A Focus Group With Something to Say

 

In reviewing some notes, I was reminded of a fantastic capability that was added to MusicVISTA some time ago, but which you may have either not heard about, or forgotten:

Identifying “perfect” candidates for focus groups

The problem:

In too many cases, focus groups frustrate us, when the respondents say something like “well, I just don’t like the music”. And we are stuck.

The solution:

Once a person has participated in an AMT, we know whether they “just don’t like the music” or not.

We also know whether you were their favorite radio station.

With that information, we can do the following:

1. We can identify the listeners who were most  “format friendly”. They are people who had very typical responses to the big hits. There are not music issues. They can’t say “I just don’t like the music”. We already know that they do.

2. We can further refine this list to only those people who are not P1 to the station.

3. Start at the top of the list and invite these people to participate in a focus. Since they enjoyed their time and being paid at the AMT, they will almost agree to participate. And yes, you will have to pay them again.

4. Now, we have the “perfect” focus group.

You now have a group of people who because of their tastes in music should be listening most to us, but who have identified themselves as P1 to another station.

Those people have things to say that will be very interesting to you.

Nobody else in the history of our industry has created this kind of AMT respondent analysis. It is unique, it is powerful, and it could help you get the most powerful, ratings increasing listener feedback of your career.

If your station considers doing both library music tests and focus groups in 2008, I hope you’ll let me know, so I can provide you with even better tools.