Since the dawn of qualitative research time, participant recruitment has relied primarily upon self-reported consumer information to identify qualified research participants.  While the best qual recruiters have developed tricks-of-the-trade to help confirm/validate some stated behaviors, we still largely depend on taking participants at their word.  With even the most adept qualitative recruiting providers (among which, Accelerant Research considers itself), this approach is less than optimal, because during recruitment, research respondents sometimes…

• Forget
• Over/underestimate
• Say what they think you want to hear
• Lie in order to qualify and receive incentive payments

…And when they do, moderators are stuck interviewing participants who should not have qualified in the first place.  As such, Accelerant Research is proud to introduce Tru-Recruit, its new qualitative research participant validation service. 

Members of Accelerant’s Agora-USA panel opt in to sharing myriad big data feeds, which (while protecting consumer privacy) we use to validate that your qualitative research participants are who they say they are.  Our points of validation include, but are in no way limited to:

• Products/brands/SKUs purchased
• Media Consumption
• Share of wallet
• Retailers shopped
• Amount spent per category & product type
• Social media usage
• Restaurants visited
• Financial and investment account ownership & usage
• Delivery services used
  
• E-commerce purchase history
• Rideshare services used
• Household income
• Geographic Info (live/work/shop in certain DMAs/zip codes)
• Tender type (credit, debit, cash)
• Quick-serve restaurant dine-in versus carryout
• Children in household
• Wealth levels
• Convenience Store purchases
• Home internet access type and provider
• Major appliance purchases
• Non-profit contributions
• Pet ownership
• Travel and vacationing
• And countless other data points

Imagine beginning your next set of qualitative interviews without the anxiety of wondering if your recruits are genuine.  Tru-Recruit is guaranteed to eliminate the guesswork and give you (and your clients/stakeholders) the utmost confidence in the authenticity of your research participants.

For your next qualitative research study, reach out to Accelerant, and we’ll provide a custom Tru-Recruit proposal to recruit and validate your target audience, so that you can be certain you’re interviewing the exact population you need.

Personas are an effective tool to summarize and communicate complex market research data in an accessible way by representing those data as a fictional character or archetype.  When well-crafted, personas are multi-purpose tools that can offer accessible and impactful insights guidance at many levels in an organization (e.g., marketing strategy, product development, channel strategy and creative development).  However, personas are not a one-size-fits-all solution.  The way personas will be used by an organization greatly influences how the primary research to develop them is designed, analyzed and communicated.

Many successful journeys begin with a map, and this webinar presentation from Accelerant’s Quarantined Virtual Insights Conference lays out the map used by Caesarstone USA, a high-end producer of quartz countertop material in the development of personas through primary insights to inform marketing, product, and creative strategy.

For information on upcoming webinars -OR- to access all presentation recordings from Accelerant's previous virtual conferences, CLICK HERE.

On April 14-15, 2020, Accelerant Research hosted the Quarantined Virtual Insights Conference (#QVIC2020) as a welcome distraction from the chaotic newsreel about the coronavirus outbreak and quarantine. Conference speakers, moderators, and attendees all tuned-in on Zoom and YouTube livestream from the comfort of their personal workspaces for an opportunity to hear from, and network with, industry professionals on a variety of subjects. Session topics ranged from behavioral economics and influencing insights with storytelling to timely discussions about why we hoard toilet paper and job hunting in the time of Covid-19. The 1,000+ insights professionals that attended the virtual conference were respectful of any disruptions that occurred. Though there was an appliance delivered in the middle of a speaker talk and dogs barking in the background, everyone took the interruptions in stride and made the most of the interaction.

​All archived conference presentations are available by clicking here.  Some of the speakers that had people talking:

• Dr. Paul Zak, founder of Immersion Neuroscience, opened everyone’s minds with his talk about neurologic immersion and how positive feelings toward content does not necessarily correlate to impact and action. Through extensive research, he has developed biological metrics that can measure a person’s attention and emotional resonance, which can be utilized by researchers for more accurate predictions. It will be interesting to see how these types of metrics are integrated into the market research industry in the future.

Sensory scientists are those in the research and development(R&D) department who operate as liaison between R&D initiatives and the consumer. Through testing, they determine what the consumer wants. As such, these professionals take great care in designing field experiments that eliminate, or control for, a wide variety of confounding variables that can otherwise invalidate the findings of the studies they conduct.

Recruiting participants for in-home-usage tests (IHUTs), on behalf of these sensory scientists, can be done in a variety of ways, but really boils to just two different approaches: (1) electronic (email) only, and (2) live recruiter. 

The Email Way to Recruit Participants

The email way to recruit IHUT participants is to treat the recruitment process as one would for a quantitative study in which a survey is administered online, and a sample provider’s panel is used to source the study with respondents. While this method, at first glance, may seem less expensive and easier, there are several things wrong with this approach.

First, panels from sample providers are strewn with “professional survey takers” whose key motivation is to complete surveys as fast as they can and redeem their rewards for doing so. Their mindset is not necessarily focused on the subject of study, nor are they inclined to be thoughtful in their responses and aid in the discovery process for which the research has been sponsored. As such, about three (3) times as many participants need to be recruited in order for the target amount to actually participate. Moreover, those that do participate usually do only the bare minimum required in order to receive the promised incentive. If part of their involvement warrants keeping daily logs, you can count on them to do nothing until the very end of the test period, at which time, many will fake their way through and provide false data. The main reason for this low quality result is that these email-driven participants were recruited in a manner that does not lend itself to inspiring them by detailing how important their opinion is, or what purpose the research serves in the business of the sponsor. Even those that may want to fulfill on their study-related responsibilities may be left in the dark about questions they may have, or instructions that may not be clear to them. Simply, there is no live person with whom they can follow-up and obtain clarification and any issues about which they may be unsure.

The Live Recruiter Way to Recruit Participants


Instead, more care can be applied to the recruiting of IHUT participants by using telephone calls from professionally trained qualitative research recruiters that will fulfill on several key objectives of this aspect of the study, namely:

• Qualify each individual by going through the screener in real-time to ensure their qualifications
• Weed out anyone who seems to be falsifying their information, unable to understand instructions, or unable to comply with the study requirements
• Explain the very nature of the study, why it is important, and why their efforts are considered so valuable
• Inspire them to do the best they can and fulfill on their responsibilities dutifully and with great care
  

In light of the importance, time, resources and expense of these IHUT studies, and the great effort expended by sensory scientists to design carefully controlled field experiments, it makes sense to do things the right way. When the recruitment process for IHUTs is treated the same way as when recruiting for qualitative studies, that is through live calls from professional recruiters, the quality of the data collected is far greater. Moreover, instead of emailing 300 people to obtain an otherwise disengaged group of 100 participants, recruiters need only enlist about 120 people to ensure 100 committed participants that do what they are incented to do, with a purpose.

So many colleagues have come to Accelerant Research for just this purpose, and have shared their war stories of how they learned the hard way with email recruiting. Although their stories vary, they all center on the age old lesson that cheap is dear. We invite you to request a cost estimate from us as a first step. Simply give us a call (704-206-8500) or send us an email (info@accelerantresearch.com). If we are granted the opportunity to work with you, we are confident that the quality of recruiting service you receive will be a marked improvement over the email method of recruiting for IHUTs.