What Is A Focus Group?

What is a focus group?… Focus group is a familiar term for those who are involved in making money with paid surveys. It’s one of those great, but not very well-known opportunities to make money with. Participating in focus groups is a great way of earning extra money in your spare time.

But what exactly is a focus group, and what it does? Further more, how can you make money by participating in paid focus groups?…

Focus Group Methodology
A focus group basically is there to bring a group of people together where they will go through a guided interview, meant to explore a specific subject (usually a product or service consumers use). It’s a form of public opinion data gathering that allows for gathering of a more divers range of opinion regarding the given subject matter. A successful focus groups require proper methodology.

A paid focus group is a form of qualitative research in which you and a select group of people are chosen to talk about your experiences and opinion towards an idea, service, product, advertisement, or concept. You may be asked to answer some question about a particular service or product.

Member of the group can freely talk to each other, and even question each other about the topic. The session can last anywhere from 20 minutes to up to 2 hours or more depending on the specific subject, and/or the specific requirements of the study.

Sample Focus Group Questions
Depending on what the focus group is about, questions will vary. But to give you an idea, here is a sample of general focus group questions you can expect to be asked in most focus group sessions:

1. “When you think about X, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?”
2. “What do you like best about product X?”
3. “What are the biggest problems with brand X?”
4. “What brands come to mind?”
5. “what do you not like about X?”
6. “Would you buy/use X in the future”?

Difference between focus Groups And Paid Online Surveys

• Focus Groups Pay More(Usually)
  Another big difference between paid surveys and focus groups is the pay! With paid surveys, the amount of money you can make ranges anywhere from $1 for taking a ten minuets survey, all the way up to $40, or more, for a 30 minuets survey. But with focus groups, you are paid a much higher rate, on average of $40 for a short 30 minuet session, and up to $200 or more for a session lasting 2 hours or so.

• Focus Groups Are Held In physical locations (Most Of The Time)
  Although, there are online focus groups, the majority of focus groups are conducted offline and usually in a meeting room of the researcher company’s facility. With paid surveys, you can simply take a survey online, no matter where you live. But with focus groups, since it is conducted in a real location (most of the time), you have to be a local resident to qualify as a participant. I mean, you wouldn’t want to drive 5 hours to get to a focus group to make $50!

• It’s Harder To Find Legit Focus Groups
  The other difference between paid surveys and focus group is that although there are countless number of paid survey scams out there, legitimate paid survey companies are much easier to find and register with, since they constantly promote their panels. But many focus groups companies don’t do much of a promotion online, so its harder to find them. Fear not! I have listed some legit focus groups here and here.

I should mention though, you will not be able to quit your day job because of paid focus group participation. That’s not to say that you can’t make good money with paid focus groups, you can!

In fact, there are many people who do make decent money as paid focus group panelists, to the point where it is bringing them extra cash as much as a part-time job would. But that’s about it! You won’t be able to make a living off of focus groups.

Nonetheless, participating in paid focus groups is a great way to get paid for your opinion. So, do take advantage of any paid focus group opportunity you find, you can make good money participating in paid focus group studies.