Research participant recruitment for B2B studies: channels, tracking and incentives

To recruit business participants for research, use two or three channels at once, track every candidate from invitation to completed session and check each person's experience before you book them. Start from a written brief; our recruitment brief template covers what to put in it. This guide covers what comes next: where to find people, how to run the pipeline and what to pay.

Business research is often harder to recruit for than consumer studies. You usually need a specific role with specific recent experience, the people who fit are busy, and job titles often do not tell you who actually does the work. How to find customers to interview shows how to work out which role to look for.

Choose channels by who you need

GOV.UK's participant guidance lists five ways to recruit: a research recruitment agency, a professional body or community group, your existing users, people at a venue, and colleagues. Adapted for business research:

GOV.UK's advice on bias applies here: every method includes some people and misses others, and the best protection is to use more than one recruitment approach. If you only recruit from your customer list, see how to recruit beyond existing customers.

Track every candidate through the same stages

Keep one list with a row per candidate and these columns: source channel, date invited, replied, screened, booked, attended and whether the session was usable. A usable session is one where the person had the experience your brief requires.

A hypothetical example: a team studying how mid-size manufacturers approve maintenance-parts purchases needs sessions with both maintenance managers and purchasing staff. After the first week, the tracker shows that an industry association is producing purchasing staff but no maintenance managers, while direct invitations are producing maintenance managers who reply slowly. The team shifts effort toward direct invitations for the missing role instead of sending more association posts.

Track your own conversion at each stage rather than relying on someone else's benchmark. Your numbers depend on the role, the channel and your invitation. If invitations get no replies at all, diagnose the outreach before sending more.

Check fit before you book

Confirm experience with one or two factual questions about a recent event the person handled themselves, such as "When did you last approve a spare-parts order, and what was your part in it?" Research screener questions gives you a short set. Ask again at the start of the session, since a screener tells you someone probably fits, not that they certainly do.

Set incentives business participants can accept

GOV.UK says the amount should depend on the type of participant and the length of the session. It recommends paying at the start of the session so participants do not feel they must answer a certain way to get paid. Research incentive budget covers how to set an amount, and pay for participation, not positive feedback covers how to word the offer.

Some employers limit what their staff can accept from outside companies. If a participant raises this, ask what their employer allows rather than assuming they will take the standard payment.

Keep participation voluntary and data minimal

The Home Office's recruitment guidance warns that people may feel pressured to take part when the request comes from a manager or senior stakeholder. The same can happen when an account manager or a customer's executive asks their team to join your study. Say plainly that declining is fine.

GOV.UK also advises collecting only the personal information you need, sharing it only with colleagues who need it and deleting it once you no longer need it to manage someone's participation.

Allow for lead time and no-shows

Some participants take longer to find. GOV.UK suggests allowing up to a month to recruit disabled participants or those who use assistive technology, and contacting organizations at least six to eight weeks ahead when recruiting people with less common cognitive disabilities. Accessible research recruitment covers this in more detail. Plan for cancellations too; research participant no-shows covers backups and rescheduling.

Where Instant Expert fits

Instant Expert helps with the direct-invitation channel. Describe the role and experience you need in a people search. Instant Expert finds people whose work matches, you review them, it sends your invitations and you pay for each call that gets booked. Record those candidates in the same tracker and check their experience at the start of the call, as you would with any other channel.