What Is a Focus Group in 100 Words or Less [+ Pros and Cons]

在理想的世界中，您会知道您的产品或商业想法将如何感知到before它发行了。这些知识可以帮助您改变您提供的最佳接待，并更好地告知您的销售预测和营销策略。

Sadly, you'll never knowexactly目标受众将如何收到您的销售方式，这就是为什么公司进行市场研究。

But, while mass data collection through surveys provides you with necessary quantitative information, it doesn't offer as much qualitative insight into your target market's view or opinion of what you're selling.

This is where a focus group comes in.

那么，什么是焦点小组，它如何帮助您浏览市场研究？接下来，让我们探讨这两个问题。

What is a focus group?

在企业市场研究的背景下，焦点小组是参与有关企业，品牌，产品和/或服务的指导性讨论的人群。

通常，焦点小组是由业务代表促进的，由业务目标市场中的个人组成，他们在主题上分享他们的思想和意见或提出的主题。

焦点小组通常意味着主持tive or representatives of the company, who ask 5-10 questions to the participants over the course of 30-60 minutes, with another facilitator keeping notes on the焦点小组问卷。

Follow Along With a Free Focus Group Questionnaire Template

集线器's Market Research Kitincludes a questionnaire template to use in your focus groups, as well as four more templates to aid you in your market research efforts. You candownload the kit here帮助您计划焦点小组和市场研究。

You can also read more about the process of conducting an effective focus group in our blog post,如何为您的业务运行焦点小组。

Next, let's explore the pros and cons of a focus group.

The Pros of a Focus Group

1. You get the story behind the data.

In focus groups, qualitative data takes center stage. Survey data is unbelievably powerful, but it's hard to understand the rationale for the numbers without context. Focus groups are a way to understand how someone truly feels about your business and provide thewhy数据后面。

If someone answers a question in a way that interests you, you'll have the chance to dig deeper. Ask “Why?” See how the other participants feel about the specific answer. Gauge facial expressions and tone of voice to see how people react to what you're talking about. You'll end up with the emotional input from your target market that your surveys may not be able to provide.

2.焦点组是互动的。

Those responding to a survey or a questionnaire can't pick up your products or use them, but theycanin a focus group. If the subject of your focus group is tangible, observe and ask questions about how participants use the product and feel about the packaging and design.

Here, you'll see your product through the end-users' eyes, which can help you realize something you hadn't before.

3.它们比面试更有效。

Interviewing individuals can take much longer than running focus groups with the same amount of people. Say you want to interview 100 people, and each interview or focus group takes one hour. Getting the opinions of those 100 people would take 100 hours if interviewed, but only 20 hours if participants were broken up into groups of five.

This way, you can get qualitative feedback from multiple people in a shorter amount of time — an enormous time saver, especially if most of your participants think alike.

The Cons of a Focus Group

1.它们不是完全代表的。

您从焦点小组的意见深度中获得的收益，您会损失样本量。

因为焦点小组需要比调查更长的时间，所以您会在数十个或数百人的时间内听到比您通过自己的调查或探索二级研究（例如先前进行的研究或调查）来听到成千上万人的消息。

This constricts the amount of people whose input you'll receive, which means your findings may not represent the opinions of your entire target market.

2.他们可以鼓励集体思考。

Have you ever been in a meeting where one or two people voice an idea you disagree with, but everyone else agrees with the idea before you have the chance to say your piece?

结果，也许您决定同意这个想法...即使您不是最大的粉丝？

That's called集体思考，当一个团体在一个发声的想法背后集会，并非每个人都认为是为了继续前进或试图避免冲突是正确的。

焦点小组可以迅速变成一个或两个提供大部分答案的参与者，而其他四个或五个默默地点头同意。问题是您现在只从两个参与者那里获得意见，而不是整个焦点小组。

You can avoid this by calling on specific group members to answer in-depth, but some may be reluctant due to shyness or disinterest.

3.您的焦点小组主持人可能有确认偏见。

焦点小组主持人通常会附上相关项目，并且可以进入会议，以了解他们认为它将或希望它去的位置。

例如，一个主持人可能希望以某种方式定价，包装或涂色产品，并可以将讨论带入该结论。这被称为observer dependency。

For instance, let's say one moderator wants a product to be colored blue, and poses the open question to the group:"What color should this be?"

After everyone responds — and no one says blue — she might ask,“What about blue, would that work?”Everyone silently nods, and she notes that the group agreed blue would be a good color, despite that being far from the perfect truth.

为了克服这一点，应明确指示焦点小组主持人将其个人偏好放在一边，并充当客观的小组主持人。您还可以与市场研究公司合作，该公司对产品或主题的兴趣通常比实际创建它的企业的兴趣少。

焦点小组可能不是收集数据的最有效来源，但是如果适当地使用，他们可以在您收集的统计数据和定量数据背后放置一个面孔和情感，以更好地为您的业务，营销和产品开发提供信息。

请记住，当主持人提前组织思想并在会议上对焦点小组问卷进行笔记时，焦点小组是最有效的 - 您可以在我们的市场研究套件中免费访问。