--- title: "Who Isn’t in Your Market Research Sample? | antedote" description: "Research with current customers answers their questions well. A growth decision may also depend on people the sample doesn’t reach." url: "https://antedote.com/thinking/customers-your-research-brief-leaves-out/" published: "2026-10-28" updated: "2026-10-28" author: "Anne Lacey" --- # Who isn’t in the research? Research describes the people it includes. Current customers can answer many questions well; a decision about growth may also depend on lapsed buyers, competitors’ customers or people new to the category, and on how far the evidence can travel. Article on Research strategy, 3 min read Reviewed by [Anne Lacey, Founding Partner](https://antedote.com/why-antedote/#partners) on October 28, 2026. Published October 28, 2026. Imagine a coffee chain that wants to grow. It surveys members of its rewards app, who are easy to reach, know the menu and reply. The research is carefully run. Its growth plan also depends on people who buy their coffee elsewhere and people who used to visit and stopped, and none of them are in it. The people who aren’t in a piece of research are those its eligibility rules, its recruitment and its way of taking part leave out, usually for good reasons of focus and budget. Their absence matters when the decision depends on them. Evidence from current customers can answer questions about current customers very well. It says much less about the people a business has yet to win. ## Where the edges come from Every choice in a research design draws an edge around the people it can describe. Eligibility is the most visible. A rule such as “bought in the past three months” keeps out lapsed and occasional buyers, and anyone who meets the need another way. Recruiting through a customer list reaches people the brand already knows. Research in one language, online only, or long enough that only the keenest finish narrows the edge further. None of these choices is a mistake. A chain improving the drinks its regulars order every morning should hear from its regulars, and a focused sample spends the budget where the decision is. An edge matters only when the evidence is asked to speak for someone outside it. ## Real people, a narrower audience A carefully checked sample and a sample that covers the right people are separate achievements. Checking that respondents are real, attentive and qualified shows that the people who answered gave genuine answers. It can’t show anything about people who were never asked. A larger sample from the same source gives a more precise picture of the same customers, and quotas match only the proportions they were set on, among the people the source reaches. Panels, customer lists and intercepts are all useful sources, and each reaches some people more readily than others. Who is reached can change what a survey hears about a brand. In a 1970 paper in the [Journal of Marketing Research](https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377000700304), Bird, Channon and Ehrenberg reported: “The proportion of people who express an attitude about a given brand generally depends on how recently they have used the brand.” A survey of the coffee chain’s regulars describes the chain as its regulars see it. A lapsed visitor or a competitor’s customer may see it differently, or have no settled view of it at all. ## The question decides who belongs The same sample can be right for one question and narrow for another. For retention, current customers are the right people, including those who are visiting less and may have stopped opening the app. For acquisition, the people who matter buy coffee from competitors or make it at home. Understanding the category means hearing as well from people who meet the need some other way, or go without. In specialist business markets the edge is often access. The people who approve and implement a purchase can be harder to reach than the people who use the product, and the decision may turn on them, as we explore in [Who else has to say yes?](https://antedote.com/thinking/who-else-has-to-say-yes/) ## Where the evidence stops A useful recommendation says plainly who was included, who wasn’t and which conclusions travel beyond the people who took part. Then the team can decide whether a missing perspective is worth more work. That depends on whether those people could change the decision and on what it would cost to be wrong. If the plan works only when regulars visit more often, evidence from regulars may be enough. If the plan depends on winning back lapsed visitors, a focused piece of work with them may be worth more than a larger survey of members. Sometimes the right move is to act on what is known and watch how the missing group responds. For the coffee chain, the members’ survey remains good evidence about the people the chain serves best. Read with a clear statement of who it covers, it also shows what the growth plan still needs to learn, and from whom. Knowing where the evidence stops is part of what makes [strategic research](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/strategic-research/) usable for a growth decision. ## Read next - *Article* · 4 min read ### [Which part of the customer journey is worth changing?](https://antedote.com/thinking/where-to-invest-in-the-customer-journey/) A journey map shows plenty to improve. Choosing where to invest depends on which obstacles change what customers do, for which customers, and whether the business can change them. - *Article* · 4 min read ### [AI can make an idea look finished before the thinking is.](https://antedote.com/thinking/ai-concept-development-polish/) AI can make a concept tangible sooner. The risk is a polished image that settles product and commercial choices the team hasn’t yet made. ## How we help [Strategic research](https://antedote.com/what-we-do/strategic-research/) Qual, quant and data science, designed together, and the strategic thinking to turn the evidence into your next move. ## Working through this question now? Bring us the version your team is facing; half-formed is fine. We’ll say how we would approach it, and whether we’re the right fit. [Talk to us](https://antedote.com/talk-to-us/) · [hello@antedote.com](mailto:hello@antedote.com) A partner or director will reply.