Recipe for the perfect qual panel
Step One: Planning and consultation
Great results are as important as the starting point. To recruit the perfect qual panel there aren’t any shortcuts, and the planning phase is where we build solid foundations for a successful project.
Think three steps ahead
Finding an expert team to support you in this initial phase will save you serious headaches further down the line. Consultants with a background in recruiting, panel development and management, can anticipate any potential research challenges and provide solutions to mitigate recruiting obstacles before they arise.
Make sure you put your consultants’ expertise to use and ask them to review the project materials and recruitment screeners. If screening questions are “leading” or don’t seem to be collecting the necessary information, consultants need to be able to provide you with guidance on how to best collect them or develop the right screener based on your requirements.
Another question your experts need to be able to answer is: is it doable? Feasibility assessment is no easy task, and a lot of factors need to be considered: incidence rate, sample size, whether social media is viable, staff capacity, and room availability. While determining feasibility can be subjective, good recruitment teams will always offer full transparency based on experience, or should the case warrant it, inexperience.
Being able to know what challenges may arise further down the line, as well as how long it might take to complete your project, or if your screener isn’t good enough, will save you time and money and will deliver better results.
You need the right people to find the right people
Having the right experience means being relevant to a specific project – and not all projects are the same. B2B projects, for example, need to be handled by dedicated B2B consultants who have years of recruitment experience in this specialized area. Our B2B team searches beyond our nationwide panel to find the right professional match. LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and searching business websites for job title or description matches, are some of the ways through which you can find the right B2B respondents.
In other cases, you might need industry-specific expertise. For healthcare projects, for example, you want specialists with a clinical background, including direct patient care, as well as research, so that they’re able to give you the right feasibility assessment.
Without the right consultants, you risk starting on the wrong foot. Identify your target and find the right partner to help you reach it.
The right way to retain your panel
Participants are the most important part of our industry. So, it’s key to keep them happy. To retain a strong panel of willing consumers, incentives shouldn’t only compensate them for their time, but also make the experience enjoyable and worth it.
There is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to determining appropriate incentive amounts; a customer discussing a CPG product will expect a much different incentive than a healthcare professional sharing their thoughts about a new pharmaceutical product, for which they are specially trained. Make sure you offer the right reward to make it alluring to participants, while keeping your budget in mind.
The “show rate” is as valuable as retaining your panel; at L&E we pride ourselves on an average show rate goal of 93%. Our Client Solutions team makes an appropriate over-recruiting recommendation to assure you reach your Net recruiting volume.
Building useful client lists
The success of recruitment when using client-provided sample is dictated by the response rate and quality of the list, which – although wildly unpredictable – is sometimes necessary to target the right audience. If a brand wants to engage its app users, or subscribers to their service, having a list of leads is immensely helpful, especially when the incidence rate is low.
However, not all lists are useful. To make sure you’re providing helpful information your list needs to be up-to-date and targeted. The recruitment audience is also a factor; for example, a target list of senior respondents would be more effective if phone numbers are provided, and a list of zoomers would be better targeted by using text.
Bear in mind that revealing the brand sponsor of the provided list can also be highly effective, since the customers will know the company’s name, but not the recruitment supplier’s name.
Starting a recruitment project can be overwhelming, there are a lot of factors to consider but it’s important that you take your time to do so. Find the right team of experts that will keep your project on track from the get-go, and plan ahead to avoid regrettable mistakes.
Stay tuned to find out what’s the next step in recruiting the perfect qual panel.