Understanding quotas is crucial for effective market research project management. Whether it's a broad survey or segmented study, quotas help streamline participant recruitment and data accuracy. Learn more in our blog post below.
What Is a Quota?
A quota stipulates the targeted number of interviews or complete survey responses that must be obtained through recruitment or fieldwork. It is a common project management term that is commonly used in both qualitative and quantitative market research.
A quota could be as simple as the total number of participants for a massive quantitative study or specified for segments within the total sample.
For example, our market research company often hears requests from clients such as:
- I want to run a survey with 200 males and 200 females
- I want to run a focus group with 5 Gen X women, 5 Millennial women, and 5 Gen Z women
- I want to conduct in-depth interviews with 10 people aware of my brand and 10 people who are unaware of my brand
Quotas can automatically be set up through online surveys to qualify and disqualify participants in real-time as each quota bucket fills up, which is a nice project management time-saver.
Example of Using Quotas in Market Research
Let’s say a manufacturing company wants to conduct a telephone survey to test the feasibility of a new widget. Their goal is to receive a total of 800 total completes.
Of these 800 completes, the manufacturing company requests various quotas to match their target demographic:
- The widget is mainly geared towards male users. Therefore, the market research team stipulates a quota of 600 completes from males (out of the 800 total).
- The company will focus sales out of its main office in Washington County and only a small amount of inventory will be carried at its retail locations in the other four counties. Therefore, a quota was developed to collect 600 completes from Washington County residents with a quota of 50 completes for the other four counties.
You can see how the project management of this study gets trickier as the number of quotas increase.
Towards the end of fieldwork, many of your quotas may be closed so your data center may need new respondents to match a number of criteria in order to qualify (e.g., female aged 25 to 34 who lives outside of Washington County).
Contact Our Market Research Company
Drive Research is a full-service market research company specializing in online surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and more. We manage each aspect of your market research project to ensure 100% quality respondents and data.
To learn more about our services or get a quote, contact our team today.
- Message us on our website
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- Text us at 315-303-2040
George Kuhn
George is the Owner & President of Drive Research. He has consulted for hundreds of regional, national, and global organizations over the past 15 years. He is a CX-certified VoC professional with a focus on innovation and new product management.
Learn more about George, here.
