In Wendy’s article “The Elements of Elementary Research,” she talks about the importance of conducting thorough research before tackling any marketing goal. Often times when clients come to us, they’ll have a laundry list of marketing ideas and problems. If we were to just blindly address these problems and put their ideas into action, we’d be throwing their precious marketing dollars down the drain. But by drilling deep with research, we can get to the true root of their problems and come up with a solid strategy. There are many different ways to go about research, as Wendy mentioned in her article, from competitive analyses to discovery sessions. One of the most in-depth forms of research is the focus group, which involves gathering a group of people you consider to be in your target market and getting feedback and insights about your product or service from them. Here are five tips for conducting an effective focus group.
- Ask the Right Questions – The whole point of a focus group is to find out what you’re doing wrong and where you can improve as a business. That means asking your participants the tough questions to get honest feedback. This feedback isn’t necessarily going to be all flattering and positive. If it is, you’re not really getting any value out of the focus group anyway. You’ll need to have some thick skin and leave your emotions and pride out of it. Be prepared to hear some things you might not like.
- Individual Thoughts – One of the downfalls of a focus group is the more outspoken participants tend to sway the opinion of the entire group, and some of the more reserved and shy participants may just go along with it whether they agree or not. This is referred to as the “groupthink” phenomenon. We combat this by conducting silent, individual questionnaires prior to any group discussion. This allows each participant to get their honest feedback on paper before they have a chance to be swayed by the opinions of the rest of the group.
- Group Discussion – Although the “groupthink” phenomenon is very real, that doesn’t mean group discussion isn’t beneficial. Giving participants a chance to discuss your product or service with each other and voice their opinions might bring out certain insights that they didn’t think of in the individual surveys. Group discussion also allows you to find out what the overall popular opinions are versus individual opinions that may not be the norm.
- Keep it Tight-Knit – One thing we have found to be helpful is keeping our focus groups small – around five participants. Smaller focus groups tend to have an easier time staying focused on the discussion at hand rather than getting off topic. Tight-knit focus groups also minimize the “groupthink” phenomenon by giving each participant an optimal chance to have their voice heard.
- Multiple Perspectives – Another thing that we have found beneficial is conducting multiple focus groups. We recently conducted two small focus groups for a client and discovered that each group focused their discussion and feedback on different aspects of our client’s product. This provided us with very different, yet equally important insights from each group.
Could your business benefit from conducting focus groups to get valuable feedback from your customers? Give us a call at 701-478-1111 and ask to speak with a Marketing Advisor or visit absolutemg.com/contact. We have the experience to find the consumer insights you need.