The Right People (Sampling)

This is a critical issue. If you get the sampling wrong, nothing else matters. Research based on poor sampling can be worse than no research at all. With no research, you at least know that you don’t know. With research based on faulty sampling you think you know the answers to your most important questions but, unfortunately, your answers may all be wrong.

Samples are as varied as the universe of targeted audiences but examples of some of the more common samples are:

• General population – U.S. census-representative 18+ population
• Opinion Leaders — roughly the top 10% of the population based on education, income, media consumption, community/political activism, and a battery of opinion leader metrics
• Washington Insiders – proxies for congressional and federal agency decision makers (who cannot be surveyed) drawn from a Prime Group panel 
• National Insiders – actual decision makers and influencers from around the country or specific targeted markets drawn from a Prime Group panel
• Members, donors, alumni – individuals with a current, lapsed, or targeted relationship with the client drawn from the client’s database and supplemented by commercially available databases.
• Business or Professional Decision Makers – Physicians, lawyers, IT executives, or decision makers from other sectors drawn from commercially available lists