Product Demand Survey FAQ

Click here to download a copy of this FAQ (pdf)

What is the Trusted Strategies Product Demand Survey?

The Trusted Strategies Product Demand Survey allows IT security product developers to test and track a potential product’s demand in the marketplace.  The survey obtains quality feedback from a panel of over 1200 enterprises in leading industries validating market demand, price, feature sets, and other vital data for potential products.

 Who will benefit from the product demand survey?

The survey is designed for developers of IT security products.  It allows them to test the demand for their potential new products or major features.

 Why is the survey valuable to IT security product developers?

Few developers have a large sampling of potential customers that can give quality feedback regarding planned products in an easy, quick, and inexpensive manner.  As a result, significant time and money is often lost developing products and bringing them to market without proper pre-approval from the potential customer base. 

The Trusted Strategies Product Demand Survey gives developers an easy and cost effective way to verify the demand for their products and establish the best target market(s) before wasting time and money developing the wrong features or marketing to the wrong customer base. 

Product Demand Survey Top 10 Benefits:

1) Verify product demand among various sizes and types of industries and organizations (e.g. federal government, banking & finance, health care, medium to large enterprises, and more)

2) Distinguish between interest and critical product demand that compels customers to buy

3) Determine which product features are low priority and can safely be scratched or postponed

4) Confirm how much customers are willing to pay for the product(s)

5) Determine who the decision makers are (CIO, CEO, CSO,  Security Manager, etc.)

6) Establish how the market prefers to buy their products (Direct from developer, System Integrators, Resellers/VARs, Online, etc.)

7) Ascertain the typical sales, deployment, maintenance, and upgrade cycles

8) Determine customer opinion for your company and products, or for your competitors

9) Validate the potential of additional industry and market segments for existing products

10) Gives developers the knowledge they need to in order to justify investing in select products and in bringing them to market

 What companies are available to be included in the survey?

Survey participants are selected from a panel which has been carefully cultivated over several years. The panel consists of over 1200 individuals representing hundreds of leading U.S. based companies and federal agencies.  Surveys are carefully designed, selecting from 100 to 300 participants from the panel.  The selected participants represent one or more target industries as well as any combination of small, medium, or large size organizations. 

Example industries represented by the survey panel:

Survey panel organization sizes:

What are the titles, roles, and responsibilities of the survey participants?

 The survey panel consists of individuals who play a significant role in recommending and purchasing IT products.  Depending on the size of the organization, this could include Chief Executive Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Technical Officers, Chief Security Officers, IT Security Directors and Managers, IT System Administrators, and influential members of the IT System Support Staff.

How are survey participants qualified?

The panel of survey participants has been cultivated and refined for several years.  A number of qualifying parameters are used to verify the quality of participants, including validation of title, role, and company.  Participants are also asked multiple qualifying questions to ensure they have relevant industry knowledge and experience.  Incentives are also paid to insure that high quality but busy individuals will take the time necessary to attentively participate in the survey.

What does a survey cost?

Product Demand Surveys typically range in cost from $9,500 to $15,000 dollars depending on the desired number of survey participants and the level of analysis requested.

  How Long does it take to complete a survey?

Surveys can usually be completed within 3 weeks.  For an extra charge, surveys can be completed in a shorter time frame.

 How is the survey actually conducted?

Trusted Strategies works with the security product developer to establish the survey’s target industries and sizes as well as the survey questions.  A web based survey is then created which the security developer approves. After this approval, a link to the  survey is emailed to the selected panel participants and the survey begins.  Trusted Strategies has engaged Techtel, an established and leading market survey firm to perform the mechanics of the survey data gathering and compiling. Typically, data is gathered for 3 business days and then compiled by Techtel and Trusted Strategies into survey results.  

 What questions are asked in a survey?

A survey will usually have between 20 and 50 questions.  Questions can cover a number of areas. They are created by the product developer and reviewed with Trusted Strategies. Trusted Strategies can provide a template of commonly asked questions for your industry, and help craft the questions if desired.  The following types of questions are typical: 

Qualifying questions such as the industry and size of the company, number of employees, tile and role of the respondent, area of expertise, etc.

Product questions to determine a company’s need and opinion of certain features or products

Budget questions to ascertain how much a company might be able and willing to spend

Timeframe questions to establish how quickly potential customers might evaluate, purchase, and deploy products.

Purchase questions to determine who influences the purchasing decision, and through what channel(s) the company typically obtains similar products.

 Can we get contact information for survey participants?

No.  In order to protect the privacy of our panel participants and to get generous amounts of quality candid feedback, we have agreements in place with panel participants promising not to disclose their contact information.

 How are the results of the survey delivered to us?

After the survey results have been gathered and compiled, a series of reports are generated and delivered to the product developer.  All data is delivered in one or more  Microsoft Word documents or Excel spreadsheets, and depending on the survey package, may include PowerPoint summaries and 2 to 4 hours of consulting time to present the data and discuss what it means to your company.

Click here to download a copy of this FAQ (pdf)