SurveyGizmo makes online surveys, polls a snap

BOULDER – Want to include a quiz in your MySpace profile, or embed a registration form into your Web site? That’s easy. Just use SurveyGizmo, and you’re ready to roll.

Since launching in November 2006, more than 2,500 customers have been using SurveyGizmo software to collect data through surveys and polls. The software includes creation tools for research, job applications, marketing campaigns, customer relations management, blogs, Web landing pages, e-newsletters, sales tracking, lead generation.

“We will dominate the survey market,´ said Cambridge, Mass.-based Christian Vanek, who, with Boulder-based Scott McDaniel, co-founded Widgix Software, a privately owned Boulder company that developed two initial products: SurveyGizmo and an e-mail subscriber manager called Co-Reg Complete. Several other products are on the drawing board.

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Built on “thousands of hours of sweat equity and a modest outlay of capital,” Vanek and McDaniel declined to disclose how much money they spent, and mentioned they’re not seeking funding.

Vanek and McDaniel believe they will be profitable by year’s end, using a modest staff of a marketing consultant and a copywriter. They also plan to hire a sales manager in the near future.

Word-of-mouth marketing and partnering with Indianapolis-based ExactTarget, an e-mail marketing software firm, helped gain most of the company’s customers in the last few months.

SurveyGizmo users vary from mom-and-pop businesses to Fortune 500 corporations, bloggers, marketers, publishing companies, researchers and Web developers.

The company’s business had grown by 56 percent, half of which are paying customers, including a recent contract to implement customer service surveys for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., a $3.5 billion General Dynamics subsidiary in Savannah, Ga.

With plans to “become the best choice for marketers to compile data,” Vanek estimated that SurveyGizmo will help Widgix become a “several million dollar company” within five years, matching its closest competitors, Zoomerang and SurveyMonkey.

McDaniel explained that in the current survey market either a customer’s needs frequently outgrow the product, or the software is so customized and difficult to install the provider needs an entire IT department to cover the desired level of service.

“Our tool circumvents that,” he said.

Surveys must have custom and insightful questions to collect the most accurate data, according to Vanek. “A number of our clients who used competitors asked if we could do better.”

Vanek and McDaniel took the challenge to make their interface intuitive and feature-laden.

“SurveyGizmo is a flexible, online self-service application – you can start with a free account to try it out,” Vanek said, adding that customer service is available 24/7.

The Widgix Web site also provides tutorials and blogs to answer customer questions. Monthly account packages range from free to $99.

Some typical SurveyGizmo uses include:

_ Inserting response forms within blogs and Web sites for e-newsletter signups.

_ Creating marketing promotions that drive 50,000 surveys on a Web site over several days, enticing people to sign up when they click on advertisements.

_ Embedding surveys into Web pages with JavaScript or HTML for sites like MySpace, to drive traffic to that MySpace page.

_ Collecting research for publications by powering customer service satisfaction polls on a real-time basis for sales cycle data.

_ Powering “landing pages” for teleseminars, where people register on a Web page through a form that triggers an autoresponder to the registrant.

Boulder-based Me.dium purchased two SurveyGizmo subscriptions to interactively poll employees about specific aspects of its product – an Internet browser add-on that enables users to interact with others online.

“We want to make sure we’re getting everyone’s input on the product design,´ said Carol Stimmel, a senior technology analyst for Me.dium, who had previously used SurveyMonkey. “SurveyGizmo’s responsiveness is excellent. They provide questions and data collection that mean something. Through them, we’ve learned things we may not have. The results encapsulate the information in a meaningful way.”

With more than 100 survey software companies vying for the same market share, will Widgix make it?

“They seem to have better functionality and a more complete package than their competitors,´ said Estaben Kolsky, research director for Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. “Their biggest challenge is marketing and sales. If they can get people to use them, their five-year estimate of several million dollars is realistic.”

Widgix Software

1920 13th St., Ste. C

Boulder, CO 80302

800-609-6480

www.widgix.com

www.surveygizmo.com

Scott McDaniel and Christian Vanek, co-owners

Employees: Two full time, one part time

Primary product or service: Tools for Web marketing and research

Founded: 2006