Contacting companies regarding participation?

[EileanDonan]

Hello folks,

I am currently assisting in a project that requires me to cold contact various companies about potentially utilizing their employees as a sample group. I am somewhat at a loss as to how to best professionally phrase this in email form - does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Meraki]

You will want to introduce yourself and your purpose, but you will also want to emphasize what you have to offer the company in exchange for their time, such as a summary of findings. I always offer to discuss their unique interests and needs and then will try to include variables they are interested in in the study to further add value for them. The initial contact should be brief - they will probably only spend a few seconds glancing over it. And you will not hear back from most of the companies you contact, so prepare to contact many. 

Reaching out to smaller organizations (not massive corporations) may yield better response rates.