Recruiting the right participants is critical to gathering meaningful research insights. No matter how well-designed your study, the wrong participants will yield misleading results.
Essential participant recruitment strategies:
- Screener development: Creating effective qualification questions
- Recruitment channels: Finding participants through multiple sources
- Incentive structure: Offering appropriate compensation
- Diversity considerations: Ensuring representative sample groups
- Scheduling logistics: Making participation convenient
- Ethical considerations: Informed consent and privacy protection
Participant sources to consider:
- Customer database: Existing users with product familiarity
- Intercept recruiting: Finding users in context
- Panel services: Pre-screened research participants
- Social media: Targeting specific demographics
- Guerrilla recruiting: Public environment testing
- Professional recruiters: Specialized participant sourcing
Common recruiting pitfalls to avoid:
- Selection bias: Over-representing certain user types
- Professional participants: People who frequently join studies
- Leading screener questions: Questions that telegraph "right" answers
- Homogeneous samples: Missing important user segments
- Insufficient incentives: Undervaluing participant time
- Last-minute recruiting: Rushing leads to poor participant fit
Recruiting best practices:
- Recruit 20% more participants than needed (expect no-shows)
- Create clear participant profiles based on research goals
- Use plain language in recruitment materials
- Screen for articulation and comfort with the research format
- Document recruitment process for improving future research
Remember: The quality of your research insights depends directly on the quality of your participants.