An online poll is a simple, quick, yet effective way to gather feedback from stakeholders — your current or future customers, employees, students, or event attendees. By asking relevant questions through an online poll survey, you get access to valuable opinions that will improve your business.
Whatever your research field, online polls have got you covered. But before starting to make a poll survey, you need to find a reliable poll website and some good poll questions to ensure that your survey is eye-catching, relevant, and engaging.
Wondering how to create a poll that will stand out?
We will now discuss online poll best practices. Learn the main points and start making amazing free polls with our free online poll maker!
Why should you use online polls?
What is the difference between an online survey and an online poll? Online polls are very similar to surveys, but they are much shorter because they consist of only a few questions.
Making polls and surveys with an online poll maker — and sharing them with people whose opinions you’re curious about — provides valuable real-time insights about your current practices and strengthens your bond with your audience.
Additionally, asking people their opinion shows them that you care and that they matter to you. It also offers you a chance to learn how your business is growing, what you should be aware of moving forward, and areas that need improvement.
And above all, an easy, engaging, and eye-pleasing poll will entertain your audience and increase the response rate.
How to create a poll online — make effective polls in just a few steps
Creating an online poll survey is very simple. All you need to do is choose a couple of questions and put them together in a nice-looking format.
And with our free poll creator, it gets even easier! SurveyPlanet offers numerous free features such as unlimited survey questions and responses, free survey templates with examples from numerous research fields, and clean and colorful survey themes.
With a Pro account, you get countless additional features like custom theme creation, exporting survey results, adding images to both questions and answers, and much more. All you need to do is sign up and get started!
Registering takes just a few steps, and then you’re ready to create your first SurveyPlanet online poll!
After creating an account, click on the new survey button and type in the title of the survey and its welcome message.
Next is developing some good poll questions. Write your own or choose from our templates. Then choose one of our many themes or create your own. Once your poll is active, you can share it via email, copy and paste the link to your workplace chat room, or share it through social media.
Tips for making an online poll — follow these guidelines
When making an online poll, using the best poll creator helps a lot, but it is not enough. There are a few points to keep in mind if you want to gather the most relevant data. Follow these tips to create a great free online poll.
1 Keep your poll short and your questions concise
From a respondent’s point of view, there’s nothing worse than complicated questions and surveys that are too long. Such polls can reduce your response rate and lead to inaccurate data.
This is because making sure your polls and surveys are not too long is crucial. As a rule of thumb, create polls with five questions at most. Keep your questions precise, short, and understandable.
2 Choose your poll questions carefully
For your poll to be short and easy, questions need to be the same. The best question types for an online poll are multiple-choice and Likert scale questions.
In Likert scale questions, respondents are asked to show how much they agree with a statement by rating it on a scale. With multiple-choice questions, you can ask respondents to choose which product they like the most, their reason for using it, areas that need improvement, and so on.
You can also use open-ended questions. But keep in mind that analyzing data from these answers will be much harder than with closed-ended questions.
3 Think about your participants — engage and encourage them
Respondents are the most pivotal part of any research effort. When making an online poll, think about them and the experience they will have while answering your questions. Create online polls that they are going to enjoy and use good poll questions they can understand while showing them you care about their opinion.
Explain why you are making the poll and why their opinion matters, assure them that you will keep their answers anonymous and their personal data safe, and encourage them to participate and share the poll.
And above all, use a good poll website like SurveyPlanet that will help you create the kind of free online poll to achieve all of these goals!
Which fields of research benefit from utilizing a poll creator?
Online polls are convenient for many types of business and areas of research. They provide real-time results and instant access to a range of people’s opinions that will empower you to correct mistakes and improve operations.
Here are the most common fields of research that benefit from an online poll.
1 Market research and customer satisfaction
An online poll can tell you a lot about your current customers and potential new ones and how your business is doing overall.
By regularly sending out an online poll, you get regular feedback about your customers’ experience with your products and services, what they like and dislike, and what needs improvement in your business operations.
Online polls can also be a meaningful part of market research and product research. By asking the right questions, you will learn what your target audience thinks about a product or service before launch, giving you a huge advantage over your competition.
2 Employee satisfaction and HR assessment
Another critical part of business management is listening to the individuals who make your business go.
Customers are not the only ones who need to be happy. Employee satisfaction is a crucial aspect of every business. If employees feel good about your company culture, their work-life balance, and the benefits package they receive, then they are more likely to achieve better results for your business.
That is why it’s important to regularly check in with them and gauge their satisfaction with their work status. Create an engaging online poll that can be answered during a quick break from work to gather meaningful data from your workforce.
3 Teacher evaluation and student feedback
If you’re working as a teacher, then you are well aware that feedback from students (and their parents) is essential to improving their performance and the overall spirit of your classrooms.
As with surveys, using online polls help you can find out what students like or dislike about your teaching, assess the effectiveness of a course, and distribute short and fun quizzes that test knowledge on a certain topic.
4 Use online polls in your everyday life
An online poll is a great way to get instant answers from a group of people, even just a group of friends deciding which restaurant to visit over the weekend.
Use online polls in your everyday life to decide things like what movie to attend with friends or organize refreshments at a get-together. Or coordinate off-work activities with coworkers, like deciding on a gathering’s date and time or what to do at a team-building session.
Examples of good poll questions for online polling
A fun online poll is a great way to engage and entertain your team. Whether it’s as part of ongoing internal communications, an icebreaker for an upcoming meeting, or simply to offer an entertaining way to take a break from everyday activities, here are some fun poll questions:
If you could bring only one thing with you to a desert island, what would it be?
Which famous actor would you select to narrate your autobiography?
If you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
If you could go for a coffee with a figure from history, who would it be?
If you weren’t at work, where would you be right now?
Examples of employee satisfaction poll questions
Checking up on your employees is important. It shows them you care about their well-being and how their work influences their lives. Here are some questions to find out how their week is going and if there’s anything that makes them stressed:
How is your energy level today?
In one word, how would you describe last week/month?
Are you feeling productive this week?
How busy have you been this past week?
Is there anything making you stressed right now?
Are you happy at work?
Do you feel you have the support of the team?
Do you feel your coworkers are making an effort to include you?
Do you have an opportunity to advance in the company?
Do you feel your pay is competitive?
How are you feeling about our leadership?
Which of our company values do you identify with the most?
Polls can also be used to let employees assess the projects and tasks they’re working on, as well as determine your team’s productivity level. Use these examples as guidelines:
What would you like to discuss during this meeting?
Which projects should we prioritize this quarter?
What are the key jobs to be done this month?
What new marketing channels should we experiment with?
How can we increase our brand awareness?
Is this deadline realistic?
What’s blocking us from meeting this deadline?
What can we do to improve our team collaboration?
What topic do you want to cover next week?
Examples of good poll questions in the education field
Here are some examples of poll questions you can ask students when conducting teacher and class evaluations:
Which subjects have you enjoyed the most this year?
What type of learning method do you prefer?
How do you study and what materials work best for you?
How helpful were homework assignments for understanding the material?
Was there anything you wish we did more / less of this term?
What topics do we need to cover before the exam?
How satisfied are you with the number of extracurricular activities?
How clearly does your instructor explain the material?
How well did your teacher answer student questions?
Examples of poll questions for market research
As we already mentioned, polls are short. To thoroughly research the market and make the best use of the answers you gather, you need to choose questions wisely. Some good poll questions to ask customers include:
How long have you been using our products/services?
How easy did you find searching for products/content on our website?
What made you choose our company over a competitor?
How satisfied are you with the quality of our products?
How often do you use this product category?
What aspects attract you to this product?
What do you like most about our new product/service?
Which of these features would be the most useful for you?
What feature is this product missing?
How would you rate the product’s cost/ease of use?
Also, make sure to include Net Promoter Score questions. These show the degree of your customers’ loyalty to your brand and how you compare to the competition.
Asking the correct poll questions goes a long way. And by using a good online poll maker you’ll make the best of your opportunity. Sign up for a free account at SurveyPlanet and start making amazing polls and surveys today!
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash