Recruiting External Participants for Market Research Studies

In last week’s blog we discussed when it’s appropriate to recruit market research participants from your organization’s customer database. This week we’ll turn our attention to recruiting external participants for your market research study.

Market research studies aren’t a “one-and-done” undertaking. Whether your company is a start-up or an established brand, market research can help with everything from product-market fit to UX design. As with any qualitative study, market research recruitment of appropriate participants can make or break the final outcome.

When to Recruit External Participants for Market Research Studies

The following list will give you some idea as to when it’s more appropriate to recruit from external sources, rather than internal:

• When developing a new product or service

• Testing with new user or customer groups

• Gaining insight into competitors’ customers

• Usability testing for novice users

Recruiting external participants for your market research study can provide helpful insights, especially if you’re wanting to better learn from people who are unfamiliar with your product or service. External participants also boost the discoveries of market research studies as they can identify usability issues that current users may have already figured out.

Qualitative studies that include users of a competitor’s product or service can be quite revelatory. The opportunity to learn about gaps in the market or frustrations that such users experience with a competitor’s product through qualitative research scholarly articles are often invaluable tidbits that are unveiled during a market research study.

Why Not Include External AND Internal participants?

Depending on the objective of the qualitative study, recruiting internal and external participants might make perfect sense. While customer research and user research aren’t mutually exclusive, you can’t simply lump external and internal participants together. The person designing the qualitative study will figure out how to get the most from each type of recruit and will choose the methodology most appropriate for the different groups.

Whether or not your study requires recruiting from external or internal sources, our team of nationwide research recruiters can assist you with all aspects of recruiting and project management.

Looking to recruit external participants for your next study? Contact us Today!

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