{"id":75227,"date":"2019-08-22T22:28:49","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T05:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/?p=75227"},"modified":"2019-08-22T22:28:49","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T05:28:49","slug":"7-risks-of-a-bad-research-sample","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/7-risks-of-a-bad-research-sample\/","title":{"rendered":"7 risks of a bad research sample"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customer research is to conducted to gain knowledge about the market. <\/span>Surveys must be designed accurately to collect reliable customer data and preferences from the right research audience<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The collected data is analyzed and used to produce new insights.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The success or failure of the product or service can very well be determined based on the quality of information and insights from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/marketing-research\/\">marketing research<\/a>. If the sample selected for research does not match the research criteria, the survey analysis can lead to inaccurate results. Decisions taken based on can adversely affect the growth and success of a business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The success or failure of the product or service can very well be determined based on the quality of information and insights from marketing research.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"square-cta secondary-lined-cta\" href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/a\/showEntry.do?mode=audience&amp;sourceRef=blog-audience\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Select your respondents<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><strong>7 Risks of a bad research sample<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are the risks of a bad research sample:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Overlooking an important audience:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/audience\/\"> Audiences<\/a> are not just those that will buy products, enroll at school, donate to a cause, etc. It\u2019s important to identify any stakeholders that are important to meeting the business goals. There can arise a scenario where a key audience could be overlooked and that could have a big impact on the success. It may also be discovered that the right audience may be a subset of a larger stakeholder group. Researchers may lose out on useful responses if the important audience is overlooked.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Not prioritizing audience that matter most: <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Audiences of organizations are deemed as their employees, customers, stockholders, business partners, etc. However, they are not equally important all of the time. They cannot be contacted for every research product rolled out. The risk here is that in trying to consider everything and everyone, you don\u2019t actually bring a benefit or value to anyone. By ignoring what\u2019s important to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/intended-audience\/\">intended audience<\/a>, organizations may not be able to design marketing strategies and tailor tech product to their needs.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><strong>Survey bias:<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research studies bring with them a lot of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/sampling-bias\/\">survey bias<\/a>. Researchers might believe, for example, that they have created an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/what-are-online-surveys\/\">online survey<\/a> to appeal to respondents of all ethnic backgrounds. But the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/article\/survey-question-answer-type.html\">survey questions<\/a> and even its images might favor one ethnic group possibly offend the other ethnic groups. The style of the survey should be acceptable to all audiences from which researchers attempt to gather information. If not, the responses gathered will be totally biased and the research goal will not be attained.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Survey nonresponse:<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/what-is-market-research\/\">market research<\/a> issue relates to how the survey is offered to the target population. Even targeting the accurate population is an issue. Researchers design a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/blog\/surveys\/\">survey<\/a> and target respondents who choose not to respond to. They try to find out why people hesitate to participate. Conclusions like too much effort needed by the participants or that the incentives do not appeal to respondents are drawn. Targeting the right survey responses in the right fashion helps eliminate the risk of non-response.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Time:<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When you have limited time, survey without using sampling becomes impossible. An accurate sample allows researchers to get results with higher accuracy in much lesser time.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Time is of the essence when it comes to decision-based market research. The market changes constantly. If sampling is not conducted accurately before researching, researchers may spend additional time targeting and collecting responses from respondents. If time is spent on gathering the information and then re-gathering it after rectifying the sample, the market conditions may change resulting in either decision taken too late or decisions taken when the time is not favorable.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Money:<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Running a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/help\/Survey-From-Scratch.html\">survey from scratch<\/a> to the decision making phase involves some level of investment. The level of investment solely depends on the type and size of the research activity. Some researchers also choose to buy samples from vendors. It is important to target the right sample in the first go in order to avoid re-running the research and spending more money on the research activities. Also, any incentives offered initially will be as good as a dead investment as no concrete decision can be drawn from the research activity.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Data accuracy:<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data accuracy is probably the most important factor any researcher looks at while conducting research and avoiding the risks of a bad research sample. Collecting gamer reviews from pet owners will not get you the quality of data required to launch a game. Yes, you will probably encounter some gamers among the pet owners, but the majority of them may not be gamers. This will directly impact the data quality of the research. If you ask the wrong people to answer your questions, your whole analysis can be flawed. While a bad question stands out, it\u2019s not as immediately obvious when you have a poor sampling.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Always remember:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Always define your sample at the start. Write out who you want to talk to and why.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Define and design guidelines on who should be included in the audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Decide whether the sample must be divided into smaller groups. This helps further analysis or cross-comparison between the sub-groups.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Be clear about the quality that you want from your sample. This is increasingly important as the rise of access panels has meant that it is often not questioned whether they have professional respondents.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even if it means spending a few extra dollars, always partner with a professional sample provider like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.questionpro.com\/audience\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">QuestionPro Audience<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Customer research is to conducted to gain knowledge about the market. Surveys must be designed accurately to collect reliable customer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":77700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>7 risks of a bad research sample | QuestionPro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Overlooking the risks of a bad research sample may land a researcher in an uncomfortable spot. 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