Online focus groups: doing more with less

Online focus groups with ‘new’ techniques

Focus groups have always been an important qualitative research technique, given their ability to generate insights, whether for pretesting products, exploring brand perceptions, understanding subjective factors or countless other purposes.
Focus groups appear to have originated in the United States in the 1950s, to gauge audience reactions to a radio program, and in those early days they were used heavily by advertising agencies.
It took a few years for the “traditional” research community to take qualitative results more seriously, and during that time the briefing, the discussion guide, recruitment and other steps were refined and standardized.
Personally, I think the image below is the best way to visualize the difference between qual and quant. It shows clearly and simply how the two complement each other.

In recent years, online focus groups have become increasingly important compared with the conventional in-person format, both because of the new possibilities they offer and because they fit so well with what the market needs today.
Online focus groups are virtual meetings where a specific topic is discussed in order to understand opinions, reactions and feelings. In the early days they were only considered in specific situations (participants in different locations, no viewing facilities in the city, etc.). Today, they’re the go-to format.
Although they started out as an alternative to in-person groups, with today’s technology their advantages are significant, and they’re steadily gaining ground in market and opinion research.
Running a successful study with online focus groups, however, means getting certain things right, some of which also apply to in-person groups:
• a clear objective: this shapes the overall approach, the questions in the discussion guide and the exercises used
• the right participant profile: defining who needs to be heard and how they’ll be recruited, based on predefined criteria for each group
• a skilled moderator: someone who leads the group and knows how to draw out the answers needed for the expected conclusions, recommendations and insights
Compared with conventional in-person groups, online focus groups offer several key advantages:
• flexibility: they don’t depend on where participants live or on a physical venue such as a viewing facility
• naturalness: taking part from their own space, people tend to act more naturally and spontaneously and find the experience less intimidating
• speed: recruiting participants, preparing and setting up the groups takes far less time
• cost: costs drop significantly, with no viewing facility, refreshments, travel or recording expenses
• access: recordings are available right away to anyone who needs them, whether or not they “attended” the group
• attendance: show-up rates tend to be higher since no travel is involved, improving success rates and minimum attendance
• interaction: clients and moderators can communicate faster and more discreetly through chat, with no earpiece or interruptions to pass notes
• insights: online groups appear to produce better conclusions, as participants tend to be more candid in a familiar setting
At the same time, some precautions that weren’t even necessary for in-person groups become critical online, such as:
• platform: it’s essential to the study’s success and should be chosen based on the specific needs of the group’s stimuli and exercises
• certification: something to check for in the service provider, to ensure results, reliability and sound methodology
• group size: unlike in-person groups, the recommended size online is 5 to 7 participants
• length: unlike in-person groups, the recommended length online is 60 to 80 minutes
• recruitment: similar to in-person groups, but with extra attention to participants’ equipment and comfort with camera and microphone

Given these advantages, online focus groups are winning more and more ground in research, even making their way into projects that used to rely only on quantitative methods, whether because of cost or timelines.
Other, no less important benefits, such as better recording quality (since participants tend to speak one at a time), the ability for the same moderator to run more groups per day on a study, unlimited capacity for “clients” to watch live, and the option to analyze and record participants’ facial expressions, only reinforce the case and confirm the growing importance of this technique.