Question about polls

[Khurasan Miniatures]

Periodically I will run a poll to see how people prefer models to be provided to the hobby.  What I find interesting is how few people who visit the poll actually vote in it.  It's often as little as 3% of the visitors to the post.  What is it about polls that makes people reluctant to make a choice? 

[Cait Sidhe]

I feel like you missed an opportunity to make this a poll. 

Personally I might check out a post but not find the poll relevant to me so don't vote on it.

[Plynkes]

I will often click on a thread, but if the poll doesn't concern me, I'm not going to vote on it. There isn't really any point in my voting on something Khurasan Miniatures are thinking about doing. I'm not a Khurasan customer (I'm sorry to say that I don't even know what kind of things you sell) and my input would feel dishonest unless you put an option that said "I don't really care and am only voting for the sake of it."

[Duncan McDane]

I'm not a customer of Khurasan ( yet ) because I don't do 15mm. The 28mm females look ace but as you're a US-based company the shipping costs will be sky-high for a couple of models so not much use me entering a poll.
Might get me the ladies from an EU-supplier, eventually ( or not, depending on the range ).

[Khurasan Miniatures]

Sorry, I wasn't looking for a profession of faith from anyone.    I just wanted to know what about a poll makes you click the link but not make a choice, because maybe there's a better way to engage people in the topic (I'm sure there is).

[Cat]

Well, here's some random questions back at Khurasan:

Do you have any plans to release the 6mm aliens? 

I've seen some of the early test figures and they're super cute!


Any chance of some additional and 'heroic' 6mm sci-fi infantry?

The plastic Ogre infantry are 9mm to top of helmet and slender, so 8mm metals would go nicely with them.  The only 8mm metals out there are the old Ral Partha BattleTech infantry.  (Iron Wind has crept well beyond that into whole other scale bands!) 

I would definitely be in for some power-suit types with missiles, and some jump troops.

[TheBlackCrane]

I am a Khurusan customer and have fully succumbed to the ooh shiny effect of the excellent historical ranges.

However I'm still only likely to vote on a poll if the options have content which interests me - as my vote will hopefully help to contribute to influencing what gets released/made next.

So, if it's a case of what should be released and there are 4 or 5 options, none of which I envisage myself buying into, I'm not likely to log in and vote even though it might be interesting from a standoff point of view.

Given the variety of ranges you release (which I heartily approve of) it's actually probably quite likely only a small proportion of viewers of a poll will actually vote, when that's taken against the vast range of wargamers' interests?

[DintheDin]

I'm always happy to respond to your polls
(a satisfied Khurasan customer) 

What actually happens I think is what Plynkes says: I click on the thread and if the question does not concern me...
Of course, I don't know if the question concerns me if I don't click first.
The 3% of responses from the whole lot of the people visiting the thread you mention may be not exact, for instance I may visit the thread two or three times to see how the poll is going. In any case, it seems that people who do not respond most probably are not interested.
IMHO when you gather more than 100 answers, you may be quite sure of what your real customers think.

By the way, you are producing more and more lovely series... And I'm getting old       

EDIT: While I was writing, BlackCrane posted an answer, I completely agree.

[Inkpaduta]

There are polls on LAF?
I was not aware of them.

[TWD]

I don't know what the industry/ this forum standards are but 3% engagement doesn't sound too bad to me.
In my real life social media posts I make for organisations generally bump along with a 1-2% engagement rate. Paid for advertising considerably lower.

I also think asking a self selecting group to tell you the answer isn't likely to give you much insight. The sample is too small and biased to provide useful data.

You are also (IMO) asking the wrong question. Don't ask what stops people voting, try to find out what motivates them to do so.

If you want better engagement look at the polls that did better and see if you can identify patterns - common subjects, type of question, number of choices, time posted etc.
Then do more posts like those.

Or incentivise people to respond (though that brings its own problems).

[Belligerentparrot]

Just my 2cents worth, but I don't complete any poll (or related market research) unless I am 100% prepared to stump up money for the product.
I remember Andy from Heresy Miniatures complaining a long time ago that he'd get loads of positive feedback for concept sketches (and polls!) on forums, so he'd make the minis, and then they wouldn't sell. Taught me the consequences of frivolous poll-responding.

[Patrice]

(...) loads of positive feedback for concept sketches (and polls!) on forums, so he'd make the minis, and then they wouldn't sell. Taught me the consequences of frivolous poll-responding.

That's what I would say. Sometimes I answer to polls, but quite often I don't answer because I'm afraid it could be understood that I actually want to buy something (which I might do... or not but have not yet decided when I see the poll).

[Khurasan Miniatures]

I remember Andy from Heresy Miniatures complaining a long time ago that he'd get loads of positive feedback for concept sketches (and polls!) on forums, so he'd make the minis, and then they wouldn't sell.

Oh that absolutely happens! In fact there’s little correlation between internet response and sales. I’ll release something that gets thousands of views and hundreds of likes on Facebook and then no one will buy it, but then conversely something that seems to go up like a lead balloon will start selling and not stop.

It’s worse than that though. I remember years ago on another forum there were a few guys who would post and post about how much “we need” this or that to be made, and would constantly post responses to manufacturer posts asking for those things. On two occasions manufacturers stepped up and made them. And did the guys who were so insistent that “we need” the models actually buy them once they were available? I’ll let you fill in the answer. 

[pixelgeek]

Is the traffic to the poll actual human beings? Also how is the poll being embedded? If it is using a third-party system you may be losing people who block third-party cookies.

Does your polling software track incomplete surveys?

[mcfonz]

I sometimes look at polls to see what a company is thinking of doing.

I rarely take part in them though for all of the above reasons. I just don't see how they are a reliable tool on the internet. It's very easy to vote without any sort of real thought.

There is also the prospect of if the product isn't already available the poll is the first step and the product will be there in maybe three months at best? By that time will people still want the same thing?

Then there is the other flip side which is some companies poll quite a lot on facebook 'what do you want to see next?', 'I have these ideas which one do you think is best?'. Whilst it is nice to have some customer interaction, as has already been said, you can't really trust it.

So to me that means either you are unsure of your own customer market as to know what you should produce or you are creating polls to increase interaction with customers... And I'm not really sure polls are good for either really tbh.