The Importance of Response Rates

In this blog post I want to address the importance of response rates.

Many clients put their priority on trying to obtain as a large a sample as possible. But it’s equally important to consider response rate. Consider this. Obtaining a sample of 500 respondents from a total universe of 1,000 is vastly superior to obtaining a sample of 500 respondents from a total universe of 10,000.

Why is this? In the first case, you have a 50% response rate while in the second case you have a 5% response rate. With a 50% response rate you can be much more confident that your sample is representative of the total universe. However with a 5% response rate there is a much greater likelihood that these respondents are atypical and therefore will not yield accurate results. I always recommend going the extra mile to get the best response rate possible.

Stay tuned. In a future blog post we'll talk about how to obtain better response rates.

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About the Author

Gerald Bramm is the President of Bramm Research, a firm that conducts marketing research for associations, business publications and B2B companies. He has worked on hundreds of projects both in Canada and the U.S. and has broad experience in quantitative and qualitative techniques.

Gerald has been a member of the MRIA (Marketing Research and Intelligence Association) for over 20 years. He holds the CMRP designation (Certified Marketing Research Professional). He is also a member of the CSAE and holds the CAE® designation.

To learn more, visit the Bramm Research website www.brammresearch.com. We encourage you to download our free resources that can be used to support your research efforts. If you have questions about the work that we do on behalf of associations, please contact us at: gbramm@brammresearch.com or 905-465-3578.

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