Interactive module generator: Poll

Voting is one of the oldest ways to make a decision or choose something. And in marketing, it is a great way to be on the same page with the audience, provide subscribers with the content they need, and receive valuable feedback.

It is difficult to make an interactive poll in emails, but we are following the path of making interactivity available for any marketer and are happy to introduce you to the Poll, which has expanded the collection of modules in our Interactive module generator. We will show you how you can quickly create your own poll in just a few minutes.

How can you use Poll for your email campaigns?

First of all, let’s figure out how you can apply interactive polls in email marketing. Even though they are quite simple, their possible applications are quite interesting:

• polls are primarily a way for you to receive feedback from your audience. Are you running a cosplay contest for your convention? Run an email poll to find out the winner. You’ve made a change to your newsletter and want to know if it's worth keeping? Run a vote for your subscribers to see if they like it. The options are endless;
• polls can be a tool for shaping your content based on audience preferences. Large polls with multiple questions can give you ideas on what resonates best with your audience;
• open polls can be used to influence the individual preferences of recipients. For example, you run a poll to see your best product this year. Those who voted for the product that won will be confirmed in their choice, while others may change their minds and take a closer look at the product they might have missed after seeing the results. Don't discount the power of public opinion.

How to generate an interactive Poll module

Let’s walk through each step of creating a Poll module within our generator.

Step 1. Enter your questions and answers to them

Every poll requires questions and answers. Enter your question in the respective field.

Once it’s done, type the needed answers for this question.

To add more questions to your poll, click on the “Plus” button. The more questions you add, the more question tabs will appear. To delete a question, click on the “trash bin” icon.

You can also add more answers to each of your questions by clicking on the “Add an answer” button. Once clicked, a new field will appear in which you can type your additional answer. To delete answer fields, hover your mouse over the question you want to delete and click on the red “Delete” button.

Prepared examples you can use

To give fuel for your inspiration on how polls you can create can look like, we’ve prepared several templates you can test and use. Click on the “See Templates” button and choose the needed in the drop-down menu.

Important note: You can create as many questions as you need by following the steps above. The action sequence stays the same.

Step 2. Create a submit button

In order for your recipients to submit their answers, your poll must have a submit button. Enter the text for your submit button in this field.

Step 3. Set up a completion screen

Once recipients have completed the answers and submitted them, the poll module will show the completion screen. It’s time to tweak it to your liking.

You can choose from two types of completion messages.

Open results type

This is a text-only message. Choose the first button in the options to make your completion message simple and concise. To choose this type, on the “Completion Message” screen, click the first button below “Version Switcher”.

When choosing this option, your poll will simply show the results to your recipient. No images, no “Thank you,” and so on.

Completion message with an image

If you pick this option, you can customize it the way you want. First, you can choose the image the recipient will see once they complete the poll. You can pick from a few standard ones.

If they don’t fit your style, you always can link your own image. Just click on the big “Plus” button so the link image field will appear. Put the link to your image in this field.

Important note: The uploaded image must be in PNG, JPG, or GIF format. Furthermore, the file size should not be larger than 3 MB, and the dimensions should not exceed 4,000 × 4,000 pixels.

Once you’ve done with the image, you need to enter a completion message. Enter a title and description into respective fields. The description field is full of options for formatting texts, adding emojis, links, and so on, so be creative.

The finished poll with this type of completion message will look like this.

Completion button (if needed)

This button is needed if you want to continue interacting with your recipient, send them to other pages for additional info, and so on. Simply enter the button name and attach a link to the respective fields.

Your completed poll with this option enabled will look like this.

Step 4. Add a response storage

The poll you create will not only entertain your target audience but can also be a valuable data-collection tool for your business. So, you can add dedicated response storage to gather answers. Specifically, you can collect valuable data by adding a data service link that you can create in Stripo to easily download the relevant data from your Poll.

Important note: You can read more about data storage services and how to use them in a dedicated article in our Help Center.

Step 5. Add merge tags (if needed)

Making your poll more personalized by addressing each recipient by name is a good idea to increase engagement and show their importance to you. Merge tags can help you with that, allowing you to easily add names to your poll by inputting them into the corresponding fields. 

You can add several merge tags by clicking on the green button with a plus sign. To delete tags, click on the trash bin icon on the tag that you wish to remove.

Important note: You can find more information about merge tags, where to get them, and their valuable properties in our Help Center.

Step 6. Customize your poll style

Now let's add the finishing touches to your poll looks. We provide you with wide options for customizing polls to your liking.

First, you can change icon styles. We’ve prepared 4 options to choose from:

These icons appear near the answers and change their looks once clicked. Two of them have tick signs, while the other two are just colored when a recipient clicks on them.

The next step is customizing inputs. You can change several things in your poll:

• background color;
• text color;
• border color;
• border radius;
• font size.

The submit button is also customizable. You can choose its text color, background, and border radius.

The final thing to customize left is the completion button. The settings here are the same as the previous one.

Step 7. Download the game 

To download the poll, you create there are two simple ways:

• if you are a Stripo user, you can save the game as a module in your library and use it right away;
• if you are not a Stripo user, you can save the code separately, as we provide you an email with all the game versions you may need.

Saving the game as a module in Stripo is simple since you have to be logged in and click “Save.”

The module will be automatically added to your module library in the “My Modules” folder.

If you are not a registered Stripo user, leave your email in the respective field to receive an email with all the code versions. Just click on the needed button in the email to download HTML code or JSON to operate with them later.

All of these features are due to the fact that our generator provides you with a game module that contains the following:

• an AMP version of your email that works in Gmail, Yahoo, and FairEmail;
• an interactive fallback that works on all devices and with all email clients that support HTML5 and CSS3 (it also works in Apple Mail and Samsung Email);
• a text fallback version that works with email clients that do not support HTML5 or CSS3, such as some Outlook apps.

As we have shown in this instruction manual, adding a game to your emails is quite simple and does not take much time. We also described this process in detail in our first manual, “How to create interactive content without code hassle.” Click on this link and look for the Step 6, where we describe the entire process in detail.

Wrapping up

Creating polls is a great way to make your recipients and their opinions feel valued. It is also an endless source of feedback that can shape your email marketing in the future. Not a long time ago, these interactive polls were quite tricky to create, but now every marketer, regardless of their technical knowledge, can create and add an interactive poll to their newsletter. Just use our interactive module generator, as its one and only purpose is to make interactive content accessible.