How to Run a Stress-Free Focus Group [Webinar Recap]

On April 16, we held a free webinar to discuss how you can run a stress-free online focus group. We explained what quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are and how and when they are typically used. In reviewing the approach to traditional in-person focus groups, we touched on a few pitfalls that exhibit why getting your respondents online can save you time and stress of organizing an actual in-person focus group. Let’s review the rest.

How Respondents Benefit

One question that was key to understanding why you should run an online focus group as opposed to taking on the time-consuming and often times stressful in-person focus group was anonymity. Discussing sensitive topics is always a tricky thing for respondents and getting them online tends to ease that concern. There are a lot of sensitive topics you can discuss online that face-to-face respondents might be less comfortable discussing. Racial issues, personal beliefs or politics are examples and might be more challenging if done in person. Which brought up another important benefit for respondents: convenience. Having the opportunity to participate from the home or office is a great way to get hard-to-reach audiences involved. Obviously respondents have quite a few benefits to participating in online focus groups, but the real value can be seen for the moderators as well.

How Moderators Benefit

As discussed, a risk that moderators take when trying to survey people face-to-face was the possibility of having one respondent dominating the group. While it’s great to have people super engaged, sometimes these respondents can begin to dominate the group silencing or disengaging others. When you get people online for a focus group it puts the power to control a dominating respondent in your hand. Muting or removing the person is easy when online and is quickly accomplished with just a click of the button. Another major benefit for moderators is cost savings. Our panelist discussed how expensive conducting in-person focus groups can be with costs including travel, lodging and food. With online focus groups those cost are saved and the stress of coordinating those requirements, gone.

Watch the Webinar

After reviewing the benefits for respondents and moderators, a brief explanation of an easy-to-use tool that provides these solutions was shown. If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to watch the recording of the discussion, or flip through the deck below. 

From Invitation to Conversation: How to Run a Stress-Free Online Focus Group from Survey Analytics