Now you have the email addresses of several qualified participants that have been submitted through your screener. It's time to contact them directly and try to schedule them for a call. You want to do this as soon as possible after they sign up, since they will almost immediately forget about you.

Contact the Participants

The first thing you're going to do is to send a personal contact email to 5 to 10 of the qualified participants. A sample contact email is attached to this guide.

Since you're only sending out small batches of emails, you can send them directly from your email account, one at a time. If you like, you can also create lists in something like MailChimp, but that always feels like overkill for sending out a few dozen emails.

Never send one email to multiple recipients from your own account! It's an excellent way to mistakenly leak email addresses or end up with your emails going to a spam folder.

Don't worry, if you don't get a response from all of them (you won't), you will send another set out to different people the same day. How many you send depends on what your response rate is like, which depends largely on who your participants are and how much of an incentive you're offering. For example, friends and acquaintances or early adopters of a product are far more likely to respond quickly than people who took your survey from an ad on Craigslist.

Keep the contact email short. Again, put the incentive in the subject line. Explain where you got their email address, tell them you're doing some product research and not selling anything, and give them a choice of times. Also, be sure to include any important logistics, like if the conversation is in person or remote, or if the person will need access to the internet or some specific device.

This is included in the sample contact email, but it's best to give them a list of times as a multiple choice question. For example:

What times would you be available for a call? You will need a computer with a connection to the internet at this time. (Please pick all that apply.)

Wednesday, October 2nd

__10am-11am

__11:30am - 12:30pm

__ 1:30pm - 2:30pm

__3pm - 4pm

__4:30pm-5:30pm

Schedule the Participants

Once you've gotten a few responses, go ahead and make a schedule, and start sending out scheduling emails. You don't need to wait until you've gotten responses from everybody. In fact, the more quickly you get back to people with times, the better your acceptance rate will be.

A sample scheduling email is included in this guide. The email should include:

• The participant's time slot
• Any instructions for joining the session (parking or address for in person; a link to a screenshare for remote participants, etc.)
• A request that they respond to the email with the word "YES" to confirm the time slot
• A contact number where they can get ahold of somebody on the day of the session if necessary

Remind the Participants

This is important, and it's a very easy way to drastically reduce the number of no-shows. The day before the test, send a reminder email to participants or, if you have contact phone numbers and they've agreed to let you call them, give them a reminder phone call. This is a great reason not to schedule tests on Mondays, by the way. They're much less likely to get the reminder email or call.

A reminder email template is attached to this guide. It should include all the information you sent them in your scheduling email, except you don't need to ask for a confirmation again.

Why Does This Matter?

Good recruiting and scheduling emails will increase the number of participants you get while a reminder email will dramatically decrease no-shows. It's important to make things as easy as possible for your participants by sending them short, easy to read emails with very clear instructions.