Prior to companies launching a new service, product, or feature, they’ll often hire a market research firm to conduct a qualitative study to ensure product-market fit. Qualitative research is a proven way to gain insights about consumer perceptions, opinions, and purchasing motivations. Without qualitative research, companies make a lot of assumptions about consumers, and such assumptions can be costly to a brand if they’re off target.

Most established companies, whether B2B or healthcare related, understand the value and importance of qualitative market research. Qualitative studies are the quickest and surest way to explore the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of consumer behaviour. Many companies have enough data to understand demographic profiles of their customers, but qualitative research helps get to the psychographic underpinnings of why certain segments are their customers.

Given the importance of qualitative market research to organizations, market researchers are continuously looking to recruit people to participate in research studies. Recruiting for market research is time intensive, which is why many market research firms partner with market research recruiting firms to fulfill this important role.

Market research recruiting firms keep updated databases of potential research participants, but more importantly, they manage recruits from beginning to end, freeing up valuable time and energy for the market research consultant.

We’ll share with you three tips for improving recruiting for market research studies.

Tip 1: Connecting with Participants

One of the first things recruiters think about is where to find potential recruits and what is the best way to connect with them. Should outreach be done through social media sites, or directly through professional networks? Is email or text the best way to communicate? What are the appropriate times to try and connect (this is especially important when recruiting professionals!). Such questions are considered before the first attempt at outreach is made.

Successful recruiting teams employ a number of tactics when connecting with participants.

Tip 2: Participant Screening

Once a pool of potential participants has been identified, the next step is screening the candidates to ensure their interests, backgrounds, and professional credentials align with the study objective.  

Screening guides play an important role when recruiting. This helps whittle down the pool of candidates to the most qualified to participate in the study. Once the recruiter has gone through the screening process, the list will be given to the researcher for final approval.

Tip 3: Getting to ‘yes’

After the researcher has signed off on the list of candidates, it’s the recruiter’s job to get the person to commit to participate in the study and actually show up!

This step of recruiting is a bit like playing whack-a-mole. Candidates who previously said they’d be available to participate may now have schedule conflicts, or the recruiter may learn that the candidate didn’t honestly answer the screening questions, and is no longer a viable option.

This is the stage of recruiting that feels like herding cats. The job of the recruiter is to get all of the identified study participants to show up for the study, whether it’s online or in-person. Experienced recruiters know to expect last minute substitutions for no-shows, and they usually have a few qualified candidates waiting in the wings for such instances.

Recruiting qualified participants for market research studies is a crucial part of any market research study, which is why Focus Insite has been the go-to choice when needing to fill a study.