Columbus start-up JoeMetric, is poised to track the world's consumers, one smart phone at a time, with its new iPhone application set to launch in January.
Pending approval by Apple this month, JoeMetric will begin offering its smart phone app, JoeSurvey, free to iPhone users next year. The users can then take targeted surveys through the app and get paid for their responses.
JoeMetric makes money when marketers sign up to use their application to question consumers about their shopping habits or to get feedback instantly about events or advertising, says Stephanie Rucinski, head Joe (aka president) of JoeMetric.
"Right now market research is so expensive it's out of reach of most small businesses," says Rucinski. "(With JoeMetric) it's a self service model that opens the door to get the information they want."
Rucinski says that JoeMetric is also the only application she knows of that is making use of global positioning technology to allow marketers to track consumers through their phones, with their consent, of course, so they can instantly determine how much time a customer spends in a particular store or venue and even what they browse the most while they are there.
"We couldn't roll out fast enough for some folks," says Rucinski of the potential demand for JoeSurvey. "This type of information has been unable to be gathered before now. They've been trying to do this for years, and now they can."
After their launch in January, Rucinski says that JoeMetric will add between three and six employees to its current two. Most of the jobs will be in sales, with one position planned for tech development.
Source: Stephanie Rucinski, JoeMetric
Writer: Val Prevish