Marketing Essentials 2012Chapter 29:
Conducting Marketing ResearcheMarketing FeatureWeb Panels—Online Focus Groups
Consumer Web panel research is conducted by marketing research companies that have access to a large representative population in a geographic area. Since the marketing research firm has the demographic information of its panel members, the sample can be statistically accurate for any target population with regard to age, gender, marital status, education level, etc. Online focus groups are essentially forum discussion groups (chat rooms) that take place online led by trained moderators. Effective online focus groups are usually limited to ten or fewer pre-selected participants. Open-ended discussion questions scripts usually work best and allow the moderator to interject questions in response to what is being communicated by the participants. Online focus groups are easily recorded so marketers can study transcripts of the sessions. Innovate and Create
Have students design an online focus group for a topic of their choice. They should base their research on a specific research question and objectives. Their script (open-ended questions) needs to be correlated with the objectives in order to produce the information needed to answer the research question.  | 
