[Webinar] Strategies for cutting research costs without sacrificing quality

Budgets are shrinking, and resources are stretched. With the threat of recession looming it’s up to insights leaders to forge new ways to source reliable data for their companies. 

Proven cost-cutting strategies: Finding the intersection of quality and cost

In this challenging economic climate, it may seem irrational to deviate from tried and true methods—the most obvious solution being to reduce the number of projects. However, there are other ways insights leaders can be creative when working with smaller budgets where cost and quality are not mutually exclusive.

Smaller sample sizes with verified professionals can still yield statistically significant data. With fewer completes, you need to be able to extract as much information from each respondent as you can. Applying new research methods—like our Q3 methodology—can help dig deeper and reap richer insights. 

Another factor to consider is the vendor you choose to work with. The right vendor should be able to hone in on the persona you need and recruit professionals that are an exact fit. Traditional market research companies try to fill requests with respondents from a pre-stocked panel. This method’s weakness is including panelists that mostly meet your requirements, but are not the ideal professional.

How Checkout.com sourced textured data that offered clear direction

Checkout.com wanted to uncover how users felt about their products and conducted an A/B of suppliers, running the same survey across different samples. 

The first sample of unverified respondents produced flat data, while the second sample of verified professionals delivered textured data that told a story. From the verified sample, they were able to easily identify actionable insights and provide stakeholders with clear recommendations.

Read the case study or illustrated transcript of our talk at IIEX.

“If you’ve got good quality data, you can get a statistically significant and valid sample with a much smaller N. So 70 spot-on, genuine professionals is better than 200 people who are off the mark. Reset how you think about sample size and you may find that you can deliver valuable research to your stakeholders for less than what you thought you needed.” – Matt Harris, Senior Customer Research & Insights Manager at Checkout.com

This demonstrates just how important data quality is when it comes to gathering insights to inform business decisions. Quality is not something that can be compromised on, so it’s imperative for research leaders to use their budgets wisely and invest in samples they can trust.

There are many factors to consider when working with smaller research budgets, so here are 3 things to keep in mind:

1. Reset how you think about sample size

When it comes to cost-cutting strategies, reducing sample size is not typically at the top of the list. It may seem counterintuitive to work with less respondents when trying to get comprehensive insights, but the key factor is data quality—not sample size. Having a sample size of 70 verified professionals will produce better insights than a sample size of 200 people who might not fit the audience you’re looking for. 

2. Find a partner focused on savings & reliable insights

Partnering with a supplier you can trust to provide a quality sample makes the whole process easier. It is the supplier’s responsibility to ensure that the data they provide is of the highest quality. If your supplier isn’t meeting your standards, it’s safe to say that there are a lot of other fish in the sea.   

3. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Continue the conversation! The best ideas often come from peer collaboration, as these are people who understand the research landscape as well as you do. View this as an opportunity to hear what others are doing in the industry and share your own experiences—you never know what you’ll learn.