Focus Groups: How much do they help?

Focus group testing dates back to World War II, when they were used by the U.S. government to test the impact of military propaganda. The results revealed which messages were most effective in increasing people’s support of the war. Marketers jumped on the bandwagon in the 1950’s, using focus groups to gather insight on people’s motivations, behaviors, and preferences. Today, focus groups are a common marketing research technique used to evaluate products, messaging, advertising, and pretty much anything and everything you can think of.

But the big question is, do they work?
Yes and no.

Marketing is part science and part art—and focus group testing is a research strategy that leans toward science. It’s largely about collecting and analyzing data, and then making decisions based on those findings. There’s certainly value in that. But it’s not the whole story. The problem comes in when marketers put too much stock in focus group testing alone. Sure, focus groups can add value by providing information and insight that can’t be gleaned from other methods. But the focus group format comes with its share of limitations, too.

When it comes to the artistic side of marketing, there’s a faction that claims focus groups kill creativity. By overthinking an idea, product, or service in a focus group setting, the authenticity of the actual experience is lost. Plus, nearly everything—no matter how brilliant—can be picked apart until there’s nothing good about it left. Not to mention the fact that the best marketing—the really bold, effective, groundbreaking stuff—is often risky. Great ideas—the ones that get talked about, shared on social media, and blogged about—can be polarizing.

In a group, it’s often the mediocre ideas that rise to the top because those are the safe, obvious, politically correct ones everyone can agree on—the ones that won’t offend anyone. Concepts that test well in focus groups are often those that appeal to the lowest common denominator. That’s not to say ideas that rise to the top of focus groups are bad. Only that a lot of unique, groundbreaking work gets overlooked because it doesn’t test well in a focus group environment.

But those things are just the tip of the iceberg in the focus group debate. Here’s a look at some of the key pros and cons:

Pros:

• They provide feedback from a specific demographic, as well as the ability to compare the results of different demographics against each other.
• Focus group testing can save time and money by providing insight into a product, service, or idea before a marketer invests many more thousands (or millions) of dollars. There’s always value in receiving feedback—as long as the context of the feedback is considered.
• They provide valuable work-in-progress data in a fairly inexpensive way that can allow a marketer to tweak their product, service, or idea before it’s fully released into the marketplace.
• They allow for back-and-forth discussion and follow-up questions about why somebody likes or doesn’t like something. This in-depth feedback is difficult to get elsewhere.
• Focus groups can produce a wider range of feedback than other research strategies—and open-ended questions can generate interesting responses and unexpected insights.
• Focus groups allow marketers to witness the first-hand reaction by their target audience—and to see how customers interact with the product.

Cons:

• Peer pressure can lead people to agree with the group as a whole, misrepresenting individual opinions and preventing honest or contradictory feedback.
• Knowing that a product, service, or idea will be focus group-tested can lead to safe, mediocre work that’s designed to test well, rather than being the best, most interesting work possible.
• Creativity can suffer due to the influence of lowest common dominator feedback.
• A controlled environment doesn’t necessarily reflect the way people would interact with the product or concept in real life.
• Focus group results can be unreliable due to the small sample size and unnatural environment.
• Moderators can inadvertently influence the data by the way they pose their questions and follow up on them.
• Reliability of the data can suffer because respondents often want to please the interviewer, guess the goals of the research, or give off a certain impression.
• Some participants may not be able to articulate their opinions or feelings, and just agree with the group to make things easy, thereby skewing the data.
• Focus groups aren’t for all things. Some types of products, services, and ideas may test better—and yield more useful feedback—than others.

So where does this leave us? Well, while focus groups do provide valuable customer feedback, it’s important to also be aware of their limitations and take the data with a grain of salt. Best thing is to use focus groups as part of a broader research strategy, without relying on them too heavily. They may not be perfect, but even so, focus groups can still provide valuable insight and feedback that is hard to find elsewhere.