Focus Insite

market research recruiting agencies are essential tools for companies to learn more about the motivations, experiences, needs, wants, and values from their customers. Market research is definitely a worthy pursuit, and for the investment of time and money, you want the end result to provide meaningful insights that can be leveraged into action. While there are many crucial components with any market research study, arguably the MOST important is the quality of the participants you recruit. If you’re wondering what we mean when we talk about the quality of participants, read on!

With market research, you often get what you pay for. Market research can be expensive, and many companies try and cut corners by using automated recruiting tools, working with inexperienced moderators, or try and conduct DIY market research led by internal teams. While we understand the reflex to cut costs, there is no point in moving forward with a market research study if the quality of your inputs is low.

Rather than see market research as a burdensome and expensive undertaking, think of it as a valuable commodity that can save your teams a lot of money by creating or designing products or tools that meet and exceed customer expectations.

High-Quality Participants

When we talk about ‘participant recruitment agency, we are referring to the quality of the data and insights they provide, not to them as individuals. You want to fill a study with participants who can provide you with data and insights that are accurate, actionable, and relevant.

When screening candidates for any market research study, whether it’s a medical study or B2B, here are qualities our team of recruiters look for:

1.) Articulate—High-quality participants for qualitative studies are able to clearly articulate what they’re feeling and thinking. It’s not necessary to recruit a group of outspoken extroverts, but you want participants who are clear, concise, and comfortable sharing their insights. During the screening process, our recruiters are making notes about how candidates answer questions, how responsive they are to follow-up questions, and any other clues that might help in the final decision-making process as to how they might communicate during the study.

2.) Representative of your target audience—You can have a room full of articulate people, but if they aren’t representative of your target audience, they won’t provide meaningful insights. We’ve seen examples of companies trying to save money on recruiting by inviting friends, family, or colleagues to participate in a market study. There are a lot of pitfalls that can happen with qualitative studies, and recruiting from known groups often leads to confirmation or friendship bias. Recruiting from such groups rarely provides meaningful data. Quality participants are those who are representative of your current or targeted customer base.

3.)Reliable—It’s not easy to screen for reliability, but a good indicator is how easy it is to connect and communicate with candidates during the screening process. Qualitative studies are often conducted with small sample sizes, so each participant is important. If a participant is a no-show, or doesn’t know how to use technology (especially important for insite research and ethnographic studies!), then it doesn’t matter how articulate or representative they are.

If this seems like a lot of boxes to check, don’t be alarmed. High-quality recruits are out there, and with help from our experienced team of recruiters, we can find them for your next study.

Looking for high-quality candidates for your qualitative study? Contact us today!

Original Source: https://bityl.co/F8FD

Market research studies wouldn’t exist without participants who are willing to share their insights, opinions, and values. qualitative research consultant require people, but not just any warm body will suffice! A successful study outcome is impossible without the participation of qualified participants who have been screened for their eligibility. As more organizations attempt DIY market research studies, the one area where it pays to outsource is with recruitment.

We have received many frantic calls over the years when it becomes apparent that attempting a DIY approach to recruiting eats up the budget and precious time. What’s worse is that even if you’ve managed to cobble together enough people to participate in your market research study, it’s likely that you didn’t end up with a group who could offer accurate, reliable, and actionable insights. The quality of your market study outcome can be jeopardized simply because you didn’t recruit the right people to participate!

There are numerous pitfalls with DIY recruiting, but the three most common are as follows:

1.) Recruiting customers, friends, or colleagues to participate in your study. While there are times when recruiting from you customer list is a good idea, there are other times when recruiting your own customers can bias your study results and leave you with focus group flops. As for recruiting friends or colleagues, this never works! Remember, you want unbiased opinions and insights, not people who tell you what you want to hear. There is no doubt that qualitative research can provide brutal feedback. While it may be hard to hear, without it you won’t make the changes necessary to keep people interested in your product or service.

2.) “Professional respondents” are another common pitfall that DIY recruiters don’t have the experience to identify. Especially now with inflation running high, people are desperate for easy and legit ways to earn extra income. People are savvy and know how to manipulate their answers so they get selected to participate in market research studies, especially if the incentives are good! focus group recruitment agency have many tricks and tips up their sleeves to identify when someone is trying to get into a study without the right qualifications.

3.) No-shows are another headache that DIY recruiters aren’t prepared to manage. No-shows are not only inconvenient and frustrating for the moderator, they can also be costly to the study. Our recruiting teams always have a “Plan B” ready for managing no-shows.

The good news for DIY market researchers is that many recruiting pitfalls can be avoided by partnering with an experienced market research recruitment agencies. We know how challenging market research studies can be, recruiting doesn’t need to be one of them!

Contact us today to see how we can help with recruiting for your next market research study!

Original Source: https://bityl.co/Es4l

When clients contact us to manage market research recruiting firms, we can be tasked with recruiting for focus groups, in-depth interviews, surveys, or longitudinal studies. Since each market study is unique, the researcher may decide on a singular qualitative methodology, or a combination. By and far, the most popular qualitative format remains the focus group.

Focus groups are effective at capturing the participants’ emotions, opinions, experiences, expressions, views, beliefs, motivations and responses, which is why they are an invaluable tool for market research. Insite research can be used at various stages of a product or service idea. They are as effective in the earliest stages of development as they are in the final stages. Start-up companies looking for product-market fit will learn a lot by testing their ideas/concepts/or early-stage products with a group of potential customers in a focus group than they would by bypassing this stage altogether. Even legacy companies with reputations of cranking out well-received products have likely first tested their ideas/concepts in focus groups to make sure they’re on the right track.

There are lots of qualitative methodologies, but focus groups remain popular choices among researchers because they promote spontaneous interaction among participants. The depth and range of data generated through the social interactions of focus groups are deeper than what can be discovered through in-depth interviews alone. Focus groups aren’t just about putting a group of people together though! A lot of consideration must be given to who should be invited to participate and how to assemble each group so they are balanced.

Any researcher who has assembled focus groups, or any moderator who has led focus groups will tell you that screening for the right participants is crucial for successful outcomes! The optimal size of a focus group is between 6-10 participants. Focus groups aren’t necessarily a representative sample, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t sorting along demographic and psychographic lines. Most researchers will include multiple focus groups within a study. A singular focus group won’t provide enough information to draw meaningful conclusions. To get the most out of focus groups, you’ll want to structure your groups similarly so you can compare data across groups. For instance, you may want two sessions with females only, two sessions with males only, and two mixed sessions. The budget will determine how many focus groups you can afford, and the mix of the group will be even more important if fewer focus groups are to be conducted.

When screening potential participants, the recruiter is looking for candidates who communicate clearly, are knowledgeable or familiar with the topic of the study, and are available. Screening guides are great tools for helping weed out qualified and unqualified candidates.

Focus groups are popular, but like all qualitative methodologies, they have their limitations. The possibility of bias, domineering participants, and “group think” can easily invalidate focus group data. The other pitfall is when researchers try to extrapolate data from focus groups to the population at large. Experienced market research recruiting firms know how to design studies to maximize the benefits of qualitative and quantitative research. It may cost more to hire a market research agency, but you’ll often end up with more reliable results.

Whether you’re conducting research “in house” or outsourcing to a firm, we’re here to help with all aspects of recruiting.

Looking to Fill a Study? Contact us Today!

Original Reference: https://bityl.co/EXu9

For a majority of our clients we manage all aspects of recruiting for their market research study, but for some, it’s not possible to do the actual recruiting, particularly if there are privacy or HIPAA regulations that don’t allow for third parties to have direct access to names and contact information. For many of the medical surveys for cash we help recruit for, we work closely with the client to help them manage direct recruiting for their study.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, where you want to recruit participants for your study, but can’t turn recruiting over to a nationwide recruitment agency, it doesn’t mean that you have to shoulder this responsibility entirely on your own. Below is a sample of a recruiting strategy we share with our clients who are required to manage aspects of recruiting on their own. With the following example, our clients have a solid structure that helps streamline the recruiting process and make it seem less daunting.

•Background/purpose of study:

First, you must clarify the purpose of the study and come up with a concise description. Once you can succinctly describe what your study is about, you then want to clarify who will have access to the information shared in the study, and what they’ll do with the information. When it comes to healthcare studies, having answers to these questions are very important. If you can’t answer these questions when recruiting, you’ll have a much harder time convincing people to agree to participant recruitment agency .

•Who should we recruit?

Knowing whom to recruit will become apparent once you answer the above questions. The purpose of the study, and what information you’re hoping to gather will help clarify whom should be recruited for your study.

•Screening Guides:

Screening guides are essential when it comes to recruiting. This is your first opportunity to talk with potential study participants and learn who does and doesn’t meet the criteria to participate in your study.

•Procedure:

Once your screening guide is written, you’ll next want to organize how and when you’ll try and make contact with participant candidates. Write down the dates and times to try and make contact, and if you’re calling people, decide if you’ll leave a phone message if they don’t answer. Sketching out your procedural outline will give you the necessary deadlines for recruiting all the participants you’ll need for your study.

• Script for talking with recruits

Your screening guide provides some guidance for what to ask and say when talking with potential candidates, but you’ll also want to have answers to frequently asked questions. We work closely with our clients who are trying to manage their own recruiting to anticipate frequently asked questions. Our years of experience in recruiting inform us as to what types of questions to anticipate during the screening process.

• Follow-Up

Once you’ve selected your participants, the next step is to formalize their participation in your study. For medical and healthcare studies, it isn’t uncommon to sign privacy statements that meet HIPAA standards. You’ll also want to put on your calendar when to send out reminders to participants about the day/time/expectations of their participation.

The above list is an example of considerations and guidelines we help create with our clients when they’re wanting/needing to manage recruiting on their own. While many of our clients prefer to turn all aspects of recruiting over to our seasoned teams, sometimes they must manage recruiting internally. Even with internal recruiting, our teams can provide valuable input and help guide you so that your recruiting efforts are a success.

Need assistance with your recruiting? Contact us today!

Original Source: https://bityl.co/ENXR

It requires minimal awareness to realize that there has been a cultural shift in gender norms. We no longer live in a binary world of he/her, man/woman, mom/dad, etc. While some companies are resistant to adopting more neutral or inclusive terms, others are realizing that inclusivity and awareness are not only good for employee morale, but also the bottom line.

When it comes to market research recruiting agencies, it is important to include individuals who don’t conform to binary restrictions. We are starting to get requests from clients to recruit clients who identify as non-binary, trans, or prefer gender-neutral pronouns. Such requests aren’t limited to consumer studies, but to medical surveys for cash as well.

Recruiting a diversity of participants for market research studies goes beyond typical demographic and psychographic groupings. Including insights from gender non-conforming individuals ensures that your study includes the opinions, insights, frustrations, and opportunities from any person or group who uses or interacts with your products.

Recruiting gender diverse people to participate in market studies can be very illuminating as it may highlight blind spots you didn’t realize you had. For example, if you’re developing a marketing campaign are you tailoring your message to a predominately male or female audience? Perhaps taking a more gender-neutral approach would appeal to a wider range of potential customers. Skin-care products are case in point. While it’s easy to think that the obvious target audience would be women, you might be surprised to learn that in 2018 alone more than 56% of U.S. men used a facial cosmetic item at least once.

participant recruitment agency that identify outside of typical binaries doesn’t mean that all your marketing efforts become gender-neutral, but don’t assume that your audience cleaves along a gender binary. When it comes to recruiting, start by thinking about your brand’s target audience and if it is driven by gender, then you’ll want to expand how you define your audience so that you include those who would be left out if you recruited along a strict male/female split.

Considering gender norms in market research isn’t limited to specific industries or companies. Many legacy companies, such as Apple and Mattel, are paving the way for ways to be inclusive in product design and marketing campaigns. Apple makes the assumption that all people are potential customers for its iPhone, and it offers its product in a variety of colors without marketing which color is preferred by which gender identification. Mattel conducted market studies and as a result created a gender-neutral line of dolls called Creatable World, after learning that kids didn’t want toys that were dictated by gender norms.

Contact us today to learn more about gender-neutral recruiting for your next study!

Original Source: https://bityl.co/DX2w

It seems that anything related to artificial intelligence (AI) gets a lot of attention, and market research recruiting agencies is no exception. There are a number of market research recruiting agencies that specialize in AI-assisted recruitment. While there is certainly a role for technology in recruitment, we’ve heard from moderators and researchers that have used AI-recruiting agencies that the quality of the candidates recruited to participate in market research studies is no match for humans leading recruitment efforts.

Market research is a social science, and it is all about the people. When you turn over a critical aspect of a study over to technology, you’re more likely to end up with participants that may meet the minimum criteria, but that doesn’t always make for a good recruit.

So much of what our team of recruiters do is engage with potential participants and get a feel for how honest they are in their answers, how familiar they are with the subject matter being studied, and how easily they engage with technology (often a requirement for online focus groups and mobile ethnography studies). When our recruiters screen potential participants they are not only assessing how well potential candidates communicate, they also rank the responses to screening guide questions so that the end result is a strong pool of participants. We attribute much of our success as a nationwide market research recruiting agency to the fact that our recruiters know how to read people and know what the client is looking for in its recruits.

There is no doubt that market research recruitment agencies takes time and effort, and we appreciate why some people may feel that they can hasten the process by introducing AI to the recruiting process. Technology certainly plays an important role in recruiting, and our jobs would be much harder if we didn’t have a database of interested candidates to pull from, or software to assist us in project managing each market study. We are definitely not ‘anti-tech’, but we are ‘pro-people interaction’, especially when it comes to recruiting.

Market research is an investment and it doesn’t come cheap. We fully understand the desire to save money and look for ways to cut down on the time it takes to fill a study. One of the surest ways to save money is to partner with an experienced market research firm and research recruitment agency. Established agencies have likely seen and done it all when it comes to types of studies and recruiting, and have learned ways to streamline. We’ve certainly become more efficient in our recruiting abilities over the years and we pass the savings and our experience on to our clients.

Contact us today to learn more about our approach to recruiting.

Original Source: https://bityl.co/DIiR

With COVID-19 shutdowns mostly a thing of the past (for now), we thought we’d see a rush back to in-person focus groups. The reality is a bit murkier. It seems that a lot of market researchers saw how advantageous online qualitative studies could be, and are moving forward with in-person and online studies. I guess you can say that market research very much mirrors the hybrid work model—there is some face-to-face time, and some work-from-home time.

Qualitative research scholarly articles such as in-depth interviews and focus groups are easy to do virtually, and we’ll share some tips so you get the most out of your next online market research study.

Market researchers and moderators have a number of online platforms available to host a qualitative study, but many researchers use Zoom since so many people are familiar and comfortable using this platform.

Tip #1: marketing recruitment consultants to ensure they have adequate connectivity and can operate their computer without any glitches. We often have participants of virtual studies do a run through with us so we can assure the moderator that each participant has demonstrated competence with the required software/hardware so they can fully participate.

Tip #2: Get the most from your insite research by recruiting a geographically diverse group of participants. One of the limitations of in-person focus groups is you need to recruit participants who live near the facility where you’ll be conducting the focus group. Online studies aren’t limited to a singular area, so cast your recruiting net further afield and take advantage of the lack of a geographic barrier. Don’t forget to consider time-zone differences though! Consider hosting at a time where it’s not too early for those living in western states, but not too late for those living in the eastern region.

Tip #3: If the budget allows, adding a mobile ethnography study is a great way for the moderator to get the most insights from each participant. Mobile ethnographies are effective at capturing ‘in the moment’ thinking and the additional information is useful to moderators to help guide the discussion during the follow-up focus group.

Whether your next qualitative market research study is being held in-person or online, you need to recruit the most qualified participants. Our team of researchers have years of experience recruiting for all types of studies of any size.

Contact us Today to learn more about how we can help you get the most out of recruiting for your next market research study.

Original source: https://bityl.co/DBqP

It wasn’t too long ago that when we needed to stock our pantries or fridges, we’d head out to a grocery store and select our items. Nowadays, more people are shopping online, skipping the grocery store altogether. This is but one example of how most of what we consume nowadays is done online. The past few years of living under Covid-19 conditions has only accelerated the online phenomenon.

Any retailer with an online presence knows how important UX design is to the bottom line. A poorly designed webpage will frustrate users, likely sending them to seek out easier-to-use alternatives. Given the ubiquity of online sales, we are seeing a steep increase in companies conducting usability tests. Usability tests are great at uncovering problems with the design; discovering opportunities to improve the design, and, learning about user behavior and preference when interacting with the design.

There are similarities for market researchers when designing a usability study and focus groups, both require recruiting participants who have some familiarity of the topic or design being tested, and both require skilled moderators who can home in on problem areas. As with any qualitative research consultant, you need to know how many people to recruit to participate. We’ve written about the ideal number of participants to focus group recruitment agency, but what about usability studies?

Before you read any further, let us first reiterate that as with any qualitative study, there is no ‘one size fits all’ number. Each usability study is unique and there is still considerable debate in the industry about ‘the right number of participants’, if it even exists at all. Rather than leave you to de-code what the ideal number is, we’ll break it down for you.

What’s the probable impact of the usability test?

Not all usability studies are high stakes, but how do you know? If you’re testing a core feature that would impact a lot of users, then you can safely assume a higher impact. If you’re doing a more granular study that looks at what order to list your tabs, or where to place a button, then you can consider your study as having a lower impact. Once you determine if you’re usability study is high or low impact then the following will help with knowing how many people to recruit for your study.

High impact study=more participants

Low impact study=fewer participants

How many rounds of testing will you conduct?

Obviously, your budget will determine how many rounds you can afford, but with most qualitative studies, you’ll want more than one round. As with market research recruitment agencies or other qualitative methodologies, the moderator will get a baseline of responses or reactions in the first round, and can then build upon that in subsequent rounds. Taking an iterative approach to qualitative studies allows you to discover additional insights. Using an iterative approach to usability testing, you can first start with a smaller group of candidates and then conduct additional rounds until statistical significance is reached.

More usability rounds=fewer participants

Fewer usability rounds=more participants

At what stage in the product development cycle are you?

If you’re early in the development cycle, the likelier you’ll uncover big errors in your design. Typically, such errors are found quickly, so you can recruit fewer participants for early-stage development. As you build out your product and are in later-design phases, you’ll want to budget for more participants or more rounds, as the errors or roadblocks will be less obvious and egregious, but no less important to know about.

Early-stage product development=fewer participants

Later-stage product development=more participants

But what’s the number?!

Fewer and more participants is not definitive, so what’s the ideal number that you should have fewer or more than? At the risk of sounding wishy-washy, there is no perfect number, but you’d be safe to go with five. If you use 5 as the average usability study size, then you can go higher or lower when thinking about where you’re at in your usability testing: high or low impact, number of rounds of testing, and product development stage.

When it comes to recruiting, our teams of recruiters are here to help. We have years of experience matching the best participants with all types of studies. From usability testing, to consumer research studies, to medical and healthcare studies, our specialty is finding ideal participants for your study.

Contact us Today to learn more about recruiting for your usability study.

Original Source: https://bityl.co/D2wP

Recruiting the right candidates to participate in market research studies can make or break a study. We’ve posted a lot of blogs over the years that share tips and strategies for market research recruitment, and while we stand by these, our company’s success with recruiting comes down to our stellar team of recruiters and project managers.

Focus Insite wouldn’t be a leading nationwide recruitment agency without our employees. Our job is to identify the best qualified study participants, which gives us a leg up on identifying who would make a great recruiter for our team. A good recruiter needs to have great communication skills, be organized, enjoy connecting with people, stay calm when things go sideways, and be able to assess when someone is not being honest.

We attribute part of our lasting success as a company to our great employees. We always try to promote from within, and we’ve recently promoted a number of employees to new positions. Don’t just take our word for the enthusiasm and care our employees bring to their roles, here they are in their own words.

Our newly appointed Director of B2B Division is Maureen Yaconis who started out as a recruiter and quickly proved herself as a natural and capable leader. Maureen loves connecting with people, “With recruiting you get to talk to people you wouldn’t ever get the chance to interact with otherwise. Sometimes you get to swap some life stories during the re-screening process, and really connect. Even though some studies’ purpose may seem trivial, the purpose is important to that company or group of people, so it’s always a fun part of the process to connect the right people with each project. I love working at Focus Insite because everyone that works here truly wants to do the best job they can while being a part of a fun environment.”

In her new role as director, Ms. Yaconis says, “My biggest goal to accomplish in my new role as Director is to continue fostering a close-knit team while encouraging for internal growth and development for my team. I believe the environment with which you create as a leader while allowing the team opportunity to grow is the root connection to developing deeper connections with our clients. The sky is the limit for both my team and the company, and I can’t wait to see how this journey unfolds.”

Our newly appointed Director of Consumer Division is Danielle Fuller. Danielle’s enthusiasm for recruiting is apparent every time she is tasked with recruiting. “I love recruiting the right people for the right studies. I enjoy the challenge of finding those who are a perfect fit. It is fascinating for me to think about how our daily efforts can result in new or improved products that are offered to millions of people.” You can see why Ms. Fuller will be stellar in her new role as director! She is as passionate about recruiting as she is for brining out the best in her team of co-workers. “I hope to enhance our existing organizational processes to increase productivity and our internal capacity. I hope to lead the consumer teams in a way that brings out the best in each member and makes the most of their abilities and potential. As we continue to grow as a company, I also aim to maintain the high standards we have for our work.”

Focus Insite is only as good as its recruiting teams. Our clients return to us time and again because they know that no matter how niche or general the study, our recruiters will give 110% of themselves to finding the right participants to fill a study. Of course there are professional tips and tricks that make insite research easier, but it always comes down to having the right people. Focus Insite is fortunate to have a team of amazing and talented people who bring their “A” game to each and every project.

Our recruiters are ready to help you fill your next market research study. Contact us Today to see how we can help!

Original Source: https://bityl.co/CwC7

Over the years we’ve written about the importance of insite research for market research recruitment. We’ve gone into a lot of detail about why they’re essential to recruiting and the value of double-screening. Today we’re going to share with you 4 questions that should always be included in your screening guide. Adding these questions to your screening guide helps ensure recruiting the best qualified participants for your study.

Question #1 Demographic Questions—No matter what the subject of your research study—from B2B to medical—your screening guide should include basic demographic questions. Not only will this help easily sort for demographic requirements (for instance, a study that is focused on millennials needs to find participants that fall within the general age span for this cohort), it also ensures that you end up with a representative sample for your study. Basic demographic questions about ethnic/cultural/gender-identity, etc. ensures that you end up with a well-rounded sample.

Question #2 Accessibility/Familiarity with Technology Questions—You’d be amazed at how often moderators are stymied because participants are accepted into a study only to learn that they have accessibility issues, or don’t really understand how to use technology. Never assume that the people you’re screening has the right equipment, or understand how to use a new app (especially for mobile ethnography studies.) A candidate may meet all the other qualifications for your study, but if they don’t have the right devices, or stumble when asked to demonstrate using a new technology, then you need to keep looking.

Question #3 Degree of Closeness or Relatedness to Topic of Study—Asking if the potential candidate has family and/or friends who work(ed) in related fields or organizations of your study will alert you to potential biases about the subject matter of the study. If the respondent answers “Yes” to this question, it doesn’t necessarily disqualify them, but the moderator certainly needs to know this, especially in focus group recruitment agency settings. A person with more intimate familiarity may have certain biases, and may make other participants feel shy about sharing their input because they might feel they don’t ‘know as much.’

Question #4 Psychographic Questions—Demographic questions are easy to come up with, psychographic screening questions are more nuanced. Psychographic questions allow you to select participants based on their daily activities, personal values, purchasing habits, and opinions. You can format these questions as, “Which of these statements best describes your activity/subject/topic?” The answer options would be broken down by usage, frequency, or familiarity. For example: Q: “Which of these statements best describes your viewing habits of website X?”

• I view this website daily

• I view this website between 2-3 times per week

• I view this website monthly

• I never/rarely view this website

Writing a screening guide is an essential part of your market research recruiting efforts. Of course, your final screening guide will have many more questions to help determine qualification for a study, but these four questions should always be included. Our recruiting teams work closely with marketing recruitment consultants to help with screening guide questions. We know first hand how important screening guides are to finding the most qualified people for your study, which is why we are happy to help you write a maximally effective screener for your market research study.

Contact us Today to Learn More about Recruiting for your next Market Research Study.

Original Source: https://bityl.co/CVj6