Market research recruiting seems simple at first, but it’s incredibly important to find the right people for the job. It’s like watching a professional athlete make their sport look effortless. The basketball player swishes every shot and gets a double-double almost every night. The same rules apply when conducting market research recruiting – finding an expert to fill a niche is no different from watching an athletic pro execute each play with ease!

In today’s world, conducting a market research study is part and parcel of business activity. It’s essential so we wanted to give you a few pointers on how you can go about doing it right.

One of the most important aspects in business is conducting research. For example, market research helps businesses predict upcoming trends and plan accordingly. This leads to accumulated wisdom and a better understanding of those who are interested in using your product or service.

DIY Danger #1: Shifting timelines

It’s not at all uncommon for market research projects to become delayed. Experience shows us that the initial schedule is often just a guide, and it will be repeatedly modified before completion. Delays can be caused by any number of reasons–for example, sometimes products to be tested aren’t available in time or the organization commissioning the study wants to expand or narrow its scope. We’ve worked in recruitment for several years now, and over this long period we’ve come to realize that flexibility is key. And if you want to move forward with getting together a good team, you need staff whose skills are focused on recruitment (or legal matters, human resources etc).

DIY Danger #2: Managing No-Shows

Managing market research no-shows creates a last-minute scramble for the moderator and recruiter. One of the familiarities in conducting market research involves dealing with last-minute changes. Sometimes respondents need to be replaced because they’re a no-show, and other times the moderator realizes that a participant isn’t qualified and slipped through despite the screening guide questions. Trying to manage and mitigate the scramble of any homecooked recruiting team is stressful enough, but it only gets worse when one must deal with last minute slipups or misfits on top of everything else!

Beyond the planning strategy itself, it is possible to still get a very high-quality study even if your recruiting team isn’t as big. Instead of sending out market research invitations all at once, why not instead try something different? For example, it may be useful to recruit a few participants each day for a whole week instead of doing 10 all at once. This method has been shown to be incredibly successful when targeting respondents who aren’t always available during business hours and can give you more flexibility when trying to find quality respondents that don’t have time on their hands or are too busy with their friends during the weekdays.

DIY Danger #3: Recruiting for Online Studies

With so many market research studies conducted online, in part due to Covid-19, there are additional steps involved when recruiting for online focus groups. DIY teams may not be aware that, in addition to creating a short list of qualified candidates and offering them an incentive to participate in your study, they need to also test and screen for technical and digital aptitude and connectivity. This is especially true when recruiting older or more mature demographics because while these participants may be fully qualified to fill a study being conducted in person, they could not have the skills or equipment available to participate digitally.

In addition to verifying the qualifications of each participant, many DIY recruiting teams also missed that important step to confirm their participants connect via the Internet. While it is not a problem for younger demographics, there are people who never did get around to learning how to use computers or those whose skills may be well below the average user. This is especially true among older generations. The key is to verify that they have an internet connection as well as any other equipment needed for them to log in and participate in one of your projects.