Connexion Research & Strategy

There are several great reasons to live stream your next focus group. Let’s start by defining what we mean when we say “live video streaming” for market research focus groups and the advantages it provides your marketing team.

For obvious reasons, focus groups are a popular qualitative research technique because they can provide real-time consumer feedback on things that matter to brands. When we refer to a “live stream,” we’re talking about real-time video streaming to a remote location as a moderator conducts the focus group at a market research facility or other venue. While real-time video streaming actually has a slight time delay that ranges from nearly zero to ten seconds, the benefits are immediate.

Here are the three main reasons to consider live-streaming your groups:

Cost Savings
Time Savings
Other Intangibles

1. Cost Savings
The cost savings of streaming live focus groups can be ginormous. A large part of many Focus group project budgets include travel expenses that can balloon the project costs tremendously. These costs can include:

Air fare
Hotels
Car services / Car rental
Meals, etc….

These costs can add up very quickly and really eat into your project budgets. On top of that,  the size of your marketing team and can inflate the costs to your client and also eat into any profit margins that you might have baked in to your market research project plan.

2. Time Savings
The time savings realized from live streaming focus groups can be invaluable. As we all want to try and find a semblance of work-life balance, we understand time away from home can take its toll on the individual, the family and the marketing team. Some key time consuming tasks include:

Flight time and airport time
Ground transportation
Travel planning
Arrangements for child care and pet boarding

The term “location independence” is how we like to view one of the big benefits of streaming live focus groups. With live video streaming, clients and team members can eliminate the need to travel altogether to view the groups sessions.

A great feature that is supported on most video streaming platforms is a live chat feature, which allows all of the viewers to interact with one another in real time. This chat function can be used to ask questions or make comments or suggestions that can be passed on to the your team members who are on-site, to the moderator all of which helps to better communicate your thoughts, ideas as well as allows you to make adjusts on the fly.

3. Other Intangibles
Another not so obvious benefits that don’t necessarily present themselves at the surface of the project is a socially conscious one. As clients and senior management look for greater transparency in pricing and invoicing, we need to find ways to show greater value in the market research project life-cycle. Some of these benefits may include:

Increased team member/client participation
Higher levels of overall engagement
Social and Environmental benefits

First, as access and availability go up, so does participation and engagement. Adding the ability to participate makes team members and clients feel more involved in the project and fosters a greater sense of ownership and empowerment. Being able to have input and influence allows for faster turnaround times as well as better tweaks and/or adjustments to the marketing campaign or message.

Next, another benefit of using live video streaming technology is an environmental one. Decreasing travel requirements helps cut down on greenhouse emissions that can help to decrease our carbon footprint. Fewer flights, fewer car rentals, fewer minutes spent sitting in traffic can all contribute to our overall carbon footprint savings. Shrinking our carbon footprint has both a personal and brand benefits that can go a long way towards making your client and team members feel like they are helping the environment as well as the project.

To find out more about our leading edge live video streaming of focus groups from our boutique market research facility, contact us at Connexion Research to see how we can help you and your marketing team succeed.