What's the best way to conduct a PR research focus group?

1 Define your objectives

Before you start recruiting participants or designing questions, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your focus group. What are the main topics or issues you want to explore? What are the specific questions or hypotheses you want to test? How will the results inform your PR decisions or actions? Having well-defined objectives will help you set the scope, duration, and format of your focus group, as well as the criteria for selecting participants.

2 Select your participants

The quality of your focus group depends largely on the quality of your participants. You want to choose people who represent your target audience, have relevant experience or knowledge, and are willing and able to share their opinions. Depending on your objectives, you may want to segment your participants by demographic, psychographic, or behavioral characteristics, or use a mix of different profiles. Ideally, you should have between six and 12 participants per focus group, and conduct at least two or three groups to compare and contrast the results.

3 Design your questions

The questions you ask in your focus group should be open-ended, engaging, and focused on your objectives. You want to avoid leading, biased, or complex questions that may influence or confuse your participants. You also want to avoid yes-or-no questions that may limit the depth and richness of the responses. A good way to structure your questions is to start with broad and general questions that warm up the participants, then move to more specific and probing questions that elicit more details and examples, and finally end with summary and closing questions that wrap up the discussion.

4 Prepare your materials

To run a smooth and effective focus group, you need to prepare some materials in advance, such as a moderator's guide, a consent form, a participant's profile, and a recording device. The moderator's guide should include an introduction, the main questions, the follow-up questions, and the closing remarks. The consent form should explain the purpose, procedures, and confidentiality of the focus group, and ask for the participants' permission to record and use the data. The participant's profile should collect some basic information about the participants, such as their name, age, occupation, and media habits. The recording device should be reliable and discreet, and allow you to capture both the audio and the video of the focus group.

5 Moderate your focus group

The role of the moderator is to facilitate the discussion, encourage participation, and ensure that the objectives are met. The moderator should be neutral, respectful, and attentive, and avoid expressing their own opinions or judgments. The moderator should also be flexible and adaptable, and be able to adjust the questions or the pace of the discussion according to the dynamics of the group. The moderator should also be aware of the non-verbal cues and the group norms that may affect the communication and the feedback of the participants.

6 Analyze your results

The final step of conducting a PR research focus group is to analyze the results and draw conclusions. This involves transcribing, coding, and interpreting the data, and identifying the main themes, patterns, and insights that emerge from the discussion. You should also compare and contrast the results from different groups, and look for similarities and differences among the participants. You should also evaluate the strengths and limitations of your focus group, and consider how the results can be applied or validated in other contexts or methods.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?