Cost of running marketing 'focus groups'

[Brown and Boris]

Does anybody pay for them or run them?

I don't want to buy them in but I am pricing up a product which would seek to replace them or at least compete with product/branding FGs . I know they usually pay participants a fee, but then have venue costs and the staffing costs of running them I guess? How much would you expect to pay to run, a FG of say 10 people looking at a brand image?

[StevieBee]

There's no one-size-fits-all solution and a lot depends on whether the brand is B2B or B2C and also what you want to gain from the Focus Group.

For the former, you should expect to pay participants per hour in relation to what they would charge (or equiv') per hour. For the latter, it's a lot less but again depends upon your demographic. High flyers will need an incentive to participate more than others - who in some cases may be willing to take part for free.

We do these a lot (B2C) and excluding room hire, for a Focus Group of 10 people, led by one person and recorded by another including all pre work and analysis, you'd be looking at around a £1k.

[Brown and Boris]

StevieBee said:

There's no one-size-fits-all solution and a lot depends on whether the brand is B2B or B2C and also what you want to gain from the Focus Group.

For the former, you should expect to pay participants per hour in relation to what they would charge (or equiv') per hour. For the latter, it's a lot less but again depends upon your demographic. High flyers will need an incentive to participate more than others - who in some cases may be willing to take part for free.

We do these a lot (B2C) and excluding room hire, for a Focus Group of 10 people, led by one person and recorded by another including all pre work and analysis, you'd be looking at around a £1k.

That is just what I needed, thanks.