Download Qualitative Marketing - Focus Groups

Qualitative Marketing – Focus Groups
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research is research used to examine the attitudes, feelings, and motivations of
consumers by looking for a deep understanding of individual consumers. It is research that
cannot be subjected to quantitative analysis. Qualitative research is becoming very popular to
use. Most marketing research firms, advertising agencies, and consumer goods manufacturers
perform qualitative research in addition to quantitative research for three primary reasons:
1. Qualitative research is generally cheaper than quantitative research and requires a
smaller sample size.
2. Because of the open-ended style of questioning in qualitative research, it provides an
understanding of in-depth consumer motivations that cannot be obtained by using only
quantitative research.
3. Qualitative research can be combined with quantitative research to improve overall
research effectiveness by providing key insights in consumer behavior.
Despite the increasing popularity of qualitative research, there are draw backs to using
qualitative research that lead some researchers to discount its use. The main draws backs
associated with qualitative research are:
1. It does not always detect small differences in the marketing mix (4 P’s). Many times it is
these small differences that lead to success or failure of a marketing strategy.
2. Because qualitative research uses small sample sizes, it is not always a good
representation of the actual population.
Because of these limitations, qualitative research should never be used as a replacement for
quantitative research. However, qualitative and quantitative research can be used together to
form a good understanding of the population and provide direction for a good marketing
strategy.
Focus Groups
There are several different forms of marketing research used today, including:
1. Focus groups.
2. One-on-one in-depth interviews.
3. Projective techniques.
Focus groups are one of the most widely used forms of qualitative research today. The
remainder of this tutorial will discuss what a focus group is and how to prepare to effectively
conduct one.
Focus groups are in-depth discussions on a particular topic or concept. They usually consist of
groups of six to ten participants who are led by a moderator and usually last one to two hours.
One of the main benefits of conducting a focus group is to provide interaction among
participants to investigate and take advantage of learning from the group dynamics. This is a
great advantage because one participant’s response to a question may be the stimulus for another
participant’s response, thus allowing the participants to work together to uncover their in-depth
motivations. The main purposes of a focus group are to:
1. Find out how consumers feel about a product.
2. Find out how a product fits into consumers’ lives.
3. Find out the emotional involvement participants have with the product.
Before conducting a focus group, there are several preparation steps that need to be conducted.
An appropriate setting should be found for conducting the focus group. This should be a setting
in which all of the participants can feel at ease. In addition, the setting should be such that it
allows the participants to write down responses to questions and other thoughts they may have
and share. The conference rooms in the upper floors of the Tanner Building are examples of an
appropriate setting for focus groups. In addition, some thought should go into selecting
participants for the focus group. A list of screening qualifications should be developed for
selecting the participants. For example, if a focus group is researching disposable diapers, the
participants should be people who are familiar with disposable diapers, such as mothers with
young children.
Next, a moderator needs to be selected. The moderator is the person who will conduct the
session and is primarily responsible for interpreting the results. In practice, focus group
moderators are people with skills in psychology, sociology, and personal communication. There
may be no members of a student group with extensive skills in psychology and sociology but at
the very least the group member(s) that conduct the focus group should have good personal
communication skills.
Finally, before conducting the focus group session, a written discussion guide should be
developed. This guide should include an outline of the topics that need to be covered. These
topics generally should be provided by the company for which the research is being conducted.
This guide allows the moderator to chart the progress of the focus group and allows them to keep
the group focused on the desired topics rather than aimlessly drifting from subject to subject
without covering the appropriate subjects. With this written guide, you are now ready to conduct
the focus group.
Following the focus group, the last step is to prepare a report of the session findings. This report
should contain an overall assessment of the session. It may describe common themes or attitudes
that were uncovered during the focus group, complete with quotes from participants.