A focus group involves bringing together a small group of people to discuss strengths and weaknesses of a brand or product. It is important to determine what information is needed from the focus group and hire a skilled moderator to facilitate discussion and draw out the desired information. Participants should be chosen through stratified or quota sampling to represent the target demographic. Qualitative research gathers descriptive information through open-ended questions to provide richer insights, while quantitative research uses numerical data from surveys and questionnaires that can be more easily analyzed at scale.

1. Evaluation 3
By Itamar Blauer

2. What is a focus group?
 A focus group is a group of people who have been chosen under quota or stratified sampling.
The focus group entails of the managers or sometimes CEO of a firm to discuss strengths and
weaknesses of a brand, as well as finding out who the key audience is for the product are
whilst also receiving feedback that could help alter the product itself or the way it is targeted at
the public.
 To gather the information, you must find out exactly what you want from the focus group. You
may want to address a certain problem or work out how to expand the demographic reach for
your product. Once you establish which questions you want answered, finding a good focus
group moderator is essential, as this person needs to have the ability to draw out information
you want from the focus group participants in a group discussion format. Usually hiring an
expert is the best solution for the highest quality results that answer all of the questions posed
from the focus group.
 Finally, decide what type of focus group participants you want. Some focus groups want
gender or age specific participants whereas others require ethnic or income-based
participants. The use of stratified sampling or quota sampling can be used, as stratified
sampling is a sample including a sub-category of the target population e.g. people aged 20-
40, whereas quota sampling is a sample including a pre-determined percentage of the sub-
category of the population e.g. 40% males earning over £25,000 and 60% females earning
over £25,000.

3. Qualitative research
 Qualitative research gathers information that is not numerical e.g. open
ended questionnaires and unstructured interviews. Qualitative data is
descriptive but harder to analyse than quantitative data. Qualitative data
can be far developed and can include personal feelings and thoughts
about a certain subject, which gives richer data to the person
conducting the research, however in-depth analysis is required to fully
gain the intended judgement of the data, however this is very time-
consuming.
A good example of qualitative research methods would be unstructured
and group interviews which generate qualitative data through the use of
open questions. By asking open questions, the researcher can develop
a personal connection with the person being questioned, therefore they
may be more honest and provide more helpful data. This is still rather
time-consuming since there is no limit as to how much the respondent
is allowed to say.

4. Quantitative research
 Quantitative research gathers numerical data which can be used
to draw conclusions and to create visual representations of the
data gathered e.g. bar charts and graphs.
 Quantitative data can be gathered through questionnaires and
surveys, which can entail a series of questions with multiple-
choice answers. This type of research can be analysed easily
and more respondents can complete them in quicker
succession, however the data given is sometimes not that
accurate considering how there is no room for respondents to
write down further information on what they think, leading to a
loss in integrity.