It’s Time to Change the Way We Write Screeners

​In this Article

• Traditional Screener Writing
• Why It’s Time for a Change
• How to Improve Your Screeners
• Dos and Don’ts of Crafting Modern, Effective Screeners

Sometimes, the most basic life lessons are the most impactful. Yet somehow, they can also be the easiest to overlook. Think back to when you were learning how to ride a bike; no matter how many times your parents told you to keep looking straight ahead, I bet all of us fell at least once when we forgot this lesson and steered off the bike path. Similarly, despite how often screener best practices are discussed in our industry, we frequently veer from that path. At Sago, we understand the critical role played by screeners in participant recruitment, which is one of the most essential steps to achieving the results you want in your research. Without the right audience, the entire project is likely headed in the wrong direction.

In the past couple of years after Covid, we’ve seen an industry-wide shift away from well-established best practices. Basic elements of screener writing have started to miss the mark; most of today’s screeners are built using impersonal tone, excessive length, and lack of overall good user experience that leads to positive engagement. Unsurprisingly, response rates are dropping, respondents are complaining en masse, and it’s driving up costs and friction with our workflows. It’s time to take a good, hard look at what we put our respondents through to even get into research in the first place. Let’s dive deep into the evolution of screener writing, its limitations, and the pressing need for a makeover. Let’s explore the secrets to creating captivating screeners that resonate with respondents’ evolving expectations and thrive in a competitive research environment.

Traditional Screener Writing

How we’ve always done things: I was once approached at a conference and told, “I can tell your industry was built by academics; you make everything look like a test, and people hate tests!” I can’t tell you that all this complexity is giving us better audiences in our research. In fact, it may be doing the opposite. I’ve come to realize that when it comes to screeners, our industry has overlooked “dealing with humans 101”—use a friendly tone, provide information about the purpose behind the questions, and take a relatable approach.

How screeners have evolved over time: Screeners have bloated in length, clocking in at an average of 27 questions. That’s nearly 15 minutes of a respondent’s valuable time! No wonder drop-off rates spike after question 12. These days, we are competing with other ways people can fill their time or get rewarded for their opinions.

We’ve also neglected to maintain a friendly demeanor, burdening screeners with non-terminating questions that should have been reserved for the actual research phase. It’s time to reclaim respondents’ attention and rewrite the rules.

Why It’s Time for a Change

Changed respondent behavior and expectations: Respondents nowadays are a savvy bunch, and the process of recruiting respondents needs to be modernized if we’re going to continue to bring in populations we want to talk to. The chances of a fully screened respondent making it into your research are less than 5%. We must adapt to their shifting behavior and meet their expectations head-on.

Increasingly competitive environment: We’re treading in a fiercely competitive market research landscape. Incentive expectations have skyrocketed, respondent acquisition costs are up by 300%, and show rates have plummeted. The value of research struggles to compete for attention in the ever-escalating Attention Economy. We must rise to the challenge.

How to Improve Your Screeners

Essential elements of an effective screener: It’s time to inject humanity into our screeners and engage our audience by explaining the importance of the research upfront. Imagine writing a screener you’d be comfortable sending to your mom—friendly, relatable, and meaningful. And remember, keeping screeners under 12 questions is the magic number to prevent attrition. Embrace the power of combination questions that create engaging personas, capturing respondents’ imaginations.

Tips and tricks: Let’s flip the script and place terminates and quotas at the beginning of the screener. Save those info-only questions for the actual research phase, sparing respondents from repetition. Instead, rely on your recruiting partners’ demographics to eliminate redundancy.

Dos and Don’ts of Crafting Modern, Effective Screeners

• DO strive for clarity, brevity, and a conversational tone.
• DO think twice before using leading questions or including unnecessary demographic queries.
• DON’T underestimate the power of engaging your audience with informative and relatable content.

In our digitally fueled world, where attention spans wane and competition runs high, the transformation of screener writing is essential. By following the recommended methods, implementing tips and tricks, and adhering to the dos and don’ts, we can create surveys that captivate respondents and yield high-quality data.