Article by Ryan Moore, RMS Research Coordinator –
At a glance:
Recruiting Research Participants: Having an effective outreach strategy is crucial in market research, and customer lists provide a valuable resource that streamlines the process and enhances research efforts.
Why Customer Lists: Using customer lists for recruiting offers benefits such as increased data integrity, targeted sampling, the potential for long-term studies, and ease of communication.
Building Trust in The Research: Reaching out directly to customers and informing them of research opportunities can build trust and streamline the research process.
Data Security When Sharing Databases: Discussing the handling of valuable personal data with a market research firm prevents issues during data transfer and protects data integrity and customer privacy rights.
Recruiting Research Participants
When conducting market research, an effective outreach strategy means everything. Recruiting suitable participants to take part in the research is crucial. This could mean researching email addresses of potential participants, cold calling, or even posting research opportunities on social media.
But, before employing any of those strategies, check with your client. Clients often have a valuable resource readily available at their disposal: customer lists. Customer lists and subscriber or member lists (or databases) are examples of sampling frames that research clients have available to them through years of engagement with their customers.
If your company has a database of customers, clients, members, or the like, using it to draw samples for market research could provide researchers with a wealth of information that can streamline the process and make research efforts more effective.
Why Customer Lists?
Here are some of the benefits to clients who use their customer lists to recruit research participants:
Increased Data Integrity: Much of a company’s customer information is given directly to the company by the customer or has been collected through the customer’s prior purchases. This makes the information more reliable than if had been collected through sourcing or purchased through a third party.
Targeted Sampling: Since customer lists may contain attributes such as purchasing habits, location, gender, age, income and education data, researchers can better narrow down would-be participants whose experiences more closely align with research objectives.
Possibility for Long-term Studies: Customer lists are often built through sustained customer engagement and repeated interactions with a company over a long period of time.
If the customer has been with the company for many years, the information in a company list may show trends that could demonstrate the relevance of the customer’s experience to the research objective. That longstanding connection could also act as a basis for continuing research.
For instance, if a client wants to look at how a decision plays out in the future, a long-term customer may be a prime candidate for research follow-ups, providing valuable insights over time.
Ease of Communication: Along with purchasing history and demographic information, customer lists often contain contact information such as phone numbers, physical, and email addresses. This signifies a level of trust between the customer and the company, as they have already established a means of communication. Potential participants may also feel more comfortable being contacted using the information they provided to companies rather than being contacted through means they have not disclosed publicly.
Building Trust in The Research
Companies could also make it easier to recruit potential participants if they reach out directly to the customer first.
If there are research efforts coming up in which customers may be interested in participating, letting the customer know that the company has partnered with a firm to conduct research could be a good way to introduce the customer to the research company and build trust that could increase participants’ engagement in the research.
If your business is one in which you don’t interact with customers, but instead have clients, members, or another kind of patron, recruiting from a similar list would likely give you the same benefits.
Data Security When Sharing Databases
Before sharing lists or databases for sampling, it’s important to discuss with your market research firm the handling of this valuable personal data upon completion of the research. This step will help ensure the safety of the information and prevent any potential issues arising from its transfer to another party.
By addressing data integrity and preserving the data privacy rights of customers, the company can mitigate any potential risks.
Ready to take your market research to the next level? Let Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS) help you uncover the insights that will drive your organization forward. RMS is a full-service market research firm located in Baldwinsville, NY, offering leading research capabilities tailored to your needs.
If you are interested in learning more about our research capabilities, please contact Sandy Baker, our Senior Director of Business Development & Corporate Strategy at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422.
Relational RMS Blogs:
Recruiting the Right Participants for Your Focus Groups: Best Practices
3 Takeaways from a Data Security and Privacy Webinar
3 Good Questions to Ask at a Kickoff Meeting | Market Research
About the Author – Ryan Moore
As RMS Research Coordinator, Ryan assists the analytic team with managing projects, including designing surveys, survey programming, interviewing, analyzing data, and summary reporting. He works within the research department to interpret primary and secondary data, helping to identify key findings and trends. Ryan also assists in project recruitment.
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Contact our Vice President of Corporate Development, Sandy Baker at SandyB@RMSresults.com or call 1-866-567-5422.
About RMS
Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS) is a full-service market research firm in Central New York. Formed in 2002, RMS helps organizations that are looking to know more about their customers and/or potential customers. They conduct surveys, focus groups, mystery shopping, studies and analysis. Each project is customized and gets personal attention by the best in the business. RMS has a reputation for getting results and offers an independent means to conduct telephone, on-line and mail surveying, In-depth interviews, intercept interviews, and participant recruitment as well as focus group hosting through QualiSight, its onsite call center and focus group facility. Taking advantage of the region’s reputation for being a great market study barometer, RMS recruits and moderates for focus groups, community forums and town meetings.
