What Kind of Questions to Ask in Focus Groups

Market research is an overarching term for gathering information from you customers almost your business, and focus groups are i way to comport market enquiry.

Whether your focus group's goal is to give feedback on a product or service or help you assess how your brand stands out in your competitive landscape, thought-provoking, open-ended questions are essential to a productive discussion.

Focus group questions should dive into the mind of a consumer. What practise they recall? How practise they make their decisions? You lot want more than than a yes or no answer, and your questions need to generate them. However, it is easier said than done. What can you ask beyond "What do you think of our product?" to provoke the most fruitful answers?

Hither, nosotros have compiled the virtually insightful questions yous tin can ask in your next focus grouping to get the best insights from your participants.

Re-create-and-paste the questions you like beneath into this annotation taking template for a set up-to-go, printable certificate you lot tin can bring to the session.

Featured Resources: Market Research Focus Grouping Template

Download the Template

For a costless template for annotation taking during focus groups, a guide on conducting marketplace enquiry, and several other templates, download our Market place Research Kit.

Sample Focus Group Questions

1. How did you learn about our visitor?
2. When was the concluding time you lot purchased a product/service in our manufacture?
3. How frequently practise y'all use our production/service?
4. If you lot could alter i thing about our product/service, what would it be?
5. What kind of problems have you experienced when using our production/service?
6. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of our product?
7. What companies do you think are at the top of our industry?
8. What is the first matter you lot consider when buying a product?
9. Where do you go to receive information about our company?
10. Is there anything else y'all would like to say well-nigh our company or production?

Focus Grouping Question Examples for Building Trust Among Focus Grouping Members

Before diving into deeper questions, information technology'south best to warm upwardly the group with a couple of open-concluded questions that allow participants to become to know each other a little bit. Participants should have the freedom to decide how much they want to share with the group. Don't force anyone to share something they may non feel comfortable sharing.

By including a question that allows people to talk most something tangential to the topic of the focus group, your participants volition begin to build empathy for each other. That empathy can grow into trust, which is essential for eliciting honest insights out of your grouping.

Here are a few questions you might enquire to build trust:

• "Share an attribute of your work or life experience that has brought you hither today."
• "Why did you determine to bring together our focus group today?"
• "When and how did y'all outset come beyond our brand/product/service?"

Focus Group Question Examples to Encourage Follow-up and Continuation of Ideas

The most helpful insights that come from focus groups are often the most specific points. Challenge your participants to reflect on their comments if something sparks your marvel. For instance:

• "That's a fascinating signal that [name] just said — what exercise y'all all think of that?"
• "Do you agree or disagree with [name]'s statement, and why?"
• "[Proper name], you've been a chip quiet recently. Did y'all have any thoughts on this topic that you wanted to share?"

Focus Group Question Examples for Understanding Customer Perception of Your Product or Service

These questions will help y'all understand how people truly feel virtually your brand, product, or service. The focus here is on your company -- not the larger industry landscape or your competitors.

Avoid stopping conversation here unless the group gets sidetracked. Open up-concluded questions can exist daunting at first. Participants may non know where to start. All the same, hearing from the other participants will spark reflection on various aspects of your product or service. Be sure to allow each group member who has something to say to speak upward before moving on to the adjacent question.

• "How would you depict our company to other people?"
• "How would you describe our product/service to other people?"
• "What words or feelings come to mind when y'all call back virtually our company?"
• "How likely are you to recommend our production/service to a friend?"
• "How well do yous feel we contain feedback from you, our customers, into our service/product?"
• "What ultimately pushed y'all to purchase this product/service?"
• "Where would you buy this product/service?"
• "What do you similar virtually this product that y'all may not find in a like one?"
• "When you call back virtually our manufacture, which brands come to mind first?"
• "Which other brands in our industry did yous consider when you were shopping around?"
• "Why didn't you go with one of our competitors?"
• "What other products/services come to listen when you await at this one?"

Focus Group Question Examples to Larn What Your Leads and Customers Want to See From Y'all

Listening to your customers' feedback and suggestions for improvement is crucial to retaining customers and turning them into promoters of your brand. It may be hard to hear the answers to these questions, but turning customer hurting points around volition elevate your product or service to the next level.

Avoid defending your production or service or setting whatsoever limitations on these questions. Instead, frame them in a way that allows anyone to vocalism their feelings. Recognize that it can be daunting for anyone (especially people with whom y'all've built relationships) to share negative feedback, so thank them for their artlessness.

• "If you could moving ridge a magic wand and alter one thing about our product/service, what would it be?"
• "What would you nearly like to add to or improve near this product?"
• "What do y'all envision is the lifespan of this product/service before you upgrade or supplant it?"
• "Is there anything we haven't touched on today that you would similar us to know?"

Focus Grouping Question Examples for Understanding Your Heir-apparent Personas

The following questions will help y'all empathize the motivations of your target buyer persona, their habits, their responsibilities and decision-making power, and their preferences.

These questions volition spark discussion about topics other than your company, product or service, and the competitive landscape.

Don't worry if the conversation seems to stray far from your make. The insights that people share will likely reveal what they find significant in their life and work. However, yous must keep the group focused on the specific question y'all ask.

• "Describe your chore championship and your day-to-twenty-four hour period responsibilities."
• "What is one chore where you lot feel you spend way too much time?"
• "How exercise you define success in your role/your life?"
• "What is the biggest challenge you face when it comes to the problem that this production is supposed to solve?"
• "When you browse online, on which websites practice you spend most of your time?"
• "What are the first iii apps you open on your telephone in the morning?"
• "How practise you prefer to receive communications from our company? (Specify what type of communication here — production updates, renewal notices, product/service coaching, meeting reminders, urgent alerts, etc.)"
• "Would you lot be the i using this product/service most in your household/job? If non, who would exist?"

Focus Group Question Examples for Competitor Research

These questions should spark give-and-take about the brands in your industry that are summit-of-listen for consumers. It helps remove whatsoever biases that your squad might have every bit people who work in the industry and know various players very well.

To encourage honesty, avert like-minded with disparaging comments made nigh your competitors. Instead, use the opportunity to ask follow-upwardly questions about what the participants don't like nigh a specific product or brand.

Competitive enquiry helps you lot identify competitors while besides evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. This information allows yous to compare how your products align within the industry and pinpoint any industry trends you lot may take disregarded.

• "What companies come up to listen when y'all think of our industry?"
• "Which company practise you consider kickoff when shopping in our manufacture and why?"
• "What are these companies doing well?"
• "What do these companies need to improve?"
• "What products/services exercise they have that you'd like to run across from us?"
• "What would it take for another company to shell out your top choice in our industry?"

To acquit a complementary research-based analysis of your competitors, download our Market Research Kit to admission a Southward.W.O.T. analysis template.

Download the Template

Focus Group Question Examples for Generating Content on Your Industry

You might be looking to develop a content strategy for your brand, co-operative out into a new content medium, or generate new content ideas. Any successful content strategy prioritizes what your target buyer persona finds most engaging. A focus group is an effective way to ensure that yous produce material on the right topics in the medium that your audition wants to consume.

• "What is one recent trend you lot have noticed in our industry?"
• "What is ane strategy or tactic yous recall is underrated in our industry?"
• "Where do you go to go a pulse on the things going on in our industry?"
• "Who are the people in our industry who y'all look to as experts?"
• "What format of content do y'all consume to go along up with our industry? Social media posts? Blogs/long-form posts? Podcasts? News outlets?"
• "Which specific sources do you go to for data on our industry?"
• "What gaps do you see in the content about our manufacture online? What are the topics on which you would similar to come across more than education?"

Focus Group Question Examples for Understanding Product Demand for Something You Haven't Yet Put Out in the Market place

These eleven questions volition help you lot understand the demand for a new product or service. These questions will uncover ownership habits for a production yous envision and whether there is a true production-market fit.

• "What was your offset reaction to the product?"
• "How often do yous/would you use this type of product?"
• "Would you be the one deciding to purchase this production/service? If not, who would be?"
• "When and where exercise you use our production?"
• "When you lot think about the production, exercise you recall of information technology as something you lot absolutely need, something you lot could practice without, or something that'due south somewhere in the eye?"
• "How much would y'all exist willing to pay for a product like this?"
• "How would you ideally similar to buy this product? Would you talk to a sales rep, or would you prefer to purchase it on your ain?"
• "What do you think this production is missing?"
• "How would you describe someone you call up would utilise this product/service?"
• "If you ended up liking your experience with this product, could you see yourself repurchasing it? If so, how frequently?"
• "If yous could either accept this production/service or the equivalent dollar value for you/your business, which would y'all choose? Why? (Specify the dollar value of your production/service when asking this question.)"

Focus Grouping Question Examples for Branding

The post-obit questions aid run word association brainstorms and generate potential names for a new product or visitor.

• "What words come up to mind when you call up of our product category? (Example: "What words come to mind when y'all recall of nutrient delivery?")"
• "What words come up to listen when you think of [insert a word that symbolizes the main value prop of your product/service here - for case, 'efficiency,' 'speed,' 'health']?"

If you accept candidate names already:

• "What is your initial reaction to this name?"
• "What words come up to listen when y'all hear this proper name?"
• "How would you pronounce this? (Spell out the name on a piece of paper or whiteboard.)"

Ask, and you shall receive.

In your concern, your consumer is the almost important person. What they think is central to your business strategy — how they view your company and industry, what drives them to brand a purchase, what their interests are. The answers to the to a higher place focus grouping questions will shape how you approach your business organization. You now have dozens of questions to get the conversation started, and y'all didn't even have to ask.

Editor'southward notation: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Mar 31, 2022 seven:00:00 AM, updated March 31 2022

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Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/22025/5-focus-group-questions-to-feed-your-content-marketing.aspx