How to recruit participants for a study

Welcome, marketeers! Ready to get some insights on your marketing assets? Unless you are getting some Sonar-powered help, you might need to recruit some study participants first... Lucky for you, we've prepped this cheat sheet for DYI partcipants recruitment, so you can find and onboard the participants you want to hear from in no time. Happy reading!

It’s dangerous to go alone!

Take these tips with you...

We’ve interviewed out top recruitment experts to make your quest for audience recruitment a breeze.

To each channel a different audience...

Social media, email, travelling pigeon? Each recruitment channel yields different results. Emails to customer/user lists, especially when targeting the most active ones, are great for getting feedback from the audience you already have on your database. Conversely, Social Media channels and groups work best to find larger pools of like-minded people, though you should curb your enthusiasm regarding conversion rates.

Use incentives, but use them well!

To increase your conversion rate, offering an incentive (both monetary and not) to your audience can often go a long way. However, niche audiences need something more: they need to feel like they’re part of something bigger. Therefore, as you reach out to them, don’t forget to mention the knowledge and sharing process they’re part of, and make their opinion feel valued from the start.

A little QA never hurts

Double-check your study works as it should and the file you selected gets displayed how you intended. This will help you refine your feedback quality.

Recruit, don’t spam

Remember, this is a qualitative study: aim for quality, not quantity. Select your audience carefully and concentrate your efforts on those channels (and with the people) you want to hear from most.

Reach out with clear instructions

In our outreach message, always clearly state the language you want your respondents to respond to and the technical equipment (camera, microphone, computer and or phone) required to partake in your study. Furthermore, you might want to communicate urgency, since you will only be able to recruit a limited amount of people.

It's all about different perspectives

Don’t be afraid to mix and match your audience, to get different viewpoints and widen your perspectives. For example, add nuance to your customers’ feedback by picking up some other relevant users for your test: you might learn how to win them over in a previously unforeseen way!

How to self-recruit with Sonar

You got the tips...now, are you itching to get into some self-recruitment action? Follow these steps and get started with your study in no time!
Before we begin, ensure you're logged into your account, have chosen a study, and are on the study configuration page. Sounds like we’re speaking in tongues? You might want to go a couple of steps back and follow our ‘How to get started’ guide.
Get started with Sonar
On the study configuration page, select ‘Recruit your own participants using a link’ on the recruitment panel.
To ensure effective communication with your participants, select the language in which you'd like to conduct your study: after all, how would your English-speaking participants react if 你开始这样写?
Now it's time to bring your research study to life! Upload your material, proceed to checkout and place your study order.
Your insights are just one step away! We’ll send you an email with your unique study link you can share with your participants.

Into last minute changes?
Is your file displaying incorrectly? Would you like to change it before sending it to your audience? Head back to your study and make your changes. Easy!
Now to the fun part. Share your link with your target audience and watch your study - and insights - come to life as our platform handles the interviews, aggregates the data, and turn them into video-powered insights.