To people outside of the market research field, recruiting a sufficient number of suitable study participants may seem like an administrative task. That is, you figure out what questions you want to ask, find enough people to answer them, organize the results — and you’re done.
Well, not quite!
In fact, businesses that have attempted to approach market research recruitment this way have invariably discovered — and not happily — that the process is not administrative. It is strategic, because it’s not just about asking questions. It’s about identifying the perspectives of four stakeholder groups, and then aligning them as part of a singular, focused recruitment effort. These four groups are: the business, respondents, the researcher, and the recruiter.
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The Business
Naturally, the most important stakeholder in the market research ecosystem is the business that is making the investment and “paying the freight.” They need to know that the recruitment effort will connect them with a defined, specific target audience, which will deliver relevant feedback and actionable intelligence.
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Respondents
Building a rapport with respondents and ensuring that they have a positive experience is essential — otherwise, high attrition rates will undermine the effort. What’s more, this relationship-building must start from the very first touch point, and extend all the way through to the post-research phase (possibly when respondents receive their promised incentive). After all, most, if not all, respondents will also be customers (current or prospective). If they have a less-than-great experience, they will punish the business behind the research — which is unacceptable.
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The Researcher
The researcher must focus relentlessly on the one thing that matters most, without question: quality, quality and yet more quality! Indeed, the objective must be to generate quality feedback from a random sample representative of the target audience. Frankly, without quality data, the researcher has nothing to deliver.
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The Recruiter
The recruiter has to find the optimal balance between two competing objectives: being as inclusive as possible to maximize the number of respondents, while excluding those who do not meet the target audience criteria. The only way to achieve this balance is through efficiency and a high-quality process.
Pulling it All Together
At Communications For Research, we have the experience, network and resources required to define and align all four of these core perspectives, so that the market research recruitment effort and overall project does what matters most: equips businesses with actionable intelligence to make smarter decisions and achieve ROI.
If you’re looking to recruit participants for an online survey, you want to be sure that your survey to set up for success. Download our free eBook “The Insider’s Guide to Successfully Using Online Surveys” to see the design and implementation tactics you should be using:
