Answer to Question #296637 in Marketing for Zeki

Question

Suppose you're conducting market research for your organization,sales have been lagging for two quarters,and you are determined to find out why.you decide to host an in-person focus group to gain customer insights in to your brands current products offerings.you are also interested in obtaining feedback on a new product that your brand plans to launch in the next six months.determine the make up of your focus group.who should be invited to the focus group,and why?what types of information would you want to obtain? identify possible questions to present to the focus group?

Answer 1

When a person is developing or launching a new product, service, or business, they’ll want to have a general sense of how receptive their target market will be to it. Typically, this is done through extensive market research and one key component of the research process is running a focus group. A focus group is a small group of people, typically representative of one’s target market, with whom a person shares ideas and asks questions about their product, service, or business. The individuals who make up the focus group should be a mix of current customers and people who’ve never made a purchase but might in the future. The ideal outcome is a stronger understanding of how the subject of the focus group would be received by a wider audience, and what changes if any, should be made before the formal roll-out.

The selection process regarding who will be invited to participate in a focus group is actually quite simple. Focus groups are voluntary and everyone invited has volunteered to take part in the focus group. Group members should be selected based on certain characteristics or demographic information, such as age, race, income and usage of the product. Companies give screening questionnaires to ensure they select the target audience. The ideal size of a focus group should be at least five to eight participants. Don't plan focus groups with so many participants because large groups are difficult to control and they limit each person's opportunity to share insights and observations. A focus group can be extremely helpful to get into the mind-set of the customers and receive genuine, helpful feedback for a company. Using a focus group over other methods of customer feedback will allow one to have a full, multi-participant discussion about a product. It will also allow one to interact with the customers and drive the conversation towards the specific, desired outcome. Like reviews, focus groups allow one to discover the feedback they need to grow. But in order for a focus group to be successful and worthwhile, one needs to ask the customers the right questions.

These questions are usually open-ended questions aimed at setting the tone for the focus group. They will gauge one’s group’s interest-level and knowledge of the product, as well as set the tone for the focus group discussion. One could ask questions like what do they already know about the product? What is something they would like to learn more about it? How did they first hear about the product? How familiar are they with the product? Who do they think is the largest competitor to the product and why? What changes would they recommend making to the product to give it an edge over the competitors?

Always prompt the customers for more questions in order to get the most information from them as possible, but do so in a way that makes them feel comfortable and that their opinion is truly valuable.