That “ we’re the experts, so just let us do our job” is old-school thinking. Rather, suicidal.
Your audience is human and loves to share their opinions with brands. Brands they have invited to write to them. There’s no reason you can’t extend that invitation to ask them questions.
You want to ask them questions because they are your target market. You want to know about their pain points, preferences, and expectations. And their responses are pure gold. You can use these valuable insights to develop products, services, and interactions that better align with customer needs.
Thanks to interactive HTML email templates, it’s just so seamless to collect those insights. Interactive, live polls are a good way to encourage subscribers to engage with your emails. They let your recipients answer a survey, vote in a poll, or fill out a feedback form without leaving the email. In a space they are already in.
That’s unlike the static email experience where they would have to go to another page to fill out email surveys (which many simply won’t bother doing).
Ceegan Flood, Litmus’s customer success manager, rightly describes live polls as an avenue for customers to express their opinions easily. Says,” People love to share their opinion, and then you can capture data that helps you further segment those people and give them a better email experience.”
With inbox fatigue at an all-time high, engaging HTML email designs with live polls allow you to learn what the audience wants without wasting too much of a reader’s time.
This begs the question: how do you incorporate live polls for your interactive email campaigns?
Let’s find out.
What Are Interactive Live Poll Emails?
A customizable interactive HTML email with a live poll turns your emails into a two-way conversation that gives subscribers a voice.
Live polls have a survey question embedded in the email body. To answer the question, subscribers click the option they prefer. Some tools, like Live Polls by Litmus, show results in real-time. When participants submit their responses, results are updated and displayed instantly.
After the poll ends, you can analyze the results and use them as valuable data points to inform future campaigns.
Let’s break it down using two examples to better understand what this looks like in practice.
The first example is from Tecovas.
It’s an engaging HTML email design to nudge users to complete a survey after abandoning their cart.
Notice that the “Take a Brief Survey” button takes the user to a separate landing page. That extra click—however small—can be a barrier. What are the odds you would make time to follow through? Not quite sure, especially if you are on mobile or short on time.
Now contrast that with the email from Athletic Brewing Co.
You see radio buttons, star ratings, and a text box for written feedback—all embedded within the email body. No detour to separate survey pages. This is a live poll in action.
As subscribers open and submit their responses, each vote counts as a click. This increases your click-through rates (CTR). Not only do they encourage clicks, but they also encourage re-opens as subscribers check in on results.
5 Brilliant Ways To Use Interactive Email Polls
Embedding live polls in interactive HTML email templates is a great way to engage subscribers while understanding their feelings about your brand. But what type of survey questions should your interactive email polls house? Let’s discuss—
1. Ask Your Audience To Pick a Preferred Deal
Let subscribers choose their favorite offer from multiple options. Use the best of your interactive HTML email template and ask them to vote for discounts, bundles, or exclusive perks. It boosts click-throughs, but more than that, it serves as an interest indicator for personalized promotions.
2. Get Feedback On Your Newsletters
You could also use a live poll to gauge how readers feel about your newsletter content. A simple “What do you enjoy most about our newsletter?”— question can go a long way in collecting actionable feedback to improve your newsletters.
3. Glean A Post-purchase Feedback
After a purchase, ask customers how satisfied they are or what needs improvement. The no-effort voting in live polls lets even the most lethargic buyer leave their feedback. If the vote data suggests that you’re meeting expectations, celebrate. God forbid, if it’s otherwise, run a full survey to figure out what you could improve to serve your customers better.
4. Know Their Content Preference
A live poll like this helps you know which types of content your subscribers want to see more from a list of options. Educational articles, product updates, or industry news. Use the poll results to segment your subscribers and offer them more of what they’re after.
5. Ask Them To Vote For Their Favourite Product
Create interactive experiences with live polls promoting an update to your existing product. Or let subscribers for their favorite product or feature. This will help boost engagement, create more interest in the product, and get data on customer preferences for future campaigns or product development.
Best Practices for Using Live Polls in Interactive HTML Emails
- Keep your interactive HTML email template design simple and clean. Use short questions with no more than four options. The easier you make voting, the more responses you’ll receive.
- Customize the poll so that it looks cohesive and matches your brand guidelines.
- Place the poll prominently in the body of the email.
- Test your templates for responsiveness across devices and email clients.
- Make the most of the live poll data by segmenting upcoming campaigns based on those votes.
- Close the loop. Share poll results in follow-up emails or show appreciation for responses.
- When possible, display results in real-time. When they update as votes come in, users feel more interested in re-opening emails to check the latest outcomes.
- Live polls typically display as images. If a user has images disabled, they won’t see the poll. So, provide text fallback. A good way to offer a fallback is to include a link to a web version with the same questions. Or write the email copy in a fashion that readers who don’t see the poll don’t know what they’re missing.
Wrapping Up
Interactive HTML email templates with live polls are more than engaging HTML email designs. They are a powerful way to encourage engagement, segment email lists, and personalize email campaigns. We hope you learned some tricks and tips to apply to your next email campaign.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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