Poll types: Benefits, examples & how to create

Polling methods provide valuable feedback from the audience, which can help shape your strategies and make beneficial decisions. Organizations often use polls to understand what people think and feel. These polls are used in many areas, such as business, politics, and education. They help spot trends, understand public sentiment, and make smart decisions based on the collected data.

In any industry, it is critical to understand the ideas and thoughts of the audience by measuring public opinion. In this article, you will learn what a poll is and when to use it, and the types of polls to understand the polls better. Additionally, you will get the advantages of using polls and how to create one. Let’s start with the definition!

What is a poll?

A poll is a survey in which people are asked their opinions about something to get feedback and collect information about the subject.

If you would like to conduct a poll on a subject or product or collect information and feedback about popular opinions, you need to understand how the polls work. A poll is when you ask a group of people a specific question or set of questions to get some insights and data. 

Then, you look at the poll results, in other words, the data you collected from the polls, to see what trends, preferences, and opinions are popular with that group. According to the results, you can determine the path for your research.

When to use polls

Online polls are very useful in various fields where it is necessary to gather feedback or data from a large group of people. When compared to alternative methods such as observation or meetings, online polls stand out due to their ease of use and simple creation process on the Internet. 

You can use polls in many areas; here is a list of areas where you can use polls effectively;

🗳️ ✔️ Political elections: When the country's general election time comes, everyone is curious about which political parties are going to win or which one is ahead of its competitors. The best way to get an idea about elections is to reach a larger population using public opinion polls. 

🕵🏼‍♀️ 📊 Market research: When your customers and employees engage with your business, they might not give you the honest feedback you need. In addition, you may want to examine the market to find a new line of work. You can use the poll to understand customer preferences and demands in those situations. 

👥 💬 Public opinion research: There might be confusion and controversial decisions that separate society into two sides. In that case, you can use the polls to understand public opinion about the decision or controversial subject by using public opinion survey research. 

🗣 💼 Employee feedback: As an employer, you cannot always control your employees' emotional states and work-related satisfaction. When you need to measure employee satisfaction, you can better understand your employees' mental state and satisfaction level by using polls. 

🚀 🙋🏻‍♂️ Customer satisfaction research: Once you sell a product or service, you need to collect customer feedback about the service or product you sell to understand your customer satisfaction levels. In doing so, you can spot the area that needs to be developed and increase efficiency. Polls are the best way to know customer satisfaction levels. 

5 Poll types

​​Using the same poll type for every situation may not give you good results. Knowing the poll types and their differences and where and when to use them will provide you with more reliable and detailed information and increase the response rate. Whether researching, planning a campaign, or simply trying to get a feel for a community, it's beneficial to know about the different types of polls. 

Here is the list of poll types to use in research to collect proper information and opinions from the public about subjects and incidents:

1. Opinion polls

An opinion poll is used to collect information when a pollster asks a group of people about their opinions and attitudes on different topics. This poll involves asking the same questions to individuals to get a collective opinion about a topic or issue.

🤔 💭 Usage scenario: Opinion polls are generally used to find out about things such as what people buy, who they support in politics, and how they are doing in life—whether they are happy with their quality of life or not.

❓ Example questions: 

- Do you feel that your work pays off for the labor you put in?  

- Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your standard of living?

2. Tracking polls

A tracking poll is a type of poll in which responses are collected over consecutive periods, such as every day, every month, and every year. Then, the results are calculated using a moving average of the responses gathered over a set number of the most recent periods.

🤔 💭 Usage scenario: When you would like to monitor consumer behavior and how it is changing and evolving over time or how your environment changes in a good or wrong way.

❓Example questions: 

- Do you feel safe walking alone at night in the city or area where you live? 

- Do you prefer online shopping or a traditional shop-and-buy?

3. Entrance & Exit polls

These two types of surveys are primarily used in political elections. As the name suggests, the entrance poll is conducted just before the vote, and the exit survey is conducted immediately after voting.

🤔 💭 Usage scenario: Entrance and exit polls are used to understand voter behavior, collect information from voters, and specify average percentage points of elections. Exit polls collect essential data, especially before the official winner is announced.

❓ Example questions: 

- In this presidential election, which candidate are you going to vote for?

- Did you vote for Donald Trump?

4. Straw polls

Straw polls are quick and informal votes to check what most people think in a group. It is often used in meetings to see how everyone feels about something. Also, political scientists use straw polls to understand which candidates are ahead of others to analyze whether the election campaign is going in the right or wrong direction.

🤔 💭 Usage scenario: When you need to know specific choices among a group of people and need to get quick answers.

❓ Example questions: 

- What is your favorite sporting event? 

- Which candidate is going to win the election?

5. Benchmark polls

A benchmark poll is a starting point for determining people’s opinions, attitudes, or behaviors before a campaign or decision is made. It shows how people feel or what the market is like at the beginning so they can compare.

🤔 💭 Usage scenario: Candidates need to find out people's opinions about their promises if they win the election before starting the campaign. They use the benchmark poll in this situation. Companies also need to measure brand visibility among the people, so they use benchmark polls to shape their strategies.

❓ Example questions: 

- What do you think about candidate X’s promise about the health system?

- Which shampoo brand do you prefer to use in your daily life?

5 Advantages of using polls

Getting feedback and gathering information from a large group of people is the key factor for businesses, politicians, and governments. You can reach people easily and collect information quickly to make an informed decision about your product or campaign. 

Using these surveys, businesses, politicians, and governments can better understand and respond to their audience's evolving needs and preferences. Here is the list of advantages to use online polls:

🚀 Reaches a large group: Unlike other methods, such as cell phones or face-to-face,  polls are effective in reaching large groups of people to get information.

🚀 Provides quick feedback: You can get quick feedback from people in a short time. This quick feedback lets you make fast changes and improvements using real-time data, which leads to better results.

🚀 Collect essential data: You can not get essential data about your product or campaign quickly. By using online polls, you can shorten the time you reach the information and collect reliable and honest data from people.

🚀 Shape your strategies: Polls enable preliminary field research to be carried out for a product to be released by your company or for the campaign you will create for the elections. According to the information you collect from the public, you can make informed decisions and shape your strategies.

🚀 Reduce expenses: Using online polls is a more cost-effective and efficient method of collecting data than traditional methods. You can reduce your research expenses by using polls.

💡 If you want to learn more about reasons to use polls, check out our article.

How to create a poll in seconds

Creating a poll is essential to collect insightful data and information from the group of people to understand the people’s political tendencies or opinions about social, cultural, and educational matters. There is an easy way to collect information and get ideas for your campaign: create polls on forms.app form builder that allows you to create one for your business.

You need to know how to create a poll that your potential survey attendees and customers can easily fill out. Following the steps below can help you create a better one on the forms.app:

1. Login or create a new account

Open your forms.app account

You can easily sign up to forms.app or if you have an account, you can log in immediately. We know that your time is precious, so you can also log in via Google, Facebook, and Apple accounts.

2. Select a free template

Choose a template

You can start from scratch if you want to decide on every element from the start. If you would rather save time, you can select from our user-friendly opinion poll examples for free to quickly get your poll up and running. This way, you can customize the details that matter most to you.

You can also take advantage of the fast usage of AI. You can simply create a poll using forms.app AI form generator. 

3. Add your own questions

Add poll questions

The questions in this section are the most valuable aspect here. Regarding the questions, you can use the ones you created, or you can check the ones we have inside the poll template. You can add questions easily, and you can select the question types according to the questions.

💡 If you want to learn more about icebreaker, you can check our article to learn more.

4. Change how your form looks

Add your logo to the poll

Every business has a distinct color scheme and typography. You can customize the appearance of your form fields to reflect your brand's requirements. You can also add a logo and change the background and theme. By selecting the Customize section, you can change the theme to your liking by adjusting font style, text color, and brightness.

5. Connect to the databases

Use integrations

The Connect Tab allows you to connect your poll to a database. For analysis and reporting, you can connect with Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, ActiveCampaign, etc. For customer support and sales teams, you can connect your poll with WhatsApp, Messenger, etc. You can find various database fields that match your preferences for company responses.

6. Share the form

Share your form

At the final stage, you can choose to embed a poll on your website or share it across all digital platforms, like social media. You may also set up privacy choices like public, limited, and private in the settings. 

Additionally, you can choose how the poll appears on your website when you share it. Also, you can send your poll by email or make a QR code to make it more technological.

Key points to take away

Whether you are a politician, an employer, or just someone who wants to gather information, polls are the fastest and most reliable way. Each person's personality, sociability, and ability to respond may not be the same, so understanding online written surveys will always keep you one step ahead in collecting reliable and accurate data.

So far, in this article, you have learned what a poll is, when to use polls, and poll types to understand better polls. You have also learned how to create a poll in a second using the online form builder forms.app. Moreover, you have learned the advantages of using polls.

You now have all the information to create a poll. Visit the forms app and start creating one online!