Focus Groups::
What Is A Focus Group?
A focus group is a group of people who have been brought together to discuss a specific topic in-depth. They are extremely useful for evaluating services or for testing new ideas. Basically focus groups are interviews, but of 6-12 people at the same time. Focus groups have had a "bad press" in the past because often they have been conducted in a manipulative way and responses have been misinterpreted in order to fit in with the perceived outcomes desired by those conducting the focus groups.
Why Use A Focus Group?
Focus groups are a very useful tool for collecting relevant and informative data. They allow you to investigate complex behaviour such as what different groups think about a subject and why they hold such views and can also help to identify changes in behaviour. Focus groups are particularly useful in investigating the use, effectiveness and usefulness of a service as they allow you to gather detailed information and probe people's views. They also enable the user to inform decision making and resource allocation.
What Can You Learn From Focus Groups?
When you face a marketing problem, such as where to focus product development resources or how consumers make decisions within the category, focus groups are a trusted and popular market research solution.
Focus groups are group research discussions facilitated by a trained moderator, with real consumers who are carefully selected against an agreed client profile. The purpose of focus groups is usually to gain detailed insights into consumers' purchasing and usage behaviour, including attitudes to your brand, competitors and reaction to new ideas for your brand.
New ideas can include: new products, advertising campaigns, promotions or category management tactics, such as point of sale.
Careful research design is key to ensuring that your project is focused on the critical target groups and issues. This enables the number of focus groups (and your costs) to be controlled!
In addition to focus groups, here at SHES Marketing Solutions we also conduct quantitative research using internet based research methods.