As winter winds its way down and spring looms on the horizon, I was reminded recently of a sampling technique used in the old days that has taken on a new spin. It used to be called snowball sampling. Just as a snowball gets bigger as it rolls down the hill, this form of sampling builds up the survey response pool by asking respondents to refer a friend.
With the advent of online survey platforms the researcher can leverage the power of the tool’s communication functions to promote the survey to others. The example below shows Cvent’s use of this technique. The invitation forwarding function can be found off the ‘Thank You’ page menu. The author has the ability to turn this feature on or off, with the default being on. He or she also can limit the number of people the survey can be forwarded to, with a maximum of 10 additional people seeing the invitation.
This feature can dramatically increase the number of potential respondents the survey is exposed to. However, there are some considerations to take into account before adding this to your next B2B market research survey. First, if you have taken the steps to properly calculate sample size, then the invitation forwarding function can serve to defeat your efforts. Here’s why…
Random sampling requires that all parties in the universe, however you define it, have a non-zero chance of being selected. This is the hallmark of random sampling and what allows you as the researcher to extrapolate the sample results to the broader population. Snowball sampling is a convenience sampling method that allows you grow the number of people you reach, but it does not allow for proper estimation of sampling error. This means you can extrapolate results, but only under the caveat that the results may not be representative of the population.
However, if you are using surveys to generate leads for your sales pipeline then this may not be a concern. Your survey screening questions will help to determine who is a qualified lead, so only those forwarded invitations that meet your criteria will pass into the funnel.
Snowball sampling, aka invitation forwarding, can be a useful tool for increasing the number of responses. However, it comes with some baggage that researchers must account for.
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