2010 Initial Impressions Survey

Survey Details Survey invite sent on Monday, September 13, Released to half of the Paidlist (9,936 recipients) and half of the Freelist 129,606 recipients) older than 6 weeks old. 5,054 users responded to the survey, 4,646 users completed the survey (92%). – 3,477 non-paid users responded – 1,577 paid users responded Question topics ranged from demographics to specific questions about the respondent’s initial impression of STRATFOR and how they learned about our brand. 95% of respondent addresses match our database. – For future marketing initiatives

The Results

What type of STRATFOR user are you?

Paid User Questions

What is your age?

When making your decision to purchase, which of these factors were most influential?

Please rank our products by interest to you. (Higher is better)

Has STRATFOR met or exceeded your expectations?

Unsatisfied Paid Users: If you have any suggestions regarding how we could improve the services we provide to you, please enter them below. Of the 127 paid respondents that mentioned that they were unsatisfied, 105 gave suggestions on improving STRATFOR. 25 respondents mentioned the archive access as their reason for a negative review. 24 respondents mentioned something negative about video content. – This spans from users requesting transcripts, to issues accessing video, to users asking us to discontinue the service. 22 respondents mentioned “lack of time” as a reason for a negative review. – Some of these complaints were coupled with praise for our long analyses along with scorn for the number of sitreps produced and their distribution. – This is a good area for updating our site and educating our users

Satisfied Paid Users: If you have any suggestions regarding how we could improve the services we provide to you, please enter them below. 545 satisfied paid respondents gave suggestions for improving our services. A majority of the responses praised STRATFOR for our analysis. 128 respondents gave suggestions regarding video. This ranges from users requesting transcripts, to issues accessing video, to users asking us to discontinue the service in lieu of other services. At least 63 respondents suggested lengthening the archive barrier. 9 respondents gave a suggestion for student pricing. 6 respondents wanted to see an Ipad app, 3 wanted an Android app.

Non-Paid User Questions

What is your age?

How would you describe your line of work?

How do you use STRATFOR’s Content?

How did you hear about STRATFOR?

How familiar are you with the content that STRATFOR provides in its paid product?

Does the material you are receiving meet the expectations you had when you signed up?

What do you like about our current weekly intelligence reports? 2,610 respondents answered this question. As expected, most of the responses praised STRATFOR for its insight, depth and lack of bias. 300 respondents mentioned our depth of analysis. 245 respondents mentioned our objectiveness or lack of bias.

What, if anything, would you like to see added to our current weekly intelligence reports? 1,725 respondents answered this question. 342 respondents had no objections to our free weeklies. Other responses were varied. Suggestions included: – More visual presentations and info-graphics (graphs, maps, images) – More statistics to explain geopolitical decisions and also to support our own analysis – Many respondents mentioned that they would like to see some perspective to the contrary of our analysis – The two subjects mentioned the most were counter-terrorism and economics – Regions mentioned the most were Latin America, Europe and (specifically) the U.S./Mexico border

What is the main reason why, so far, you have not become a STRATFOR paid member? 2,874 respondents answered this question. 908 respondents mentioned “cost”, “money” or “budget” as their deterrent. 428 respondents mentioned “lack of time” as their main reason for not purchasing. – This is a good angle to use for future marketing efforts. 209 respondents mentioned receiving sufficient free content from STRATFOR. 147 respondents mentioned being retired as a deterrent.