Thinking about conducting an online focus group but not sure where to start? You’re in the right place.
Online focus groups are a powerful way to gather real-time feedback from your target audience—without the hassle of travel, scheduling conflicts, or renting a facility. But to get the best insights, you need a solid plan.
In this guide, our focus group company walks you through the 7 essential steps to conducting a successful focus group online, from recruiting participants through analyzing the results. Whether you’re a first-timer or just looking to refine your approach, these tips will help you run a smooth and insightful session. Let’s dive in!
Ready to conduct an online focus group? Contact our team via our website or send us an email to get started.
Online focus groups are exactly how they sound. They are focus groups and they are completed online. Easy to understand, right?
Instead of recruiting groups of participants to hold in-person discussions around a table with a focus group moderator, participants are recruited into an online forum such as a Zoom video conference room (or equivalent software).
Similar to traditional, in-person focus groups, participants are able to share their feedback, thoughts, and answers to questions.
Key similarities to traditional focus groups include:
Watch this video for more of a brief synopsis.
In our experience, we’ve worked with hundreds of focus groups online and while there are many different types, there are two main ones that are most common.
Synchronous and asynchronous are the most common types of online focus groups.
Synchronous is mostly what everyone most likely thinks of when considering a focus group. It mimics being in-person, meaning everyone is active at the same time discussing questions and their answers.
It also allows for discussions between members and even body language can be a factor at play when considering the participants’ answers.
Asynchronous is like a recorded video where participants can join whenever, not necessarily at the same time.
It allows for convenience of the participants and some flexibility but lacks the group community aspect of other focus group types. Although, it can be valuable in some scenarios, like when talking about sensitive topics for example.
Either type of focus group can work for your company, if you’re unsure which is best – reach out to us. We’re focus group pros and we can help you decide what will help your company reach their research goals faster.
| Type | Description | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synchronous | Live, real-time discussion where all participants interact simultaneously. | -Mimics in-person experience -Encourages group discussions -Allows for body language cues | -Requires scheduling -Less flexibility for participants |
| Asynchronous | Participants respond at different times, like a recorded video. | -More convenient and flexible -Ideal for sensitive topics | -Lacks real-time interaction -No group discussion dynamic |
An example of an online focus group could be a consumer packaged goods brand testing new food packaging designs before launching a product.
A snack company wants to introduce a new line of high protein chips. Before committing to a final design, they conduct an online focus group to gather feedback from their target audience—health-conscious consumers aged 25-45.
By conducting this online focus group, the snack brand ensures their packaging resonates with consumers before investing in mass production, helping them make a data-driven decision.
Online focus groups are a growing trend in the market research industry because of the ability to deliver cost-effective qualitative insights in a shorter amount of time.
The main advantages of conducting remote focus groups mostly revolve around cost savings, time savings, and broader geographies for recruitment.
Each of these is discussed in more detail below.
Without the need to book a focus group facility or send a large team cross-country to moderate and analyze a session, online focus groups can significantly reduce the overhead of a qualitative project.
There is no project management time around booking or securing several aspects of the in-person groups.
| Save money on travel | No travel costs for the moderator. No travel costs for the analysts and note-takers. No travel costs for you as the client to watch the groups live. With online focus groups, all efforts are centered around logging into an online platform or website. No passport necessary! |
| Save money on stipends | Without requiring participants to travel to a facility, find directions, park, or take off work, you can lower the reward payout. For instance, a $200 reward becomes $100, or even a $150 reward can become $75. Asking someone to log in from the comfort of their own home is much easier than asking participants to face rush hour traffic to get to a facility by 5:30 p.m. |
| Save money on facility costs | Since the whole conversation between moderators, viewers, and participants is done online, there is no need for the overhead cost of a facility. It’s sometimes hard to replicate person-to-person and face-to-face contact, but if this is not critical for your project or your key customers are scattered throughout the country, online focus groups can save you on a tight budget here too. |
Another benefit to conducting video focus groups is time savings.
Without any logistics or travel time, the moderator and team can be more efficient by spending time reacting to answers and designing strong questions.
This is time better spent recruiting strong individuals, prepping a good moderator’s guide, and actively conducting research by moderating and viewing the focus groups live online.
The whole process is way more efficient.
Recruiting for online focus groups can be much easier (and therefore cheaper) than in-person focus groups.
For instance, if you are looking for a nationally representative sample, you no longer have to select 2 or 3 cities across the United States to host the focus groups.
Your online focus group sample can be made up of participants from Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Boston, Syracuse, and more.
Geography doesn’t matter as it would with a facility where you’d need to find participants close by to show up.
This can be especially beneficial for hard-to-reach participants or niche audiences.
Additionally, Drive Research finds these online focus groups work well for hard-to-reach, busy B2B professionals or C-level decision-makers who may not be able to put aside 2 to 3 hours to travel to a focus group and talk face-to-face.
Although you could cram 10 to 12 viewers into a client viewing room of a focus group facility, the room gets tight. The same can be said when trying to fit 30 participants in a room fit for 12.
You won’t have these issues with online focus groups.
Most systems also allow unlimited or a large number of seats for client viewers.
You can have 30-40 viewers sign on and watch the group lives without being elbow-to-elbow.
Geographical barriers are eliminated when finding participants for remote focus groups. This means opinions can be heard from participants around the country or even the world. 🌎🌎
With traditional in-person focus groups, location can be an issue if the audience you’re trying to target has a low incidence rate within that specific market.
Remote or video focus groups, on the other hand, allow qualitative recruitment teams to target audiences on a broader level, meaning quotas are a lot more likely to be met.
Pro tip! Our online focus group company recommends over-recruiting a bit.
So if you’d like 4 people to complete all phases of the focus group, sometimes 6-8 need to be recruited to account for drop-out.
This is much like a normal focus group. In those situations, if your company wants to sit 10 participants, firms will recruit 12+.
In this section, we will share how Drive Research finds participants for online focus groups to ensure a mix of qualified, articulate participants and a good show rate.
For a quick summary, the graphic below showcases our process.
Just like with a traditional, in-person focus group, Drive Research starts with an online recruitment screener to form a pool of pre-screened and potentially qualified participants.
The screener is then sent to the target audience members through an email panel or advertised via social media.
Either recruitment method allows you to target participants who closely align with any screening criteria you may have – such as gender, age, household income, purchasing history, etc.
Although the recruitment screener is sent to a specific audience, this initial survey is built to ask for essential qualifying information.
This helps give your team a list of prequalified participants to follow up with, rather than just starting blind with a random sample of people.
Once a list of pre-screened participants has been formed, our qualitative recruitment team adds another layer of qualification through a re-screening phone call.
During follow-up phone calls for the remote focus group, you should:
Once a participant is qualified and registered, it’s important for the recruiter to provide a clear explanation of exactly how the online focus group will work.
With a traditional in-person approach, it is easy to share with participants where the focus group facility is located and what time they should arrive.
However, there are more steps and access to technology to confirm with the participant before the day of the online focus groups.
Our online focus group company goes over this with the participant during the follow-up phone call, in a confirmation email, and throughout our reminder communications.
This level of communication is a major reason Drive Research does not adopt an automated market research recruitment. It is important nothing gets lost in translation.
When selecting participants for online focus groups, the recruiter should make sure the participant has either a laptop, desktop, smartphone, or tablet with a webcam and microphone, and internet access.
Without a device with such equipment, participating in an online focus group would be impossible.
The recruiter will also explain that they should have a quiet place to be for the entire duration of the group discussion.
To ensure the participant is prepared, you should also explain the logistics of the remote focus group, such as:
After explaining how the remote focus group will work, the recruiter will send a confirmation email shortly after the phone call.
The email will contain all of the important information discussed during the phone call, such as:
When recruiting for market research, it’s important participants reply to the email with a “yes” to confirm their seat in the online focus group and agree to the terms and conditions.
This last step is Drive Research’s key to success.
Our remote focus group company completes reminder calls the day before the group and sends out reminder texts the day of.
In our experience, these reminders are essential to a perfect show rate for remote focus groups.
During the reminder calls and texts, the recruiter is given another opportunity to explain the logistics of the online focus group and answer any questions.
Typically, we’ll remind participants they need to:
The best way to explain how Drive Research conducts online focus groups is with a real-world example.
The process is similar to a typical focus group. However, the group is held virtually.
In this section, we will outline our online focus group project executed on behalf of a leading manufacturer of an over-the-counter cold product.
The steps to conducting online focus groups include:
In your search for an online focus group company, you will likely receive a few proposals.
In a market research proposal, you will be able to review the project timeline, process, and scope. The length and detail of a proposal will vary with each vendor.
It may be a multi-page PDF document, or it may be a quote in an email string. When you make your choice of a remote focus group company, you will sign a document that outlines the responsibilities of both parties.
Once the proposal is signed, the project can begin!
Looking to create a market research RFP? Use our free-to-download template.
A kick-off meeting is important when executing any type of market research study. It allows the client and third party to understand the process, timeline, and main objectives.
During our kick-off meeting for the online focus group, our team learned what type of participants the cold product manufacturer wanted to recruit for the focus groups.
For this project, all participants were required to have used a cold product during the previous cold season (October 2018 through March 2019).
Each group consisted of 4 females and 2 males, aged 35 to 54, and a mix of other demographics.
The 3 online focus groups were also separated by those who were users or brand loyalists to (1) the sponsor of the online focus group (2) a competitor (3) a competitor.
Participants are recruited as they usually would (through phone lists, panels, social media, etc.) and are asked to join an online focus group.
For this client, Drive Research recruited a total of 6 participants per online focus group. This was achieved by reaching out to our in-house targeted panel of participants living in the United States.
Our team also shared organic social media posts to attract interest from our thousands of followers.
Those who qualified through the pre-screener survey were then rescreened by telephone to answer additional questions.
From there, qualified participants received a confirmation email in the form of a calendar invite. By doing so, participants are asked to reply “yes” as another form of confirmation.
Additionally, the online focus group participants received a reminder call a day or two before the study was set to take place.
Lastly, on the day of the online focus group (both Monday and Wednesday) participants were sent a final reminder text message.
Though what may seem extremely thorough, this qualitative recruitment process of constant reminders helps our market research firm achieve a high participation rate.
Those who participated in the online focus groups received a $75 stipend, processed by Drive Research, as a thank-you for their time and insights.
A moderator’s guide is a document used by an online focus group moderator or interviewer to help standardize and add structure to the group discussion.
It includes a series of sequenced questions that are pre-written before the fieldwork.
This is essentially the open-ended survey document used by the moderator to ask good thought-provoking questions during the focus group or interview.
Moderator’s guides are the key to successful qualitative research, especially remote focus groups. It is a useful tool to ensure the discussion stays on track and that all objectives are addressed for your organization.
A moderator’s guide for an online focus group includes the following 4 components.
1. An introductory page.
This section is for internal use only. An introductory page labels the date(s), type(s) of groups, and the screening criteria used to recruit the participants.
2. An introduction or warm-up
This section is for the participants. It includes a little background from the moderator, ground rules, timing of the group, what to expect, and what the results of the research are used for.
It’s always good to include a fun and interactive warm-up activity to help get people comfortable and talking from the onset.
3. Section-by-section breakdown
A section-by-section breakdown of the online focus groups according to the objectives and themes of the research. Virtual focus groups typically work like a funnel.
You start off with very general questions and topics before getting into the meat of the discussion around the middle of the group or toward the end.
These sections are typically time-stamped to help guide the moderator through the 60-minute to 2-hour discussion.
4. A Conclusion
This wraps up any loose ends, including final thoughts or comments.
For this particular qualitative recruitment project, there were a total of 2 waves of 3 online focus group sessions.
In order to join the online focus group for the cold product, participants were required to use a meeting ID to sign into Zoom, a video communications company that provides remote conferencing services.
For this reason, participants needed to be on a device of sorts, whether it be a desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet with a webcam. Particularly participants using a smartphone or tablet needed to download a free app to take part in the focus group online.
During fieldwork, our online focus group company and moderator could assign observers or viewers to the board.
Here, the moderator grants access to team members from the cold manufacturer product sponsor.
This allowed the client to write comments on the forum, which can only be seen by the moderator.
As a result, the moderator was able to follow up with participant questions based on specific questions from the client.
Most commonly, an online focus group report includes a background of the study as well as key findings from the group discussion.
The background and methodology section for this client included:
The key findings section of a market research report outlines high-level questions asked in the online focus group.
It shares overall sentiment and responses from the participants. This section is most helpful in finding actionable insights to drive business decisions forward.
Lastly, our online focus group company includes an appendix in the report. The appendix includes both the recruitment screener survey and the moderator’s guide.
Drive Research has years of experience conducting focus groups online. Our experts have learned how to execute a seamless study for both our participants and our clients.
In this section, Drive Research will share several tips every organization should know before starting an online focus group project.
Tips for successfully conducting online focus groups include:
Several top video-conferencing platforms (such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, or GoToMeeting) are familiar to many individuals and can be used to conduct a virtual focus group discussion.
While there are platforms designed specifically for video focus groups that provide additional features to support your recruitment process, the research discussion, and the analysis, they aren’t a “must” for getting started.
The tool you ultimately decide on depends heavily on the goals of your qualitative research discussion and the comfort level your organization has with the technology.
Allow participants to connect via their smartphones. For the most part, smartphones are easily accessible to general consumers and are a great tool for participating in video focus groups.
With that said, it’s important to provide some guidance for participants such as:
One of the advantages of conducting in-person focus groups is that you have a captive audience, free from distractions.
For video focus groups, it’s important to ask your participants to find a quiet space for the duration of the discussion.
This could be a private office, bedroom, or another space, as long as it’s not outside, a loud space, or the participant trying to complete the discussion on the go.
Participants should be asked if they’ll be able to find a private space for the discussion during phone screenings.
It’s important to request participants log in 5 to 10 minutes early.
Budgeting this additional time allows the participant and moderator to navigate last-minute technology issues (i.e. software updates, re-connecting a microphone, etc.).
This will ensure the moderator and participants can jump right into the research discussion without eating into the allotted time.
This time is also spent laying out the focus group ground rules.
Incentives should be distributed immediately after the conclusion of the research discussion.
Research participants are typically paid at the end of an in-person interview or in-person focus group.
There’s no reason to not pay rewards at the end of the online video focus groups. The rewards can easily be sent out in the form of eGift cards (i.e. Visa, Amazon, etc.).
It’s incredibly important to treat your research participants well and reward them in a timely manner. Research cannot be conducted without them!
Some of the best examples of focus groups in marketing are when participants are rewarded immediately.
Drive Research is a New York market research company that conducts online focus groups across the country. We work with organizations to design, recruit, and moderate remote focus group sessions with key customers and non-customers.
Online focus groups can provide the same qualitative in-depth feedback as a traditional focus group, but at a fraction of the cost.
Interested in partnering with our team for your next online focus group?
