What is Market Research?

Market research is the process of gathering and analyzing information to gain insights about a company's market, customers, and overall industry landscape. The key objectives are to:

• Understand market size, growth trends, competition
• Identify customer demographics, needs, behaviors
• Assess the demand for current and new products/services
• Gauge customer satisfaction levels
• Measure effectiveness of pricing, advertising, positioning
• Inform strategic decisions and marketing plans

Common market research methods include surveys, interviews, focus groups, customer advisory boards, competitor analysis, and data modeling. Both primary research (new data collection) and secondary research (analyzing existing data) are used.

Market research produces actionable intelligence that reduces risk and drives fact-based decision making for product development, content marketing, competitive strategies, and sales initiatives. It provides a comprehensive view of the external market environment. Continual research is crucial for staying attuned to evolving market dynamics.

I once carried out an interesting market research activity for an overseas client.
This client instructed me to visit some named supermarkets and take photos of the price tags of some defined food items.
I enjoyed this experience.

I don't really know much but I feel it is a research that you make on the kind of business that you want to do and how the market is like

The way I understand market research is by simply going round the vicinity to make some observations on what and what not is lacking and devise a means of filling in the gap.

Like in my line of work, research plays a very important role. Whenever we are about to make or create any design, i would have to research on previous works done by others for that same niche before designing. Market research has to do with gathering all the needed information to ensure effectiveness in your marketing strategy and business in general.