Getting Focus Groups Cash: What's the Key?

[PauletteGoddard]

I'm registered in a pool of potential focus group participants. Not once have I successfully landed a gig for a paid study, but I have been interviewed/prescreened over a dozen times. Somehow my answers end up screening myself out. They aren't even snarky or wacky answers either. I came close, supposedly, one time, and the screener said she'd call me back to schedule an appointment, but she never did.

I fear that the answers I give are either so common the market research group and its client have met their quota, or so uncommon they expose me as useless. Example answers: yes, I am of this age range; we are of a certain income range; I do not have an iPhone; my top two supermarkets aren't listed on the screener's sheet; I research big-ticket appliance and home upgrades, but I also share the purchase decision with my partner/spouse who owns as much of the house as I do; no, I don't qualify to be on a jury.

What do you say to get on a focus group? Is it worth it to lie?

[hamchan]

They are usually looking for a very specific sector of the market. Lying probably wouldn't do you any good since you have no way of knowing what they are looking for. I get calls from a company a few times a year, and so far I have only done one focus group. I qualified for another one but it was during my work hours.

[disneysteve]

I agree that lying won't necessarily help because you don't know what they're looking for. They may want men or women, certain age range, people who do or do not use a certain type of product or suffer from a certain condition or have or don't have kids of a certain age. There's really no way to know.

[MonkeyMama]

Agreed with hamchan.

We have a focus group company who calls us often for lucrative focus groups. BUT, we get the sense *they* are often lying and fudging. I personally refuse to lie. (I would *never* hire this company for market research, BTW).

My spouse gets more focus groups but he does most the grocery shopping and has more material interests. Me? I am always ruled out as not prime food or household shopper in home. I think it's probably also a lot easier to find females who need the cash or can go to these things during the day. Which is the only reason I can explain hubby can get on so many focus groups - he's a rare male demographic, and has time for these things. (Though sometimes they do specifically want females, and that's kind of annoying for more cooking and focus groups with kids. My dh being the domestic one).

I remember I seriously flustered a phone screener once because I said we do not buy plastic bags. She couldn't get past that question. Her response was: "What do you mean you don't buy plastic bags?" That was off-script. Um, I have no use for them? I don't know. If she had not been so shocked and accusatory I maybe could have answered the question. But, at the time my mind went blank. (We use tupperware for lunches and get plenty of plastic bags from other places, for trash. The free ones we pick up tend to be flimsy, but I just double them up. Works for cat litter, so should work for anything. We also recycle 90% of everything so don't generate a lot of trash). It's amazing we qualify for any focus groups - we are mostly too weird and are not big consumers.

[shaggy]

I've been on the list for a couple of large marketing companies for years and they call me often, probably once a month.

I rarely pass the screening for the 'general population' studies. E.g. once they screened me for beverages: "You never drink mixers?" The only ones I qualified for was one that wanted us to review packaging for popcorn cakes, and one to screen and respond to Levis ads.

I've been called in for a lot of specialized ones:

* migraine med study when I was a big triptan consumer
* Bank of America online when I used them for business banking and had 7 or 8 accounts with them
* clothing study by Nordstroms (I think they picked me because during the questioning I named their house brand, Brass Plum)
* specialized software, I think it was for enterprise software and I was working as a dot-com engineer at the time

These days I won't go in unless the pay is worth the time. Some of the studies keep you for 2+ hours and offer $40.

The more information you're willing to give them, the more likely they are to call you when the specialized studies come up. I agree there's no point in lying because you don't know what they're looking for, and they re-screen you when you get to the focus group with a written questionnaire and you'd need to answer the questions the same way.

[PauletteGoddard]

Shaggy had the best (if only the only) solution: sign up with more focus group coordinators.

My spouse signed up for Usability testing a few years ago with a well-known local software company. He gets reimbursed with software products and gaming hardware ranging from $30 to $599.99 in value.
He goes on Thursday for Usability, woo woo!

[GrimJack]

Shaggy had the best (if only the only) solution: sign up with more focus group coordinators.

My spouse signed up for Usability testing a few years ago with a well-known local software company. He gets reimbursed with software products and gaming hardware ranging from $30 to $599.99 in value.
He goes on Thursday for Usability, woo woo!

When I was a contract worker, I was the guy behind the desk handing out those freebies - I counted on day, I handed out over $10,000 worth of software/hardware. You have to pay taxes on them as income but you can easily prove that the MSRP of $300 is closer to $150 by doing a search of E-Bay and Craig'sList. (baselle has the details on how she help her cow-orker lower his tax bill)

Cow-orker is an old UseNet joke - sorry.

[joshuaking]

Signing up with more focus groups is definitely the way to go. This is easy to do if you are in a large metro area, more difficult if you are not. When I lived in Los Angeles, I was signed up with around 20 different companies, and for a while I was doing at least one focus group for a $100 each and every week. I would see a lot of the same people at many of the groups, (lots of unemployed actors) and we would just kind of smile to each other. We knew what was up...