The first step to organising an effective focus group is to clearly define the purpose of the research. This will identify what you want the discussion to accomplish, and which demographic of participants best supports that outcome. Selecting participants who are qualified to take part has a huge impact on the success of the research.
Once you have defined your participant demographic, the next step is to decide how the participants are associated with your business. Depending on the purpose of the research, focus groups can consist of regular customers, one-time purchasers, lost customers, past customers or even individuals who have no connection with your business at all.
The next step is to select a market research agency or independent research moderator. Our recommendation is that this person should be from outside of your organisation. Therefore, they don’t have any pre-determined opinions on the purpose of the research and are completely unbiased. If you would like to host a focus group with participants who have never interacted with or purchased from your business, you will need to select a research agency who can provide the participants.
At My View Research we have a panel of over 2,500 participants who can take part in different research methods, based on the required participant demographic.