Research Participation for Commercial Organizations

Research For Good helps organizations create commercial value from their existing users, customers and audiences through paid research participation.

People choose to complete surveys and other research activities. Research For Good provides and operates the participation opportunities, validates activity and pays the organization for successful participation.

The organization retains its audience, brand and relationships and decides how participation fits its existing commercial model.

Create Value From an Audience You Already Have

Many organizations have established relationships with people whose value extends beyond an immediate purchase or transaction.

They may be customers of a business, users of an application, subscribers to a publication, readers of a website, followers of a creator, members of a service or another established audience.

Research participation creates another way for those relationships to generate commercial value.

Instead of relying only on purchases, subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships or other existing revenue sources, an organization can also make paid research opportunities available to its audience.

Users participate in research, and Research For Good pays the organization.

Participation can operate alongside the organization’s existing revenue model rather than replacing it.

How Commercial Participation Works

The organization makes participation available through its existing website, application, user area or other authenticated environment.

Users who choose to participate enter Research For Good research opportunities from that environment. Research For Good manages the research participation, matches people with available opportunities and validates completed activity.

After participating, users return to the organization.

Research For Good records successful participation and pays the organization. The organization decides how the resulting value fits its own commercial and user-value model.

The organization’s environment remains the user’s home throughout the relationship.

For a more detailed explanation of the underlying model, see [How Research Participation Works].

The Organization Controls the User Relationship

Participation operates within the relationship the organization has already established with its audience.

The organization decides when, where and how participation is presented and promoted. Calls to action can be incorporated into the organization’s existing website, application, communications and normal user experience.

Research For Good does not need to take over that relationship or require users to become members of a separate RFG program.

That means participation can serve very different commercial models.

A retailer might use it to provide discounts or credits. A publisher or blogger might use it as another source of audience revenue. A creator might offer participation as another way for followers to support their work. An ad-supported property might add research participation alongside its existing monetization methods.

The commercial application can differ while the underlying participation model remains the same.

How Does the Organization Benefit?

Successful research participation generates revenue for the organization.

That revenue may simply become an additional commercial revenue stream. It may also be used to create benefits that strengthen the organization’s relationship with its users.

For example, an organization might use participation value to support discounts, credits, merchandise, fee reductions, perks, drawings, recognition or benefits it already offers.

The organization determines what makes sense for its business and its audience.

Research For Good does not require the organization to adopt a particular rewards program or user-value system. Existing mechanisms can be reused wherever practical.

Commercial Value Does Not Require a Purchase

Participation can be particularly useful because a user does not need to make a purchase for the interaction to create commercial value.

A customer who is not ready to buy, a reader who does not subscribe, or a user who primarily consumes free content can still choose to participate in research.

This gives organizations another way to create value from engagement that might not otherwise lead directly to revenue.

For businesses, participation can also provide another reason for customers to return between purchases or transactions.

For advertising-supported and audience-supported organizations, it can add another monetization option alongside the ways the audience already supports the property.

Participation Can Also Create Value for Users

Commercial benefit to the organization and benefit to the user do not have to be competing objectives.

An organization can keep the revenue generated through participation, return some or all of its value to users, or combine the two.

For example, participation might generate incremental revenue for the organization while also helping a user earn a discount, credit, benefit or other reward.

The organization determines that balance and fulfills the value it promises to its users.

Research For Good records participation outcomes. The organization remains the system of record for the value it provides to its users.

User Privacy and Identity

The organization retains its users, relationships, communications and user information.

Users begin participation from the organization’s authenticated environment. Research For Good normally receives a persistent, opaque identifier rather than using a person’s name, email address, phone number or other directly identifying information as the participation identifier.

Users are not required to join Research For Good as a separate membership program.

Research For Good is responsible for the research participation and its outcomes. The organization remains responsible for its user relationship and for any value or benefits it provides to users.

What Kinds of Commercial Organizations Can Use Participation?

Participation is not limited to a particular industry or type of business.

It can be relevant to businesses with customers or users, publishers and media properties, bloggers, creators and influencers, applications and digital services, membership businesses, advertising-supported properties, niche or interest-based sites and services, and other organizations that maintain an ongoing relationship with an identifiable audience.

The important characteristic is not the organization’s legal form or primary line of business.

It is that the organization has an existing audience or user relationship and sees a commercial benefit in giving those people access to research participation.

Does the Organization Need New Technology?

Not necessarily.

Research For Good’s approach is to first determine what the organization already has: its website or application, authentication, user identification, communications and any existing mechanisms for providing user benefits.

Those capabilities can often be reused.

The objective is to add research participation to the organization’s existing environment, not require it to adopt an entirely new platform, rewards system or audience-management infrastructure.

Research For Good provides the participation requirements and works with the organization to establish the appropriate connection.

About Research For Good and SaySo Rewards

SaySo Rewards (saysorewards.com) is a brand of Research For Good, Inc. (researchforgood.com), a U.S.-based market research company. 

Research For Good provides research technology, opportunities, matching, validation and partner services. SaySo Rewards is used for participation-facing experiences and resources.

Together, Research For Good and SaySo Rewards support research participation across digital environments while allowing participating organizations to retain their own brands, audiences and relationships.

Learn more about Research Participation with Research For Good and SaySo Rewards.

For additional questions about privacy, implementation, participation and value, see Participation Frequently Asked Questions.