Top Tips to Conduct Successful Online Focus Groups

Conducting online discussion groups can be quite beneficial when looking to gather quality health services research data. Not only do focus groups present a quicker and more convenient method for collecting qualitative data, as compared to traditional face-to-face group meetings, they are also fairly inexpensive. Additionally, online focus groups have no geographical constraints as people can participate remotely. Conducting successful online focus groups can ensure relevant and result-oriented interactions between the moderator and participants. When conducted diligently, online focus groups can help foster a comfortable environment for participants to provide their honest opinions, minimizing instances of influence by external factors. In this blog, we are going to look at 3 tips to conduct successful online focus groups for healthcare market research.

1. Set concrete goals

Irrespective of the qualitative research methodologies you employ, it helps if you begin the process with a set learning objective. The same principle goes for conducting online focus groups for health services research. Before you plan your online focus group sessions, you must spend enough time figuring out the exact insights you expect to gain or the ideas you wish to validate. You must also prepare a list of questions that you want participants to answer. An average focus group discussion lasts approximately 90 minutes. So, you must have enough questions to cover the entire session. 

2. Select the right participants

You must be absolutely sure of the target population you need to reach out to get data that allows you to derive maximum insights. For instance, when conducting health care research, you may need to involve multiple target groups. However, not all groups have equal needs and demands. The same questionnaire might not be suitable for all of the groups. For health data research, you might want to gather responses from patients and health care providers while research in nursing and health may require gathering information and data from frontline medical workers. That is why you need to choose your target audience carefully for an effective focus group. You cannot put everyone in a single group and expect to derive groundbreaking insights from the data that you gather.

Final word

When it comes to conducting health services research, you must make sure that you have the right partner by your side. It helps to work with one of the leading medical market research firms. Search the web for a healthcare market research company that has a good reputation in the market and a wealth of relevant experience.