New Year but the same old challenges. How are we going to increase online survey participation among financial advisors, brokers, RIA’s, etc? It’s time we all face the fact this audience is overused, misused and abused. Think about it, most financial institutions use the same purchased industry databases year after year. There’s only a few “good” resources available and everyone buys/subscribes/uses the same information. Let’s face it, if you run your racehorse without adequate rest between starts, it’s going to break down. That’s where we are today, we have a broken down, beaten and battered racehorse. Our horse is no longer eating and is unresponsive to the trainer. Sadly, we’re left with a horse that won’t run.
So how do we get the horse back on the track? In an attempt to gain a clearer understanding of the issue, Brookmark contacted several financial advisors in the Boston, MA area and requested interviews to discuss their experiences with online surveys. Our initial fear was no one would talk to us because this group is sick and tired of interacting with researchers. Yes this proved to be a significant challenge and required some creative thinking along with a touch of Sandler salesmanship to break down the barrier. We were able to get these folks to talk to us and they talked and talked and talked. It seemed to be a cathartic experience, this group of non-responders was freely sharing their views, concerns, likes (actually dislikes) about online survey research.
What did we learn? Quite a bit. Stay tuned for my next post.