Focus Group Facilitation
By
Matt Gagliardi
OISM 470W Section 3
Focus Group Facilitation
Getting Clear Insight to
How Customers Think
Introduction
• What are Focus Groups?
• How Focus Groups are used in
Business and Government.
• Focus Group Creation and Use.
– How to properly create focus groups
– How to effectively use focus groups.
• Evaluating Results.
What are Focus
Groups???
• Focus Groups are a group of
people, that are brought
together, and asked to share
their opinions about a product or
service.
Where Focus Groups are
Used
• Business Use
– Drive Marketing Strategies
• How customers think
• Government Use
– Forming election strategies
– Publishing trends
– Impeachment rhetoric
Creating Focus Groups
• Hiring outside consultants vs.
Internally established groups.
– Advantages
– Disadvantages
• Choosing a Moderator
• Internal vs. External
Hiring Consultants
• Hiring external Consulting
companies to establish and
moderate the focus group.
Advantages of
Consultants
•
•
•
•
Limited knowledge of products
Will not make bias decisions
Have favorable results
Trained, experienced and
competent professional
researchers.
Disadvantages of
Consultants
• Expensive
• Unable to conduct groups on
your schedule
• Do not want to risk an
unsuccessful group
• “I am familiar with my product
and can ask the right questions”
Choosing a Moderator
• Someone who
knows how to
benefit from
group dynamics
• Can use
techniques that
reduce negative
influence or
feedback
Choosing a Moderator
• Can control the
dominant group
member
• Can motivate the
shy member to
participate
• Use techniques to
extract the
maximum amount
of information
possible
Internal Moderators
• Internal moderators can save
money, but can inhibit group
output
– Chance that participants will
refrain from showing concern or
acting negatively to ideas.
– Have great knowledge on product,
which could intimidate participants
External Moderators
• Extremely helpful in designing
groups
• Professional moderators bring
experience from different
research situations
• Objective
• Able to extract a lot of
information from group
members
Facilitating Focus
Groups
• Key Concepts
• Advantages and Disadvantages
of use.
• Things to be careful of.
• New Technology.
Facilitating Focus
Groups
• Key Concept
– Explore a topic to form ideas, not
definitive answers.
• Focus groups provide insight in
exploratory work to help companies
realize the range of issues, perception
of these issues, and the intensity of
feelings of their customers.
Advantages of Focus
Groups
• There are only a limited number
of people asked to participate,
so participant downtime is
reduced.
• Gives excellent insight onto
what customers believe.
• Low cost.
Disadvantages of Focus
Groups
• Yield a wide range of ideas on a
topic, not definitive answers
• Results could be misleading
• Only show a small percentage of
what population believes.
• Inexperienced moderators can
impair or ruin expected results
Things to be careful of
• As focus groups are relatively
expensive, companies must
make sure they get their monies
worth.
• Choosing and distinguishing
between good and bad group
moderators.
New Technology
• New voting devices
– Participants can vote
confidentially to questions by
pressing buttons on a hand held
device.
• Computers can instantly
process information for
immediate debate
Evaluating Results
• Establishing valid results from
Focus Group.
• Distinguishing between different
results to see what the
possibilities of advance are
Real world Examples
• “Focus groups were used to
provide strategic input to
elections of Prime Ministers and
presidents, feedback for action
by political groups or
companies”.
Summary
• From this slide show, you should
have learned
– What Focus Groups Are
– How to Create and what to look for
in creating focus groups.
• Differences between Internal and
External focus groups.
Summary
• Advantages of hiring
consultants
• Choosing an effective moderator
• How to properly facilitate focus
groups.
Summary
• Things to be careful of when
using focus groups
• New technologies used
• Real world Examples of Focus
group use.
Works Cited
– Cowley, James. Anyone can run research
focus groups, right? Marketing News. V33
n5. Mar 1, 1999. P. 15
– Vincent, Lynn. 7 Deadly sins of focus
groups. Bank Marketing. V31 n5. May 1999
p 36-39
– Greenbaum, Thomas L. Doing your own
Focus Group is like fixing your own
plumbing. Marketing News. V25 n11. May
27, 1991. P. 8-9