Our recruiting teams assist seasoned market research professionals and newcomers to market research. Whether you’re working on your 1,000thmarket research study or your first, there are fundamentals to recruiting that need to be considered. Recruiting for a qualitative market study is different than recruiting for a quantitative study. Today’s blog will focus on recruiting tips for qualitative studies. Next week we’ll explore best practices for recruiting for quantitative studies.
Before you can begin recruiting participants to fill a study, you first need to define qualifications for your ideal research participant. If you don’t have some clear persona types to guide your recruiting, some questions to first ask are: What criteria do participants need to have (see our blog on demographics vs. psychographics for more guidance) and who would most likely be able to provide answers to your questions.
Once you have an understanding of the characteristics and qualifications for the type of participant best suited for your study, you can then build a screening tool that will assist recruiters to sort through potential participants.
Some of the more commonly used qualitative research methodologies include in-depth interviews, focus groups, and mobile ethnographies. Qualitative studies rely on fewer participants, which is one reason why it’s so important to think about the characteristics and features that are relevant to your study.
For those newer to conducting a qualitative study, it isn’t uncommon to underestimate the time it takes to think about the ideal participant and all the boxes that need to be checked. The more you can categorize the geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral criteria, the better your study outcome will be!
Think of this part of preparing for your study as laying the foundation. Paying attention to the details at the earliest stages of your study will ensure that everything that builds off it will be useful and meaningful.
