Online communities vs traditional focus groups: Building emotional brand connections in 5 steps

The world has gone digital – and focus groups are no exception.

Over the last 18 months, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated what was already a rapid move towards digitalisation. Digital connections that were already ubiquitous are now rooted even more firmly at the heart of our daily routines and staying ‘connected’ has taken on a whole new meaning.

Despite what people may say, this digital revolution isn’t the death of connection. ‘Remote’ no longer means isolated, and connection is more than just how many bars are on the wifi. Instead, the transition online has unleashed a world of possibilities for interaction and connectivity between brands and consumers.

In this brave new world of online connections, digital customer communities have flourished. Brands have been able to connect with their audiences in isolating times through always-on channels – and when traditional, in-person focus groups were near-impossible, online communities provided much needed insight and interaction. As Forbes says, Covid-19 has proliferated our need for connection, and brands that prioritise ‘humanising the customer’s experience outperform their peers.’ And, according to 51% of our insights community, brands are getting closer than ever to the consumer.

As we enter into a post-covid world, consumers are just as keen to get involved in these communities. Here’s what our insight panel has to say about the power of online communities…

1. The benefits of online communities

The advantages of digital customer communities are endless, but let’s start with 5…

• Brand loyalty. Through always-on communities, your brand penetrates the daily lives of your customers. Rather than the one off, transactional focus groups with a different group of customers each time, online communities create constant visibility for your brand. Through regular interactions with a much larger audience, you become a household name to many. This forms a relationship that is much more meaningful, leading to emotional connection and, ultimately, brand loyalty. Your consumers are much more likely to pick your products on the shelf now they have a symbiotic and meaningful relationship with you. So much so, that 29% of our community said that customers and brands are adopting the role of ‘friends’, rather than just having a transactional relationship.
• Consumer truth. This brand omnipresence not only offers brand loyalty from the customer’s perspective, but gives the brand a deeper understanding of the consumers’ lives. The brand is not just more visible to the consumer, the consumer is also more visible to the brand. Through these always-on communities, your company can delve deeper into what consumers actually want and get more powerful insights. 
• Consistency of opinion. Unlike the erratic nature of one-off focus groups, communities offer a consistent consumer perspective that can inform your brand decisions more reliably. 
• Customer advocacy. Your customers are your best influencers. Especially when they’re in customer communities. 84% of our customer panel prefer the recommendations of friends and family over that of paid influencers, and the authentic, trustworthy word-of-mouth advocacy that is driven by customer communities makes a world of difference. When a customer loves your brand, they’ll promote it without being endorsed. In fact, 74% said they’d promote a product if they liked it enough. Moreover, 39% of our consumer poll said that customers have become advocates since Covid, rather than just being a passive audience.
• Real-time responses. Always-on equals real-time responses which equal rapid turnaround. Want quantity and speed of insight? Then an always-on digital community is the more dynamic option. Rather than arranging an hour that suits 30 people’s different calendars, arranging travel and finding a space to facilitate the meeting, buzzing hundreds of phones to invite them to take part in a project or survey is a much quicker, simpler, and more accessible way to access insight.

2. Pitfalls of traditional focus groups

Traditional focus groups, though useful for in-depth discussions, have some disadvantages…

• Inconvenient – especially during Covid. Traditional focus groups, which can last around an hour and tend to take place in a room with a facilitator, have the disadvantage of inconvenience. This was highlighted by the unpredictability of lockdowns and safety concerns of the pandemic.
• Bias. Moreover, when participants discuss products and services together, there is a chance for bias to creep in. Once someone has asserted an opinion, other, more introverted members of the group may be reluctant to diverge. Hearing others’ opinions may also influence the discussion of the group, even though when it comes to actually buying a product, they will likely be alone. Asch’s conformity experiments examine these very issues.
• More transactional. One-off interactions with a brand, that happen through a facilitator who may have no connection with the company, are more transactional and superficial in terms of emotional connection. Unlike customer communities, where the brand becomes an ongoing presence that penetrates into the home, these focus groups tend to take place in anonymous spaces with little staying power in the minds of the consumers.
  

3. Why consumers love these communities

But it isn’t just your brand that benefits from these communities, it’s also the customers. Overwhelmingly, our global research communities have told us they want to be involved in the brand decisions: 88% of our global users said they want to be included in the decisions brands make, 76% said they enjoy helping product development processes, and 86% said that products developed using consumer collaboration were better. Forbes corroborates this, saying 87% of people want more meaningful relationships with brands. 

And how do they want to be involved? 84% of our participants said they prefer online communities to traditional focus groups. Those surveyed said that the convenience of online insight groups was far superior to in-person methods.

To find out more about why customers want to be involved in online communities, discover our blog ‘Product development in a locked-down world: Why 88% of consumers still want to be involved in your brand decisions…’

4. The tools to make it happen

The tools needed to build these online communities are becoming more complex and intelligent. Here’s a few of the top ways to understand what your consumer truly wants…

• Qualitative and quantitative surveys. Surveys help access a mass of insight quickly. And they don’t have to be basic – they can have a range of engaging questions that gather insights in a multitude of ways. Then, these surveys go through AI sentiment analysis to show what emotional experiences community members expressed in their answers.
• UGC. Your consumers can create and share images, ideas, and videos around a brief you set. ​​The ‘holy grail of insights’, video allows your users to create unique and in-depth qualitative content – showcasing attitudinal responses in an infinitely more nuanced way. Through AI analysis of facial expressions and auto-translation, video is made simple. Plus, the opportunity to use video enables creativity in your users and introduces you to your customers on a more personal level. If you ask your consumer what sauces they buy, they might answer ‘tomato sauce’. If you ask them to show you what’s in their cupboard, you can see for yourself the brands, the types, the quantity, and what else is in there.
• Heat mapping. Image highlighting tools allow consumers to interact with images. Have packaging you want to analyse? With image highlighting, users can click to comment on the areas they like, the areas they dislike, and the areas they’re unsure about. This is then converted into a heatmap to show not only which areas were most interacted with, but whether there was a positive or negative reaction to them. 

To discover exactly how Bulbshare can bring you closer to your consumer, head to our Solutions page. 

Brands getting it right

Our communities noted Nike, Apple, JD Sports, The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry’s, The Meatless Farm Company, Oh Polly, Budweiser, Lush and PlayStation as brands they’re advocates for. Notably, though, the brands our users were most enthused about were the ones that considered their customers with compassion: 92% of our global community expressed a positive perception towards brands who ‘co-create with their customers’ – with anecdotal responses telling us this lent a sense of a brand that cares about its customers’ thoughts, opinions and ideas.

For more information about brands excelling at co-creation, read our blog ‘Meet the customer advocacy pioneers: Five brands doing all the right things when it comes to customer collaboration’.