A structured qualitative research method in which a small group of people, representative of a target audience, discuss a product, concept, or message in a moderated conversation, used to gather in-depth feedback and reactions.
Why it matters
Focus groups surface the reasoning and language behind an opinion, not just whether people like something — a survey might show a concept scored poorly, but a focus group can reveal specifically why, which is often more actionable than the score alone.
In a sentence
"The focus group revealed that people weren't confused by the pricing itself — they were confused by unclear terminology, a much more specific and fixable problem than the survey data alone suggested."
Related terms
- Often confused with: Survey (a focus group is a small, moderated, qualitative discussion generating rich, detailed insight from a handful of people; a survey is typically a larger-scale, quantitative method generating statistically meaningful data across a much bigger sample, but with less depth per respondent).