{"id":6448,"date":"2012-10-11T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/?p=6448"},"modified":"2012-10-11T09:00:48","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T16:00:48","slug":"survey-or-poll-whats-the-difference-and-when-to-use-which","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/survey-or-poll-whats-the-difference-and-when-to-use-which\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey or Poll?  What&#8217;s the Difference and When to Use Which"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that QuestionPro has added PollBob to their product family, you might find yourself logging into QuestionPro to do a survey and then wonder if you should do a poll instead. \u00a0So which will it be? \u00a0Survey or Poll and how will you know when to do which?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The quick and dirty difference<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Polls are short, surveys are long<\/li>\n<li>Surveys are for making decisions and getting insights, polls are for taking a snapshot<\/li>\n<li>Polls give you results right away &#8212; with surveys, you have to wait for the analysis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How quickly do you need the results?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>NOW! \u00a0Use a poll<\/strong>. \u00a0Online polls are the ideal choice when you have a\u00a0<strong>single question with straightforward choices for answers using a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/poll-software.html\">poll software<\/a>.<\/strong> \u00a0For example: \u00a0Will you be driving more than 300 miles in your car over the Thanksgiving holiday? (yes, no, don&#8217;t know)<\/li>\n<li><strong>LATER. \u00a0I can wait.<\/strong> \u00a0If you can wait for the results &#8211; then use a survey.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How many questions do you need answered?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>One? \u00a0Use a poll<\/strong> \u00a0&#8211; Polls are a quick check on the pulse of an audience. \u00a0Unless you&#8217;re the Gallup Organization, there isn&#8217;t a whole lot of academic theory or design that has to go into the questions. \u00a0Ask a question &#8211; get an answer &#8211; see what everyone else said.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Many?<\/strong><strong> Use a survey.<\/strong> \u00a0Surveys are more structured and advanced forms of questions. \u00a0You give a survey when you&#8217;re trying to make a decision or a series of decisions about what to do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Do you have a BIG decision to make?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No.<\/strong> \u00a0Use a poll to get a snapshot or pulse of how people view a topic<\/li>\n<li><strong>Yes.<\/strong> Use a survey to gather quantitative or statistical data that predicts how people will act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Are there finite, specific choices?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Yes.<\/strong> \u00a0Use a poll. \u00a0If the list of all the potential options is less than 7 &#8212; use a poll.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No.<\/strong>\u00a0 Use a survey. \u00a0Surveys are ideal if there is some fuzziness around the answers and you need to gather some open ended responses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Is this serious or fun?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Serious stuff.<\/strong> \u00a0Use a survey. \u00a0Granted polls can be about serious topics, but the structure doesn&#8217;t lend itself for developing a more nuanced context of where the answers come from &#8212; that is hard to achieve with one question.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fun stuff.<\/strong> \u00a0Polls give you the opportunity to insert a little fun into your research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Do you need to control the respondents?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Yes.<\/strong> \u00a0Use a survey. \u00a0With multiple questions and demographics, surveys allow you to control the respondents. \u00a0If you need a specific number of respondents from a specific demographic &#8211; then surveys are the mechanism to achieve that. \u00a0You can ask qualifying questions and only allow those respondents who fit the criteria to finish the survey.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No.\u00a0<\/strong> \u00a0Polls are not as good as surveys at parsing out specific respondent attributes. \u00a0You can&#8217;t really qualify your respondents. \u00a0Your responses will generally be an overall measure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Exceptions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>QuestionPro&#8217;s new polling feature allows you to do a few things that traditional polls don&#8217;t; namely the ability to link polls together and to provide some open ended responses. \u00a0This can be good &#8212; but not if you use a poll to do a survey&#8217;s work.<\/p>\n<p>My recommendation is to use a poll when you have a single question and you want to build engagement around a topic or generate a conversation around a topic.<\/p>\n<p>Use a survey to gather data so that you can make decisions.<\/p>\n<p>What to you say?<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re still on the fence, you&#8217;ll want to get more details from a FREE Webinar that we&#8217;re holding on our new polling feature <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/webinar\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Thursday October 11, 2012.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that QuestionPro has added PollBob to their product family, you might find yourself logging into QuestionPro to do a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":14851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[251,187],"tags":[290,377],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Survey or Poll? 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