There has been a lot of discussion recently about how best to describe the market research industry and those employed in this profession.  I think the important point to understand is that Market Research does not exist in isolation.  In most client organisations it sits happily alongside Competitive Intelligence and Forecasting & Analysis.  This whole department comes under many different titles such as “Business Intelligence”, “Marketing Intelligence”, "Business Analysis" and many other variations.

The integral nature of this department and the value it brings to the marketing department within pharmaceutical and healthcare organisations is enormous.  The critical information needed to make important business decisions is provided by this department.  The knowledge and market understanding that lies within this department is significant and any marketer who wants to get on within a company will embrace this department and cultivate the colleagues who work within it.

One of the many challenges within an organisation lies in the understanding of the differences between Insights and Market Research.  It is sometimes not easy to differentiate between the two, but fundamentally they are doing the same thing.  It is simply a question of what you do with the data once it has been gathered.  

As we are all aware there is a huge amount of research sitting in clients’ cupboards or on their computers. But how much real insight is in those cupboards?

What is an Insight?

• An insight is an interpretation, a “reading” of a given situation/ behaviour/ belief state that explains the dynamics of that situation in a different way. 
• Insight allows marketing and business to approach and influence the end-state differently. Research delivers on research objectives, knowledge needs. Research often delivers at a descriptive level.
• Insight adds richness to an opportunity/threat often putting forward a viewpoint and evaluates and recommends.  Research delivers data that can be summarised and forms the basis of a recommendation.
• Insight is looking to the Why/What next? and not just the What?
• Insight invariably delivers a story and marketers are always looking for the story.
• Insight is a business partner who works alongside marketing. Research delivers to marketing.

The insights that are gathered during any market research process are discussed within the whole team so that a holistic view of the market is obtained.  Competitive Intelligence and Forecasting & Analysis will be brought in to discuss the implications of the research that has been collected.  Insights strive to recommend actions from the data reading.  Companies are often overwhelmed these days with the amount of data available both within the organisation and from outside sources.  It is the interpretation of the data that provides Insights and it is these Insights that deliver value and growth.  Consumer insights are developed into value propositions which enable companies to provide growth to their customers.

Market research agencies must be willing to provide the following which will allow them to differentiate themselves as added value suppliers:

1. Understand the market/product of the client
2. Understand the market research and the business objectives of the client
3. Analyse the data and provide insights that the client can use to develop value propositions for their customers.

A recent report published by InMedica on the World Telehealth market indicates that the world market looks set to exceed $1 billion by 2016 and could jump to as much as $6 billion in 2020.

Telehealth is the delivery of health-related services and information via telecommunications technologies, and one of the main drivers of the increase in the market will be home monitoring of patients, according to InMedica, the study's publisher.

Many public healthcare systems now have targets to reduce both the number of hospital visits and the length of stay in hospital.  This has led to a growing trend for patients to be monitored in their home, once hospital treatment has been completed.

The rise in home-monitoring is in turn related to the changing management of chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Devices such as blood glucose meters, pulse oximeters, weight scales and peak flow meters are being deployed to monitor four main diseases:

• Congestive heart failure
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Diabetes
• Hypertension.

The most established market for telehealth at present is the US, which includes The Veteran's Health Administration's extensive home telehealth service and aims to have 92,000 patients enrolled on Telehealth services by 2012.  There has also been some large-scale trial activity in Europe, most notably in the UK in 2010 and 2011, where primary care trusts have initiated some projects involving more than 2,000 patients.

In the UK the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) programme was set up to show "just what telehealth and telecare is capable of.” According to the Department of Health this is one of the most complex trials ever undertaken.  The WSD was launched in May 2008. It is the largest randomised controlled trial of telehealth and telecare in the world, involving 6,191 patients and 238 GP practices across three sites in Newham, Kent and Cornwall. 3,030 people with one of three conditions - diabetes, heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - were included in the telehealth trial, while for the telecare element people were selected using the Fair Access to Care Services criteria.

If used correctly, telehealth can deliver reductions of 20% in emergency hospital admissions, 8% in tariff costs and 45% in mortality rates, the Department of Health (DH) has reported.

Telehealth can also deliver reductions of 15% in A&E admissions, 14% in elective admissions and 14% in bed days, according to the headline results of the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) programme.

The aim of the WSD was to provide a clear evidence base to support important investment decisions and show how the technology supports people to live independently, take control and be responsible for their own health and care, says the Department, which notes that the exercise has yielded "a wide range of very rich data."

Following the remarkable headline findings of the study, the key is to integrate telehealth and telecare into the care and services that are delivered, says the DH. "Going forward, this evidence gives us confidence that we can transform the way services are delivered and ensure that we use appropriate technology to put people at the centre, and in control," it adds.

The Department also points out that each of the three sites made their own decisions on the equipment they would use in their health and social care economies and that, as each site used different equipment and had differing populations, there is confidence that the results are transferable to other locations.

There is a convergence of many different industries in this space, including telehealth companies, device manufacturers, healthcare agencies, service providers and telecommunication and this is increasing motivation for the full acceptance of telehealth from governments, physicians and patients alike.

The results indicate that at least three million people with long-term conditions and/or social care needs could benefit from using telehealth and telecare, and to achieve this level of change, the Department is planning to work with industry, the NHS, social care and professional partners in the Three Million Lives campaign, which it describes as "a collaboration with a difference."

"This is not a national target or a government guarantee of delivery; instead it is about the Department providing national leadership, strategic direction and advice to NHS and social care organisations with support from industry, which would be responsible for creating the market and working with local organisations to deliver the change," says the DH.

The detailed workplace for the Three Million Lives campaign is still in the early stages of development with all stakeholders, and further information will be available in due course, it adds.

The cost to the NHS of people not taking their medicines properly and not getting the full benefits to their health is estimated at more than £500 million a year.

In August 2011, the government announced the formation of a new Steering Group to Improve the Use of Medicines, tasked with finding ways to tackle the estimated £300 million lost to the NHS in England every year as a result of medicines wastage, at least half of which is avoidable. The Steering Group is expected to issue an initial report early in 2012.

A new survey of 2,000 patients commissioned by Pharmacy2U, the UK’s largest on-line pharmacy, has concluded that a large number of patients do not fill the prescriptions handed out by GPs. 

Almost 33% of patients do not collect medications which their GP has prescribed for them. The majority of those who had not picked up a prescription following a GP consultation said they had not done so because of lack of time:

•  22% said they did not want to pay for the medication and
• 15% admitted that they "couldn't be bothered" to collect it.
• 12% said they did not fill a prescription because they disagreed with their GP's diagnosis
• Nearly 60% said that they had found the same treatment available over-the-counter (OTC) for less money.

Other reasons given for not collecting prescriptions included embarrassment and concerns over possible side effects.

• One in eight of the 2,000 people surveyed admitted that they had lost a prescription at some time.
• 34% of patients on regular medication admitted that they had "forgotten" to collect their repeat prescriptions and had subsequently run out of their medication.

"Given the ever-increasing pressure on the NHS and on primary care in particular, it is disappointing to discover that patients who have taken the time and trouble to visit their GP do not complete the episode of healthcare by having their prescription filled," commented Julian Harrison, commercial director of Pharmacy2U, which commissioned the survey and is the UK's largest on-line pharmacy.

"Particularly worrying are the numbers of patients on repeat prescriptions who regularly forget to pick up medication and run out. Among them are people suffering from serious, long-term conditions such as diabetes, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], where compliance is crucial," he added.

A recent report by IMS Health shows that the changes to spending on prescription drugs will be significant over the next few years.  This is due to a number of factors including the worldwide recession and the impetus to cut the cost of healthcare spending across the globe.

IMS Health in a recent report states that worldwide spending on prescription drugs will slow in the next five years but will still surpass $1 trillion by 2014.  Spending will rise 3% to 6% per year through 2015, with much of the growth coming in China, Brazil, Russia and India. By 2015, almost half of all pharmaceutical spending will go to low-cost generic drugs instead of costlier brand-name medications - which were once responsible for an overwhelming majority of drug costs. That's because the patents on many top-sellers will expire in the next few years.

As generic drugs cost much less, they are seen as a critical way to keep health care costs in check. IMS said the drugs will save $98 billion for payers in developed countries over the five years ending in 2015, or almost double the $54 billion in savings for the five years that ended in 2010.

In 2010, worldwide drug spending was $865 billion and U.S. spending was $310.6 billion and IMS said that figure will be between $320 billion and $350 billion in 2015.

In recent years, countries like China, Japan, Spain and Italy instituted price controls or cut the prices of generic and off-patent products. Some of those policies were created in the wake of the global economic crisis. The U.S., meanwhile, plans to expand health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured people through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, and generic drugs are critical to cost-saving.

IMS is predicting slightly slower growth than it did a year ago. Last year, the firm said worldwide spending would reach almost $1.1 trillion in 2014, with spending growing 5% to 8% a year. That's because of greater use of generic drugs. Lower spending in the U.S. because of the weak economy and tighter scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration also is contributing to the decline.

The U.S. will remain the largest single pharmaceutical market, however, with spending almost triple that of Japan and China, and spending in the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe won't change much, according to IMS. But by 2015, the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - and other growing pharmaceutical markets will spend more than the five biggest markets in Europe - Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. Spending in China is expected to roughly triple, to $115 billion to $125 billion from $41 billion last year.

IMS said more will be spent on cancer drugs than in any other category, but growth in that spending will slow. Spending on diabetes therapies will grow as the disease becomes more prevalent in developed and emerging markets and newer drugs reach the market.

But IMS does not expect generic versions of biotech drugs to make much of an impact by 2015: It said about $2 billion will be spent on those drugs by 2015, while $200 billion will be spent on biotech drugs worldwide.

Introduction

The positioning of a brand will go a long way to ensuring that the brand is successful.  But how do we ensure that we identify the optimal positioning for a brand/product?  Most companies will utilize the assistance of a market research agency.  Over time market research agencies have developed a number of robust methods to determine the optimal positioning and re-positioning for a brand.

The objective of positioning research is to identify the optimal positioning for the brand/product/company etc and to provide actionable insights that enable the client to convince customers to connect the brand to the positioning.  An important point to note is that if a company does not position the brand, the market including your competitors, will do this for you and this may well not be where you wish your product to end up.

But what exactly is positioning.  Positioning is generally understood to mean - where the brand fits relative to the competition and as the place a product occupies in the mind of the target customer.  Positioning may appear to suggest a spatial metaphor, locating a brand or product within the market and this could imply that positioning is a rational function of the product's characteristics relative to those of the competition.

Rational Positioning

The concept of rational positioning is based on the specific differentiation of attributes of a brand/product etc.  The underlying assumption is that we choose the products or service that offers the best fit to our perceived needs and wants, relative to the competition.  A qualitative positioning process produces a positioning story for a client's product.  Depth interviews are used to put together the most compelling and differentiating positioning statement from the elements provided.  There are usually three parts to this process. 

The first step will be to identify the positioning headline or theme eg Philips, Ingenuity TF PET/CT "Ingenuity TF offers you exceptional image quality, extremely fast scans, and the ability to choose the right dose – without compromise".  The phrase or statement selected represents the insight that has been developed by understanding the needs of the customer.  The second step involves identifying the reasons to believe or key supports that make the positioning believable or compelling (eg TF utilizes full list mode capabilities, allowing for faster scans, up to 67% lower dose, and exceptional image quality).  These may be product features, a description of the active mechanism, underlying science or technology etc.  HCPs will often reject positioning statements that are not based on genuine support describing them as manipulative, disingenuous or marketing hype.  In the third step, the benefit or unique offering should be identified and it is important to understand the difference between features and benefits.  A feature is an attribute or characteristic of a product/service.  A benefit is what that means for the customer, end-user etc.  In other words the "So what?"  There are many features but what does that mean for me?  The critical factor is to link the behaviour to a benefit - to give them a reason why it's in their best interest to do so.  "Ingenuity TF allows you to choose the right scan for your patient without trading off quality or patient dose".  The benefit to you is it "allows you to choose the right scan for your patient".

Non-Rational Level (Emotional Positioning)

Unfortunately a large number of projects will be ended once the rational positioning has been completed.  The brand team will then produce advertising and other promotional aids using the rational positioning in the market.  But as we all know human beings are not always rationale.  We don't operate like computers and simply process data but we interact with the world using feelings and emotions in conjunction with rationale perspectives.  Brand, products and companies conjure up feelings (eg the banks are producing many negative emotions at the present time).  Iconic brands trigger feelings such as, the excitement people feel about iPads and the safe environment espoused by Volvo.  These feelings are not always due to the product itself - rational characteristics - but they are the result of how these products have been emotionally positioned.

There are two objectives for this type of emotional positioning:

a.   to persuade the market to associate the product with emotions that fit the overall brand strategy and

b.   to literally to make the brand feel more desirable, more like the ideal offering over the competitor product. 

Usually, market researchers will employ some form of projective technique(s) ranging from tried and tested personification methods (eg "What animal/object would best fit the product" or alternatively, the respondent could sort through a deck of images to choose the one that most feels like the product.  This is followed by probing as to why they made the choices they did which allows the researcher to gain insight into their underlying feelings.

In addition to the profiling examples above, market research can also build a positioning strategy for the product. Methods such as laddering, where one asks what is important about some aspect of an offering and then asks "Why do you say that?" and keeps drilling down to the underlying needs, fears and desires.  This will allow the researcher to understand the emotional associations that can make a product appear to fill the underlying emotional wishes of the customer.

A next step would be to use the projective methods and expand their focus to competitors and/or an optimum product.  Emotional profiling of the client product along with the competitor products, along with probing to understand the meaning of each to the respondent should determine where the client's product stands in relation to competitors and the optimum product, that most closely meets the unmet needs of respondents.  The researcher should then be able to recommend where to place the product in that emotional space.  This should make the customer feel the product is the best choice.  The researcher can identify which aspects to highlight or strengthen (positive thoughts or feelings that would make it seem more like the ideal) and which to downplay (any negative thoughts or areas where the competition is stronger).  This information can then be used to make recommendations about imagery, colours, taglines, slogans and other copy to create the optimal emotional tone to be used in communication of the product/brand.

Finally, by identifying the emotional positioning for the product/brand it is then possible to guide the client on how to implement the rational positioning.  The combination of understanding the tone and words to use (emotional) and how to tell the brand's story (rational) will provide the brand with non-rational associations that enhance the positioning by creating a feeling that the product is just what the customer wanted.

Conclusion

Rational positioning conducted in isolation will probably not allow your customer to engage emotionally with your brand and there is strong evidence to suggest that iconic brands all possess a strong emotional hold on their customers.

Is mobile phone-based remote monitoring for Heart Failure patients a real possibility for the future or are the challenges in this patient population too great to overcome?  A Canadian study, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Vol 12, No 4 (2010) indicates that this could be a useful method to reduce the cost of expensive monitoring of heart failure patients in the future.

Tools such as mobile phone-based remote monitoring is one potential solution to managing the problem of increased numbers of patients with chronic conditions and rising healthcare costs.  The study was designed to understand how both patients and clinicians perceived the utility of such a system.  Mobile phone technology has the benefit of being able to monitor patients wherever they happen to be and the increased computational power of the mobile phone now makes it an alternative option in the remote monitoring field.  A mobile phone is also more cost effective than some of the expensive remote monitoring equipment now available.

In the past studies have been conducted with asthmatic and hypertensive patients, but heart falure patients provide a bigger challenge. The fact that several parameters have to be monitored and generally the age of the population is older and may not be as familiar with mobile phones, provides complexity.  In addition, any delay in response could have critical consequences for heart failure patients.

The survey indicated that patients were more comfortable using mobile phones than computers.  Patients were also confident in using mobile phones to view health information.  Important factors mentioned by clinicians and patients include ease of use, security of medical data, clear tangible benefits and for clinicians no increase in clinical workload.  Maintaining good patient-provider communication was important.  Clinicians also expressed concerns about legal implications and cost.

The study provides an early indication that this type of monitoring could be acceptable to both patients and clinicians and could provide an insight into the use of mobile technology in the medical field, especially for patients with chronic conditions in the future.

Survey Results

Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, where symptoms gradually get worse over a number of years. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment. Those with Alzheimer's live an average of eight years after their symptoms become noticeable to others, but survival can range from three to 20 years, depending on age and other health conditions.

Although current Alzheimer treatments cannot stop Alzheimer's from progressing, they can temporarily slow the worsening of symptoms and improve quality of life for those with Alzheimer's and their caregivers. Today, there is a worldwide effort under way to find better ways to treat the disease, delay its onset, and prevent it from developing.

Ninety percent of what we know about Alzheimer's has been discovered in the last 15 years. Some of the most remarkable progress has shed light on how Alzheimer's affects the brain. The hope is this better understanding will lead to new treatments.

New research suggests that biomarkers in the blood may help diagnose Alzheimer's disease before it progresses, potentially opening the door to better treatments.While there are currently no treatments that can halt or delay the onset of the disease, the hope is that being able to diagnose Alzheimer's earlier could provide clues about what medication might prevent it from getting worse, the study authors said.

"Most of the research to this point has been done on those who already have Alzheimer's disease," said study author Sid O'Bryant, director of research for the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. "We need to be able to identify those at greatest risk."

In the study, researchers analyzed 100 biomarkers in the blood serum drawn from 197 patients with Alzheimer's and 203 people without Alzheimer's. Participants were assigned a "risk score" based on levels of the various biomarkers, including C-reactive protein and interleukin-10, which have been associated with inflammation. About 22 of the 100 biomarkers emerged as the most significant, according to the study. The biomarker risk score accurately identified 80 percent of those who had Alzheimer's disease. When Alzheimer's risk factors, such as age, sex, education and genetic information, were included, the test's accuracy was 94 percent. Conversely, the biomarker risk score accurately identified who did not have the disease 91 percent of the time. When the other Alzheimer's risk factors were included in the score, accuracy was 84 percent.

The study is published in the September issue of the Archives of Neurology.

The study is promising but has limitations, said Dr. Ralph Nixon, director of the NYU Center of Excellence on Brain Aging. The people in the study already had Alzheimer's, so more research is needed to determine if the test is sensitive and specific enough to be used in people with symptoms such as mild cognitive impairment, a risk factor for Alzheimer's.

Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is typically done through a clinical examination with a neurologist. Neuroimaging tests are done to rule out other conditions causing the mental declines, such as stroke or brain tumors, Nixon said. Other methods include a spinal tap or specialized MRIs that can detect amyloid protein, but these are not typically available outside of large metropolitan hospitals or as part of medical studies, O'Bryant noted.

"The real major bottleneck in the field is not so much to detect Alzheimer's, which we can do reasonably well once it has progressed, but to detect the earliest signs of the disease, or to be able to distinguish subtle memory impairment that is related to Alzheimer's from other causes of mild memory impairment," Nixon said. Currently, several medications can help treat the symptoms of memory loss, but none do anything about the underlying causes of the disease, Nixon said. "The purpose of the biomarkers is to find a way to identify those changes that happen at the very early stage, so that we can nip it in the bud before things get so advanced in the brain; that's [when] it's very difficult to find a medication to reverse it," Nixon said. Researchers developed the blood test in conjunction with Rules-Based Medicine in Austin, Texas. It has applied for a patent, O'Bryant said.

In a second study from the same journal, researchers from University of Virginia Health System conducted an 18-month trial to test the safety of pioglitazone (Actos), a diabetes drug, for use in Alzheimer's patients. Though the drug did not improve Alzheimer's symptoms, there were few side effects, according to the study. Researchers stressed the trial involved only 25 patients and was designed only to test safety, not efficacy, researchers stressed. The next step will be larger trials to test effectiveness.

"There is a lot of encouraging preclinical data that the pathways and the mechanisms this drug would be targeting are highly relevant to the development of Alzheimer's disease," said Nixon, who was not involved in the research. "There is a quite strong rationale for looking at drugs with this type of action."

Pharmaceutical and Healthcare companies have been careful in joining the internet and social media revolution that consumer world is wholeheartedly embracing.  The regulations surrounding marketing activities in this sector have always provided higher hurdles and it is not surprising that a cautious approach has been adopted.  One company that has learned from experience is Novartis.  They received a warning letter from the FDA in April this year.  Novartis was tagged by the FDA after the DDMAC division reviewed two web sites - gistalliance.com and cmlalliance.com - which were sponsored by the drugmaker, but are now out of commission.

The issue that was raised was that the sites were supposed to be disease awareness sites but in fact appeared to be product branded sites.  Atlhough they did not mention the product by name (Gleevec the cancer drug) the FDA felt that the sites were in contravention of the rules.  The FDA stated that  these were “false and misleading because they promote the drug for an unapproved use, fail to disclose the risks associated with the use of Gleevec and make unsubstantiated dosing claims, (which) can put patients at higher risk of experiencing adverse events.” In addition, the materials placed on the site were not submitted to the FDA at least 30 days prior to dissemination or submitted on the appropriate form as required by law.  FDA Warning Letter

You would imagine that traditional sales rep access to doctors has changed over the past few years.  Doctors are highly engaged users of  the internet and mobile devices and as such, access to them using traditional methods must have changed?But a recent survey of 880,000 US doctors has indicated that a sales rep comes knocking every two hours.  In addition, 77 percent of all doctors allow reps to cross the threshold.  So maybe, what is happening is that traditional methods are continuing while new methods are evolving, allowing greater access to doctors via different media.

So how many reps visit a doctor’s office each week? A survey finds that nearly 98 percent of physicians who are accustomed to multiple visits from sales reps each week reported that the number of appearances was unchanged between June 2010 and December 2009, when the survey was last undertaken. Almost half of doctors require reps to make an appointment, a figure that remains unchanged from December 2009, but up from 38 percent at the end of 2008. The survey of 680,000 docs was conducted by SK&A, a market research firm.  SK&A Report - US Physicians' Availability to See Drug and Device Sales Reps

Choosing the appropriate market research methodology is a critical factor in the design of any research study especially in the planning and design of qualitative research projects. So what is the most important thing to remember when choosing the correct methodology – the budget, the timescale? No, it is the objective of the project. Cost and timescale are important but the main driver of choice should be the objective and the desired outcome. The choice of methodology has to focus on the best way to achieve the objective. This will be the main factor in selecting the most appropriate methodology.

A useful tool to help marketers/researchers choose the optimal methodology is a Product lifecycle Chart   This will provide a quick way to determine the type of research that is required at different stages during the product’s lifetime.  At a glance market researchers will be able to assess how to select the correct methodology which will provide the answers to important business questions.  This may require qualitative or quantitative research or even a combination of the two.  In fact, there are so many different types of research techniques available nowadays that the choice is becoming much more complex.  The traditional methods of face-to-face, telephone and direct mail have been augmented with the arrival of the internet and mobile communication devices.

interviews vs focus groups

In qualitative research the question is often asked, “Should we conduct in-depth interviews or would focus groups prove to be a better option”?

Interviews  In-depth, one-on-one interviews with healthcare professionals can be conducted in person or over the telephone. These are appropriate when the client wants to identify detailed perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. For example, they are effective when talking to healthcare professionals about how they diagnose or treat a disease and how they interpret treatment guidelines.  Interviews are also a useful approach to investigate the opportunity for a new product and how it may fit into diagnostic/treatment algorithms.  They are also particularly effective when the client’s goal is to capture feedback on experiences that occur in an isolated way, such as product messaging. 

One-on-one interviews are also useful when there is a possibility that there may be something sensitive about the feedback that is provided. Participants may not feel comfortable sharing their views in front of other people, either with their peers or possibly in a group where the participants have differing levels of status.  Certain cultural differences must be taken into account when considering how respondents react in a group setting, Participants can be influenced by others in a group and may feel more relaxed in a one-on-one setting. An example could be that there has been a performance issue with a sales rep, a customer may not feel comfortable sharing details if they suspect the rep might be “behind the glass” and could hear him. The customer would feel much more comfortable sharing this information confidentially talking only with the researcher.

Focus groups These should be used when the client wants to gain multiple perspectives in an interactive group setting. One of the main benefits of focus groups is that they allow the participants to brainstorm.. When one participant’s comment feeds off of another comment and so on, the group can really dig deep into an issue. When trying to evaluate market acceptance, capture challenges and issues, or understand objections to new technologies or processes, the focus group dynamic is ideal. Focus groups have another great benefit – the client can sit behind the glass or on a conference call and hear the direct, unfiltered feedback of a large number of participants with no distractions. Focus group sessions are also recorded for further observation. If your goal is to expose the maximum number of your team to direct input from the market, this is a very efficient way to do it.

Two things that have to be considered, but should not drive the choice of methodology, are travel and cost. Sometimes the decision is driven by the geographical locations of participants. If the research is to be conducted with customers located in diverse locations or if global representation is required without the cost of travel, there is still a choice. The one-on-one nature of a telephone interview is an easy option but in order to achieve the group dynamic online focus groups may be an option. 

Cost is also an important consideration and as a rule of thumb focus groups and interviews cost about the same per participant, so with the exception of travel – not a consideration for phone interviews or online focus groups – cost should not be the driving consideration in choosing the research approach.