Covid-19 has significantly impacted the number of immigrants who have come to Canada and, in turn, adjusted the number of new immigrants we have in our multicultural panel. However, the value of understanding the opinions and market behaviour of new immigrants remains as important as ever. Our clients continue to seek insight into the needs and wants of these newcomers, recognizing their role in shaping market trends.
As the provider of the largest multicultural panel in the country, Decision Point Research is uniquely positioned to support our clients in these projects. However, when our existing member pool is insufficient to gather accurate insight into this group, the responsibility falls to us to innovate and find new participants.
This case study explores how we overcame the challenges posed by reduced immigration due to the pandemic and expanded our database to better represent new immigrants in Canada.
The Situation
Our project began when we were approached by a client with a new request; they wanted to complete market research with recent immigrants to Canada. We understood as we took on this project that our database may need to be expanded to fully meet this need, as there was a significant slowdown in newcomer members over the past couple of years. We had a diverse range of participants, but not enough who were new to Canada.
We had to find a way to bring this group into our database so we could meet the specific needs of this project and be better prepared to handle similar requests in the future.
Challenges Faced
Finding newcomers in Canada for our participant groups was a challenging task at this point. Covid-19 restrictions led to a drop in immigration to Canada, which meant fewer potential participants for our groups. Also, a large portion of newcomers were international students, further shrinking our pool of potential participants.
In addition to these issues, many immigrants were without permanent statuses like residency or citizenship, making them harder to identify and reach out to. Our client’s interest in smaller provinces and suburban cities also posed a challenge, as these areas had fewer newcomers.
Lastly, we found a limited range of ethnic backgrounds among recent immigrants. For market research requiring diverse perspectives, this could pose a problem. Each of these hurdles made our task tougher, but at Decision Point, we were determined to navigate these obstacles and fulfill our client’s request.
Our Solutions
Overcoming these challenges demanded a thoughtful, comprehensive approach. To find new immigrants, we cast a wide net. We started by turning to various online and offline forums specifically designed for newcomers to Canada. This allowed us to reach out directly to potential participants.
Additionally, we sought referrals from our large pool of current members. Many had friends and family who had recently immigrated to the country, helping us connect with the group we were looking for.
Understanding demographics was crucial. Our team conducted extensive research on the latest immigration statistics, discovering a larger number of immigrants from Asia and Africa compared to Europe. We leveraged this data to convince our client to set relevant ethnic quotas for the study.
We also turned to social media, identifying specific groups tailored for new Canadian immigrants. This not only helped us find potential participants but also allowed us to engage with them directly.
Finally, we reached out to several community service organizations that work with newcomers. These offline connections provided another valuable channel to connect with potential participants. Through these combined efforts, we tackled the challenges and successfully found a way to meet our client’s specific needs.
The Results
Despite the unique challenge this project brought us, we successfully delivered it on time, meeting all the specifications outlined by the client. The comprehensive strategies we employed enabled us to meet the required quotas for the study. The final study sample accurately represented the demographic our client sought to understand.
The client expressed satisfaction with both the robustness of the study sample and the resulting outcomes. This experience showed our ability to meet complex project requirements through thoughtful, strategic actions. It reinforced Decision Point’s commitment to excellence and adaptability in addressing our clients’ evolving market research needs.
If you’re a business looking to better understand hard-to-reach groups like new immigrants, we encourage you to reach out to us to see how our team can help. Our expertise in finding these niche groups and our vast multicultural panel make us the top choice for these projects.
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