The Evolution of Focus Groups and Your Marketing Strategy

Focus groups have been used by companies as a way to learn more about a consumer’s perceptions, ideas, and attitudes about a product or brand. Unlike an interview or survey, members of a focus group interact and influence one another – reflecting the way people naturally influence each other in the real world.

Today, companies are shifting away from focus groups, relying more on mobile data analytics and quantitative evaluation to learn about their customers and drive their marketing strategy.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Focus Groups

Focus groups, while useful, do have significant weaknesses. They can be expensive and time-consuming. Results can also be influenced by group dynamics such as peer pressure, moderator bias, or the presence of a dominating personality in the group.

Additionally, group discussions can be difficult to steer or control, causing lost productive time to irrelevant topics. One of the benefits of focus groups is that observers can gather non-verbal responses, but these cues are very easy to misinterpret. While focus groups can provide some insight into consumer preferences, they don’t provide a solid benchmark for marketing teams to drive their marketing strategy.

The Growing Importance of Data Analytics in Marketing

Companies can enhance the information gathered from focus groups while still gaining a deep understanding of the consumer to drive their marketing strategy as a result of the advancements that have been made in data gathering and analytics.

The sheer amount of unstructured data that is currently being generated is overwhelming. For example, on Facebook alone, 100 terabytes of data are uploaded daily. Brands on Facebook receive 34,722 likes per minute, and most of this activity takes place on a mobile device. Statista found that in 2017, 95.1% of active Facebook users accessed their accounts on a mobile device.

Using data science, a marketer can break down the behavior of mobile consumers based on the enormous amounts of information gathered from smartphone and tablet usage. This can lead to valuable insights into consumer attitudes, preferences, and perceptions.

Astute marketers can use mobile data insights to identify patterns in consumer behavior and interests, and use that data to build consumer profiles – even tracking on a 1:1 level, testing for the accuracy of predicted behaviors.

Data insights can then drive decision-making for developing advertising campaigns including promotions, product price and positioning, and measuring and improving marketing ROI.

Companies that leverage Mobile data and analytics from data providers like Mobilewalla allow their marketing teams to gain valuable insights and deep understanding of the consumer; while avoiding the expense, bias, and inefficiencies often found in focus groups.

Mobilewalla’s global consumer intelligence platform continuously observes and analyzes user behavior over time, giving businesses valuable insights into their ideal customers and competitors. Enterprises can improve audience segmentation and targeted marketing using our sophisticated data science and algorithms.

Request a demo to uncover the value in audience insights and how to best target your ideal customers.

Sources:
https://www.waterfordtechnologies.com/big-data-interesting-facts/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/255822/daily-mobile-facebook-activities-of-us-smartphone-users/