Whether conducting a 10-question online survey or a 60-minute focus group, the participant experience matters. The experience of a market research participant will always impact the quality of data earned from a study – both positively and negatively.
With a greater participant experience comes better quality data. With better quality data comes more reliable data and insights to feed into decisions that move business’ forward.
For this reason, it is important to always consider the point of view of a market research participant or respondent first. Our full-service market research company lives by this mantra. Not only is it important for the benefit of our clients but is important for our participants to see Drive Research as a market research firm they can trust.
Collect better quality data by creating the ultimate participant experience. Here are four tips to help get you started.
Provide an Incentive
To motive market research participation you want to give your target audience a reason or incentive to provide their opinions and feedback. A reward for participating in market research can be a monetary incentive, joining a raffle to win a gift card, or something as simple as feeling as though they made a positive impact on the product.
Choosing the reward for participation in marketing research is dependent on a number of different factors. For example, when conducting a focus group it is likely that all participants will earn a cash reward of sorts, while responding to an online survey could be entering to win a $100 Amazon gift card.
Not only does offering an incentive for participating in market research allow for a better experience, but it can also lead to shorter and cheaper fees for recruitment.
Make the Research Engaging
Another great tip for creating the ultimate participant experience is making the market research study more engaging. Take a step back and look at where you can add some fun elements to the research process.
The more enjoyable the experience is overall, the higher the survey completion rate will be. Researchers will also likely see a better quality of data from survey respondents.
For example, gamification is a popular method in consumer research in which gaming techniques are used to make surveys more interactive, engaging, and enjoyable for respondents. This technique typically motivates respondents to provide quality answers, which is often a drawback of using quantitative methodologies over qualitative.
Here are 3 examples of gamification in market research.
Disqualify Lightly
Rejection of any kind is a tough pill to swallow. However, disqualifying potential participants is inevitable in market research. Many times clients have certain criteria and quotas market research companies like Drive Research must meet.
It is critical to find the most qualified research participants, but because of this, some people must be rejected. The key is to reject potential participants lightly. Just because they are not a good fit for this particular study, does not mean they will not meet the criteria of future surveys, focus groups, and so on.
A way to combat heavy disqualification is to target your desired audience as narrowly as possible. For example, our market research company uses social and behavioral targeting to find groups of people who are most likely to qualify for a specific project rather than screening a general population.
Establish Trust
Lastly, the fourth tip for creating the ultimate participant experience is to establish trust. Because market research studies often ask people for demographic or other private information, it is important participants feel as though a market research company can be trusted.
Try to be as transparent as possible with how you will use their information going forward. You only usually get one chance to inspire confidence in a market research study.
Many market research firms like Drive Research have a privacy policy on their website or easily accessible to share with participants. The more participants can trust a marketing research company, the more likely they are to share their honest feedback about a product, service, brand, or company. This type of feedback is what helps support business and marketing decisions. No more guesswork!
Drive Research is a national market research company located in New York. Our team has the knowledge and tools to quickly find quality participants for your qualitative or quantitative research, cost-effectively.
Interested in receiving a proposal or estimate for a qualitative recruitment project? Reach out through any of the four ways below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040