Editor’s note: Layla Shea is founder and chief insights officer at Upwords Marketing Solutions, a Victoria, British Columbia-based research firm.
One of the objections some clients still have against asynchronous (not in real time) online qualitative research is that they feel you cannot get the participant engagement that you can from a live discussion. But many who work extensively in online qualitative research would argue that a well-designed and planned online discussion can easily rival the engagement of a focus group and can be used to generate different kinds of learnings, making online a very important tool in the research toolkit. Here are 10 quick tips for moderators to help increase engagement in online qualitative studies:
Engage before the research starts:
1. Craft a screener that gets right to the point, but is still well-masked.
2. Add enough detail to your screener invitation to get potential participants excited about what they will be doing (“You will helping to shape the products of the future!”).
3. Send a welcome e-mail with personality – do NOT use generic (boring) “Here is your login info”-type form letters.
Engage during the research:
4. Be creative in finding ways to ensure your study’s welcome page is exciting from a participant standpoint.
5. Include a video from the moderator to show there’s a real person reading their posts and responding.
6. Welcome each and every participant with a personalized message (never use a canned response).
7. Create simple but interesting first tasks. Asking participants to tell a story is often a fabulous way to engage them. Note: Multiple-choice/rescreening questions are typically not a good way to start a project because they set up the expectation that this study will be like a quantitative survey. Leave multiple-choice-type questions for later in the study when participants are already on a roll with giving detailed responses.
8. Include teasers and daily e-mails and even chances to win bonus incentives to keep them coming back for more.
Engage after the research (important to ensure future participation – and the future of our industry!):
9. Send out a follow-up notice at the end of a study letting participants know that their voice was heard and their feedback will impact future products and services.
10. Follow up promptly with incentives – everyone likes instant gratification.
Now, one might assume that if you do all of the above you will have a successful study … not always the case! The second biggest factor in ensuring engagement – and, more importantly, depth of responses – is having a very carefully-crafted guide. But that will be the topic for another post!