4 Ways To Recruit The Best Participants For Mobile Research

To get the best possible results, naturally you only want to recruit the very best participants to take part in your mobile research communities – but how can you make that desire a reality? There’s a saying that when you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. That is especially true when it comes to recruiting for online qualitative research like mobile research communities, due to the fact that there is no face-to-face interaction. Even if you are in a time crunch, make time to prepare for recruitment before you get started, because you will save yourself even more time and unnecessary headaches in the long run. In this blog, we will discuss five of the most effective techniques for capturing your ideal research participants.

1. Know Your Recruitment Techniques.

There are numerous techniques available for recruiting people to mobile research communities for you to consider, and you need to know all of them – along with their pros and cons so that you can choose the best for your project. Panels are one of the quickest ways to recruit participants who have already been identified as willing to take part in market research. Word-of-mouth is another strategy for building interest in a research study, which relies largely on people encouraging their friends to participate. A “refer-a-friend” scheme can work very well here – for instance, offering people a voucher or monetary incentive if they recommend a friend who successfully takes part in the study.

Social media is, of course, an obvious choice when you’re doing a digital study. It has exploded in popularity over the last few years, still keeps growing rapidly, and it is a good way to encourage the participation of people who are already tech-savvy. As the reigning platform, Facebook can be a useful way to reach a large number of consumers by utilising their targeting tool, which enables you to target people that fit certain specified criteria. LinkedIn is a particularly helpful social media platform for reaching B2B professionals.

No matter what social media platform you use, though, it is important to later validate participants via telephone so you can ensure that they are who they say they are and meet the client’s criteria. Speaking of the phone, that can also be a good recruitment method for mobile research communities, depending on what demographic you’re looking for. For example, if you are looking for chefs in Leeds who use a particular product, cold calling restaurants in Leeds may be a smart strategy.

2. Make Your Screener Successful.

Your screener is a critical way for you to get to know potential participants for your mobile research community better. Include the basic demographic information at the start so that you can get it out of the way and warm-up the participants. After that, though, get creative with your questions! Encouraging creativity will draw out more interesting and revealing answers from participants, so feel free to ask one or two imaginative open-ended questions that they can expand on in their answers, like ‘Describe to me your dream holiday, where would you go and who would you take?’

3. Get Personal with Personalities.

You need to make sure you get the right personality fit for your mobile research community. Just because someone adheres to the criteria you’re looking for doesn’t actually mean they will fit in personality-wise. So be sure to consider in advance all of the personalities that you would want represented in your research community, and then select your participants accordingly. In order to make the right choices, you will need to probe people during the validation process so that you can get a sense of what they are like and whether or not they are one of the personality types you’re seeking.

4. Remember That Communication is Crucial.

To get (and keep) the best participants for your study, communication is key. You should be consistent with communication through the entire recruitment process. From screening to confirmation, you must ensure that participants have all the information that they need to participate. Being reliable in your communication with them demonstrates how much you value their time and the contribution that they have to make to your mobile research community.

Now you understand how to recruit the best participants for mobile research community, ensure that you can deliver the best results possible by downloading our guide - Recruiting for online research