You’re the Brand Manager and you don’t know the net incidence rate associated with your brand positioning focus groups? Don’t sweat it, you’re not alone.
In qualitative research, research facilities price their services, at least in part, on their estimate of net incidence rate. That is, if they contact 100 people in their general database, what percentage is going to meet all the recruiting criteria you’ve given them?
Increasingly, this means finding people who exhibit not only a certain behavior, but an attitudinal profile as well. An example: A company wants to talk with super-heavy users of widgets who answer strongly agree to 3 out of 5 attitudinal statements. The net incidence rate falls because you’re looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and that’s okay if that’s where the action is.
Where I have a concern is becoming so preoccupied with screwing down the recruiting criteria that all the action has packed up and left. There’s nobody left to market to. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.
I once worked with a client whose recruiting criteria was so tightly wound that I began to wonder about the absolute number of people in the whole country who would meet their stringent criteria. The net incidence rate on this project was less than 3%!
My point is: in qualitative research don’t focus exclusively on the numerator in looking at incidence, look at the denominator, too. How big is 100% in absolute numbers? Is it big enough, lucrative enough – you’ll have to be the judge. But knowing your net incidence rate is just the first step in answering those questions.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Jim Eschrich, President, Eschrich Research
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