Panel Research and Market Research Panel Recruitment

What is panel research?

A panel research is a technique to gather filtered information from a pre-recruited pool of individuals who belong to niches that suit various research requirements. These respondents have agreed to participate in the various research assignments conducted by an organization.

While recruiting these individuals, an organization can collect demographic information such as gender, age, family income, to name a few. On the basis of such vital information, they can conduct a research by filtering out the participants who might not qualify to be a part of a particular market research project.

All about market research panels:

The market research panels constitute of people who’ve willingly agreed to be a part of the research that an organization is conducting and contribute towards the process of market research. For market research to be effectual in every aspect, these panels can be recruited from either the organization’s target market segment or the present customer database or a specific niche that the conductor of the research expects to include.

B2B panelists specialize in responding to any business related surveys concerning the size, industry type, segmentation etc. of the current market. Participants across multiple industries get involved in the B2C panels as it includes taking online surveys or attending focus groups to opine about personal preferences about the topic under discussion.

Since market research is a method to collect, scrutinize, analyze, interpret information, it’s further classified into qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative market research a method where open-ended conversations are conducted via platforms like focus groups, interviews, and other innovative research methods. On the other hand, quantitative market research is a method where the collection of data or information happens by sending across surveys or questionnaires and analyzing the results based on these surveys.

For conducting activities like focus groups or surveys, include respondents who are 100% willingly contributing towards providing feedback and also have ample knowledge in that space as they will provide insights that you wouldn’t receive in case you keep sending surveys to random respondents. These members are usually rewarded with incentives like a gift card or coupons so that they stay involved in the market research panels.

Best practices for market research panel recruitment:

Every business aspires to be ahead of the game in the market and for that, market research is the key. To conduct an effective market research, an organization should have trustworthy panelists that they can turn to when it comes to getting impactful research results.

Here are a few steps that need to be carefully followed for market research panel recruitment:

• Acknowledge the factors that influence the recruitment process:

The process of recruitment is highly influenced by how an organization deals with the members. There are 2 crucial points that one needs to keep in mind while recruiting:

1. The members should be in charge of participating in the panel.
2. Keep them inspired to be a part of the panel during the entire recruitment process.

Show the panelists where and how is their feedback going to be used. You can do this by showing them case studies of implemented panelist opinions. By doing so, you’re not only giving them reasons to join the panel but also proving the benefits that they’d receive by being a part of the market research panel.

• Include the double opt-in feature:

Usually, a single opt-in would suffice the registration process but by implementing the double opt-in feature, an organization can make sure that the respondents definitely want to be a part of the panel. It’s a two-step procedure in which the respondents have to register by entering information like email address and demographics. Once the details are entered, a confirmation link will be sent to the mentioned email address so that the details are verified and that’s when they become a part of the panel.

• Create a separate panel page:

A separate panel page can be created in your already existent website. This page should have a registration link along with other details like description of the type of required panelists, why is their feedback required and what will be the rewards for participation. If your website is multi-lingual, get the information of which country do the respondents belong to and then redirect them to the panel of the language they would prefer.

• Recruit the respondents from reliable mediums:

Carrying out email or social media campaigns are straightforward methods of contacting the right respondents who are self-inclined to be a part of the market research panel. These sources can be implemented to scan through and recruit various market research panelists. Conduct an A/B test on the content of the email that you send across to the prospects so that you can analyze which one is more effective and gives you the best results.

You can recruit respondents by these methods:

1. Embed links and ads to the showcase your products/ services and offer the customers information about the online panel on your website or the social media platforms.
2. Conduct advertising by targeting the desired market. For instance, if you want to create a panel for bikes, you should target those websites that cater to bikers or those interested in bikes. This is a more cost-effective medium to create an online panel.

• Conduct survey campaigns:

An organization can capture feedback from respondents by sending out survey invitations only to those panelists that fall under the filtered demographic and type of market which will make the survey extremely effective. The organization must clarify the objective of the survey and the gifts and other benefits of participating in the survey in the email.

QuestionPro Audience is the most versatile, trustworthy online research panel with over 22 million panelists, across 32 countries and 300+ profile data points. Using this, you can get in touch with filtered respondents to receive insights from them that can be used to make improvements in your products/services.

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