiple Questions In A Single Question:

You should not mix up multiple questions in one question as it will lead to confusion for the respondents. The respondents would not be able to provide the right answers to the questions. 

Tip: Ask only straightforward questions.

Summary:

If you are planning to design an online poll, then it is essential for you to take note of these mistakes and avoid making such mistakes.