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Customer surveys can be revealing, surprising and essential to making marketing and strategic decisions. But what happens when the customer is unreachable through one of today’s most popular media, the online survey? According to Denver-based GeoPoll, the answer is foregoing computers in favor of phones.
The company’s voice, text and web-based surveys reach individuals in even the most remote locations — think sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia — via their cell phones. With 75 percent of the world’s adult population owning such a device, GeoPoll is confident in its ability to target survey-takers by location, based on the tower their phones connect to, accurately and effectively. Thanks to that technology, the company just raised an $6.6 million Series A, which they will use to build out their team and expand their footprint worldwide.
We caught up with GeoPoll President Steve Gutterman to learn more about his goals and objectives. Read on to get his insights.
How does launching out of an existing company (mobile services company Mobile Accord) change the experience of coming to market? What are the benefits and detriments, if any?
Mobile Accord is the parent company of both mGive and GeoPoll. The Mobile Accord team is comprised of a group of technology and mobile phone veterans, and we’ve built extraordinary relationships with mobile carriers over the years. This expertise and these relationships are huge benefits as we continue to build the GeoPoll network. Our work through mGive and our experience with previous mobile ventures have given us incredible visibility into the market, and specifically, into the need for tools that deliver insight into the developing world. In developing mGive, which is a mobile donation platform, we found that the mobile phone is the best and, often, the only way to connect with people in hard-to-reach populations. We used this understanding to build GeoPoll and leverage the rapidly growing mobile foothold across the world. We are also well versed in customer privacy laws, because we’ve been working in mobile for so long.
Who are some of your notable customers? Why does your product suit so many different verticals (market research, financial services, non-profits, etc.)?
We’re working with organizations like the UN, USAID and the World Food Programme, as well as fast-moving consumer goods companies, financial services companies and market research firms. We’ve built a flexible and extensible platform that’s designed to adapt to any vertical or region. GeoPoll can send a survey on virtually any topic, which means that it’s valuable for any company or organization that could benefit from real-time data. We can reach any cell phone user outside of North Korea, and can do so through SMS, voice call or web-based communications.
What is your strategy for setting GeoPoll apart from other global surveying systems?
Our technology is the only tool that truly leverages the global foothold of mobile phones. In the developing world, 10 percent of the population has Internet access and just five to 10 percent have landlines, but more than 70 percent have cell phones. We’re using the common infrastructure of the cell phone to connect with people throughout the world. We’re helping companies and organizations get granular and precise data from populations that have been hard to reach until now. We are also creating a network for the unwebbed to share their voices and opinions. We seamlessly integrate into telecom carriers’ networks and billing systems, which means we can reach any mobile phone regardless of whether or not they are Internet-connected. Our technology allows two-way communication in real-time, and uses pinpoint targeting to determine location based on the cell tower a mobile phone connects to most frequently. We can get more granular than other surveying systems, targeting specific geographies and demographics within a country by tapping into our database of 50 million users. We’ve built this network through our extraordinary relationships with mobile carriers, which we’ve been building for more than a decade.
As mobile technology evolves, how do you plan to adapt while continuing to survey simple phone users?
We’ve built our platform to be highly flexible and extensible. This means that we can evolve along with mobile technology and reach people on the devices that they’re using, in the mode of communication they prefer. What are your goals for the next six months? What are some specific things you’d like to achieve in that much time? Our primary goal is to expand our footprint and our network. We expect to reach 100 million people by the end of 2013, and 500 million by the end of 2014.
