I have been using Survey Monkey for a few years. Great product, and for simple surveys, it really can’t be beat. But I stopped using it at my last job (we had a high buck license of Eloqua which pretty much kicks all asses).
Flash forward to today. The non-profit that I work with (Southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption) needs to replace a couple of board members who decided to resign. Perfect use of a survey to get a tally of yay’s and nays’ from the membership.
But now Survey Monkey has changed. First, my old account disappeared. Not a big deal, I hadn’t used it in a couple of years, so I wasn’t upset. I sign up again, and go to create the ballot as a survey. A lot of the nifty functionality that I used to enjoy for my simple surveys is now an “upgrade”. Boo.
The biggest limitation is that you can only use it to gather 100 responses. Since we have over 200 members, and expect 80%+ to vote, that is not a good solution.
I took the plunge and subscribed to the first tier of premium (I have some work surveys to do as well, so I will get a fair amount of use for my $17 a month), and I have an even chance of being reimbursed for the subscription.
On my professional blog, I have done a few entries about the “Fremium” market strategy, and how you need to make sure that there are reasons for a casual users to “pay”. Survey Monkey certainly has applied similar learning, and it encouraged me to open my wallet to get the better version.
