How to Organize Market Research Participant Data

Recruiting for a market research study is a complex task that results in vast amounts of information pertaining to your participants. In order to utilize this information and be able to consult it quickly when responding to a client inquiry, it is essential to organize the information in a comprehensive and straightforward manner.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. If using Microsoft Office, open a new Excel document. If using another office program, create a new spreadsheet.
2. Make a column for participant’s names, first name first. If you are conducting research in more than one geographic area, create a different tab for each one.
3. Next, make a column for the participants’ addresses. Occasionally, recruiters are reluctant to disclose this information. If it is not necessary for you to have their home address for incentive payments or research purposes, you may leave out this information.
4. Create columns for each of the participant screener questions, including the question number. That way, you can easily find the answer when your client calls about “Q. 15”.
5. Color code the backgrounds of rows, to help you sort out information like men and women, single or married, employed or unemployed, easily.
6. Save the file with the date at the end. When updating the sheet with new participants, make sure to always save the file as a new file with the new date at the end. Then, should any inconsistencies arise, you can go back to previous files and double check for errors.