Focus groups for market research have been used in nearly every industry imaginable over the years for everything from product feedback to company taglines, slogans, names, and even individual domain URL addresses. In many cases, corporate executives try to implement these research techniques themselves. However, many companies spend a great deal of valuable resources conducting these surveys incorrectly. Without a clearly defined primary issue of focus and without a proper evaluation strategy in place, all of your time and money may well be wasted.

Loss of valuable opinions can be crucial.

In any type of focus group, there are bound to be a wide range of personality profiles, whether the market research is being conducted face-to-face or online. Some attendees will be more dominant than others. Others will be less willing to vocalize their opinions until someone else starts the conversation. Therefore, it is very important to vary the types of interaction during the session in order to keep the attention of all participants and to acquire quality feedback from each individual. An effective moderator is very observant of these many different behavioral traits and will adjust the session dialogue accordingly.

Transcription services can also catch useful, underlying issues.

By transcribing all of the comments and individual conversations of the focus group, company leaders can use this essential information later to analyze important keywords and phrases which might come in useful for later strategies in digital advertising. Having your participants only complete a pre written questionnaire at the end of the session may cause you to miss out on some rather important marketing opportunities. While many companies who conduct their own market research ignore the transcription services as a way of reducing costs, the credibility of the total amount of information acquired is actually significantly compromised due to this lack of attention to detail.