Let customers sell themselves

Imagine getting 10 or so sales prospects in a room and having them tell you not only what they want to buy-but how to sell it to them. That's what well-executed focus groups are all about.

Focus groups are easily the most popular form of research used today and with good reason. They're fast and relatively inexpensive at about $3,000 per group.

When properly choreographed and run, focus groups reflect what a microcosm of society thinks and feels. When properly spaced over a variety of geographically dispersed locations, they accurately reflect how a cross-section of buyers will react to concepts in the real world. Used correctly, focus groups allow companies to "test market" ideas on an extremely efficient basis and learn a great deal about a category. It can be a unique R&D department-building on ideas through trial and error.

People will tell you that focus groups are not projectable, diagnostic, objective, or precise. They're wrong on all counts. The problem is that focus groups are misused.

A great deal of misuse stems from a desire to control what consumers say and do. Staying flexible and making adjustments is key. Negative feedback in a focus group is as important as positive feedback. Ideas that are discarded by consumers show companies possible pitfalls, prevent marketing pratfalls and point out things to avoid. They give companies the raw material of consumer viewpoints on which to structure a successful product, service, or ad.

It's the intensity of consumer reaction that focus groups allow that is a key part of the process. One insight gleaned from one stirring concept or question makes it all worthwhile. It's these insights into consumer reaction that allow marketing breakthroughs to be achieved.

Many focus groups go awry because companies want respondents to become marketing experts or to intellectualize about what they buy. That's wrong. You're the alleged expert. All you want is to have consumers react-just like they do in the real world.

Common Ailments

Now for the bad news. A focus group is also the quickest way to kill a good strategy. Here are 10 symptoms of focus group malaise and 10 solutions.

1. Death by preconceived notion. Every offhand remark heard in a focus group is gleaming evidence of what you wanted to hear going into the group. Symptoms include quotes in the back room like, "I knew they would say that" or "We knew that already, why are we here?" If something is said or done unexpectedly (or that goes against pre-existing research) dismiss the results by saying, "That's group dynamics at work," or "She's the oddball in the group."

The cure: Keep an open mind, stay flexible.

2. Understimulated respondents. Signs of a bored group are easy to spot: glazed eyes, yawn and requests for coffee, No-Doz or their respondent's fee.

Sure, you're paying respondents thirty five bucks, but that doesn't mean you should bore them to death. Bored consumers don't want to admit they like anything, because then they're going to have to sit there and discuss it!

The cure: Excite the consumers with real world probes, products and advertising. And then watch their eyes light up when they see something that turns them on.

3. Give up on your concept or new product too quickly. If the consumer dislikes an idea, drop it right away, before anyone finds out whose idea it was.

The cure: A minor change in positioning or product form. This may be the difference between the success or failure of a product. Consumers buy product benefits and emotional benefits together. When you separate the two, your product will get shot down every time. Rejection of a pet product or ad hurts, but watching your rival come up with the same idea you let a focus group shoot down hurts more.

4. Insist that your idea is good, whether consumers agree or not (the converse of ailment 3). Batter the consumers to into submission. Try hard enough and they'll say anything you want them to say. Keep harping on the product idea until they're forced to say something good about it. Then recommend a "go" to your company.

The cure: Be reasonable, guys. A product is good when consumers insist they would buy it-without coupons.

5. Kill a product based on one set of groups or one geographic location. If it doesn't play in New Jersey, it's not going to play anywhere else.

The cure: Not everyone is going to like your concept. In fact, there are whole regions who may take your concept, ad or product as a personal affront If at first you don't succeed, try, try again-but somewhere else.

6. Overanalyze the results of a group. Analyze the results to death. Listen to the tapes over and over. Over and over. Over and over. Take apart the concepts. What did the consumers really mean and why did they mean it? Attach deep psychological meanings to everything. Of course, the consumers raved over the product, but what do they know? They swore they would buy the product as soon as it was marketed. But does that mean they like it? How well will it graph?

The cure: When you show consumers something they like, you'll know. A simple, emotional response (yeah or nay) is a lot more valuable than a 125-page pseudo- psychographical analysis.

7. Ask consumers to read something. Sure, reading is a very private matter. And a focus group, where people are meeting other people for the first time, is a stressful, unnatural situation. It's virtually impossible to get consumers to comprehend anything about your idea until you make them read it. But make them do it anyway.

The cure: Read the concepts to consumers, then let them react.

8. Death in absentia. Encourage as few people as possible to attend the groups. They probably won't believe what the consumers said, but at least they'll be out of your hair.

The cure: Attend the groups (and try to get everyone else to, as well) instead of waiting for the book (the 125-page moderator's report that you requested but will never read). The most important parts of the focus group are the people behind the mirror.

9. The Know-it-all: the know-itall respondent and the know-it-all respondents who speak "for the buying public" and the know-it-all marketer who knows the buying public so well he translates everything the consumers are saying while their saying it. Any one of these will cut short any progress.

The cure: shoot `em.

10. The midnight postmortem. You've been sitting in a darkened room for six hours, trying to grasp more facts than the new IBM million K computer can hold. Make a decision right now that will affect the whole life of the project.

The cure: Don't. Resist all urges to recap. Go back to your hotel and sleep. Wait until the next day or so and you'll be amazed how everything comes together.