Sample management example scenario
A market research agency has a client who plans to launch a new lifestyle magazine. The client wants the agency to conduct a pre‑launch web interview to investigate the opinions of approximately 2000 women between the ages of 18 and 25 (the magazine’s target audience) and a post-launch interview a few months later to see whether the magazine is meeting reader expectations. Both surveys will be run as inbound projects only.
Gathering and routing respondents
The agency uses two methods to get the sample for the interview:
▪They place a link to the interview on a website that is popular with young women.
▪They rent lists of email addresses for women up to 21 years old and for women 21 to 30 years old.
Respondents who arrive at the interview by clicking the link at the popular website are asked for their gender and age. Women aged 18 to 25 are assigned an ID and password and are routed to the interview. Respondents who do not fit this category are routed to a computer-user survey that is being conducted for a different client of the market research agency.
The agency sends each of the women on the rented lists an invitation email with the address of the interview site. The email provides an ID and password so that the respondent can be authenticated when she begins the interview.
The scriptwriter programs Sample Management to move the records of respondents who complete the interview into a custom FOLLOWUP queue. In a few months, these respondents are sent an email that invites them to participate in a follow-up interview that asks whether they have read the magazine and what they thought about it.
Monitoring progress
While the interview is in progress, the administrator periodically checks the database to monitor the status of the sample group. By looking at how many respondents are in each queue, the administrator can see how many:
▪have not yet responded to the email invitation (are still in the FRESH queue)
▪have paused or stopped the interview (are in the STOPPED queue)
▪have successfully completed the interview (are in the FOLLOWUP queue).
As the magazine launch approaches, the agency decides that respondents in the STOPPED queue who have completed at least 80 per cent of the first questionnaire will be admitted to the follow-up interview. These respondents are moved to the FOLLOWUP queue and will receive invitations to the follow-up interview.
Building a respondent database
The agency is building its own database of respondents so that it does not have to rely on rented lists and adds the respondents who successfully complete this interview. The date of the interview is recorded in the database so that the agency can avoid sending these respondents too many invitations to interviews.
See also