Boost Attendance

As a researcher, I conduct a lot of interviews. Some are one-on-one, or “individual” and others are in groups. Some interviews use video, some use audio, and others are group text chats with or without a visual component. Regardless of the means of communication, all human research has the same challenge: recruiting.

Filtering, validating, and setting expectations for the right people is THE most important part of any research study. That’s true whether you’re seeing them in-person or working with them online.

The final chapter to recruiting is go time – the reason you paid a recruiter in the first place. Your participants need to show up!

So what will help make that happen? As a marketing researcher who has been working online since 1996, I’ve relied on these tips that have stood the test of time:

  1. A thoughtful + clear agenda with time commitments everyone sticks to
  2. Manageable objectives, only bite what team members can chew.
  3. Short meeting time commitments. Keep it simple + such.
  4. Start on the half hour. More people will show. It’s weird.

CNBC reported that researchers at YouCanBook.Me revealed the best time and day to have a meeting, and the results are sort of surprising. It’s obviously not Monday or Friday, I can tell you that from personal experience.

Reporter Logan Hailey offers some tips to run a highly effective meeting, all good ideas. Especially now, with the massive increase in virtual meetings and uncomfortable Zoom waves. Zoom themselves has some meeting tips for their own platform, and there are dozens of other means to connect that may suit you, including GoTo/Join.me, WebEx, GoogleMeet, FaceTime and more.

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A respected and beloved colleague in marketing research, Jeff Walkowski, recently published a book, Mr. Online’s Playbook, full of suggestions for better interviewing when you’re not in-person. Available on Amazon, a great buy. Happy new year to you, you deserve it.

I opened my cherished copy and randomly flipped to page 99. Not surprisingly, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Tip E-30, where Jeff explains how to encourage participants to respond more in a bulletin board (asynchronous) environment. His tip, and I’m paraphrasing, is to specifically request the amount of response you’re seeking by literally asking for X# of reasons detailed, or Y# ideas explained, rather than “Why did you like or not like it” or “What else can you think of”. As a moderator of bulletin boards, I can assure you, probing is painfully required in order to get participants talking, so this tip is ahead of the game right out of the gate. Love it.

What tips for interviewing, online or in-person, do you find most useful?

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