3 Top Tips for Running Effective Online Focus Groups

The shift to conducting more research online

It is fair to say that the most long-lasting change to our daily lives following the COVID-19 pandemic has been to the way we work. This is true as much for market research as it is for many other industries. Gone are the days of regular F2F meetings with clients and in-person interviews with research respondents. We now live in an era where we spend most of our working days plugged in to online communications channels to stay connected to our colleagues and clients.

There are many benefits of this shift to becoming more online for market researchers. Over the past few years, we have seen significant progress in the development of online research methods, including new usages for GenAI in online surveys where tailored prompts and probes can be shared with survey respondents as they input their responses.

In theory, our increasingly online lives should also mean that research audiences have greater availability to participate in research online, which opens new opportunities for reaching audiences typically regarded as more difficult to reach (i.e. in sectors which were slow to implement digitalization until they were forced to catch up in more recent years).

Changes to research methods – focus groups

One research method that has been impacted by this shift to online has been focus groups. Traditionally, the view has been that the most effective way to run focus groups is to get a group of research participants in a room together for several hours to go through a series of activities.

Having everyone together in-person has been regarded allows you to observe group dynamics and can be easier for keeping participants engaged as they are with you in the room. Research Director Emma Flood goes into more detail on the benefits of running these groups in person in her recent blog post.

Anyone who has been involved in setting up and running an in-person focus group will know, though, that there are often challenges to overcome before you’ve even got into the room. It can be difficult to organize and coordinate a group of people who are being asked to travel to a location and take time out of their daily lives to participate in the research. It is not uncommon to see drop-outs and complications on the day due to travel issues or other external factors.

The changes to the way we work in recent years have opened up new possibilities for running these groups online rather than in-person. Whilst the option to run focus groups online had been available for some time prior to the pandemic, our attitudes to being more generally online have impacted how we approach organizing focus group research – we see the opportunities of organizing groups across different time zones and a greater openness for participants to try different approaches online.

And, as with online survey methods, we have witnessed the development and improvement of online platforms that we can use for group research, with new capabilities for moderation and more interesting activity formats that can help to keep participants engaged.

Tips for running online focus groups effectively

As this method becomes a more established part of our research toolkit, B2B International has some tips to share from our experiences of running online focus groups to help you get the most out of this research method:

Test, test, and test your set up before going live

With any online method, you are setting up a platform for your respondents to work through independently. For this reason, you need to be absolutely sure that everything is working as you intended, as you will not have an interviewer on hand to account for any issues.

It’s a good idea to get several pairs of eyes on your set-up and work through this methodically (i.e. with reference to a set of instructions or a discussion guide) so you can spot any gaps or mistakes. This includes testing all of your materials and exercises.
Be open to experimenting with new ways of engaging participants

One of the key benefits of working with online focus group platforms is the range of options you have for setting up activities. Online focus group platforms are continuously developing and releasing new formats and ideas, and you will find you have new options each time you come to setting up a focus group online.

Whilst we all tend to think of our tried and tested tasks / activities first, it is worth spending some time exploring the platform as you design your research to see what is available to you.
Consider how you will handle moderation

One of the key benefits of running focus groups online is the flexibility you have. You may be limited to a relatively short timeslot with focus group participants face-to-face, whereas online platforms allow you the option to keep tasks and activities open for longer periods of time, i.e. over the course of a full week, allowing respondents to dip in and share the feedback at a time that’s convenient for them.

This does make moderating online focus groups a little trickier than in a face-to-face setting, as it requires having a clear idea on how you plan to stay on top of feedback that comes through. Moderation is no less important in an online setting than it is face-to-face, as you can’t simply rely on respondents to remain engaged in exchange for the flexibility you offer them through online methods. You should devise a plan with your team for how you will manage and respond to feedback you receive so you are not letting engagement dip.