How does PMA find respondents for technical and professional market research?
We call into the types of businesses and organizations where we believe we’ll encounter the kinds of respondents you need. Experienced schedulers at PMA know how to “network their way through” to connect with potential respondents.
How do you know these respondents are right for my project?
We use a screener, which is a short questionnaire asking simple questions, to filter out respondents who are not right.
PMA management works very hard at the start of each project, to learn what our clients are trying to study, and what kinds of background and experience makes a person able answer the client’s questions informatively.
Why would these physicians, nurses, executives and scientists take the time to participate in market research?
Because we pay them.
That’s true, but often they tell us that market research interviews and groups are interesting and challenging. These are highly educated people, and they usually enjoy being asked questions that call on their experience and judgment.
But they wouldn’t do it without the honorarium.
What if we don’t know for sure what kinds of respondents will be able to help us? (We know what we need to learn, but we don’t know who has that information.)
At Professional Market Access, we see this from time to time — especially with new and unusual product and service proposals.
In cases like this, we need to do some pilot interviews or an exploratory survey. The right open-end questions will help us help you discover who the decision-makers and other stakeholders are going to be for your new concepts.
What’s wrong with simply going to our salespeople and getting all our questions answered by our favorite customers?
You can do that — but those customers may not represent the opinions of a very important target: customers who your salespeople don’t know or don’t sell to (yet).
Usually, the best information comes from respondents who don’t know which company is asking the questions. That way, they can answer truthfully and creatively, without worrying about how their responses might influence their relationship with a vendor company or vendor rep.
I have another question about finding and scheduling market research respondents. Do you have an answer?
It’s very likely that we do. Just click on the email link below the words “CONTACT US”, and send us your question. If there is general interest in this information, we’ll add your question to our FAQ list.