What is market research?

What is market research?

Market research is the structured collection of information that helps make a decision about an audience, problem, offer or route to market. It is not a collection of industry trivia or a survey run “just in case”. Good research begins with a question that the result is meant to influence.

Before building a website, online store or application, it can help establish whether a problem is real, how people solve it today, what they do not understand in existing offers and what language they use to describe their need. This reduces the risk of designing features or communication solely around a company’s internal assumptions.

Start with the decision, not the method

Instead of saying “let’s do market research”, name the decision. It might be the choice of the first audience group, product scope, pricing model, feature order or how an offer is presented. Then clarify what you do not yet know and what outcome would change the plan.

Example questions include:

• In what situation does the audience look for a solution?
• What do they do today before using our offer?
• Which concerns hold them back from buying or implementing it?
• Which part of the process creates the most work or errors?
• What needs to happen for them to consider the outcome valuable?

Questions framed in this way lead to concrete observations. Asking “do you like our idea?” usually produces polite opinions from which it is difficult to derive a product decision.

Existing data and original research

It is useful to combine two kinds of material. Existing data includes sources you already have: customer enquiries, sales history, website analytics, industry reports, support requests and sales conversations. It lets you form hypotheses quickly and find gaps that are invisible from the team’s perspective.

Original research answers questions for which that data is not enough. It may involve customer interviews, observing someone perform a task, testing a simple prototype or a short survey when you need to check a pattern in a larger group. Choose the method for the unknown, rather than for what is easiest to run.

Which method fits which unknown?

Unknown	Useful method	Common mistake
How do people solve the problem today?	Interview and process observation	Asking only for an opinion on your idea
How common is a pattern you have identified?	Survey or data analysis on an appropriate sample	Counting answers without checking whom the sample covers
Where does a user fail to understand the solution?	Prototype test with a task	Explaining the interface during the test
What does the environment and available alternatives look like?	Existing data, offers, reports and sales conversations	Copying competitors’ features without learning why they exist

Qualitative research helps uncover the mechanism and language of a problem. Quantitative research helps estimate the scale of a previously defined phenomenon. Neither is “less scientific” than the other: they answer different questions and require different limits in interpretation.

A conversation about behaviour is better than a request for a forecast

In an interview, ask about a specific, recent situation. Ask the participant to describe their latest purchase, attempt to solve the problem or the moment when they gave up. Follow up on the sequence of steps, tools used, choice criteria and obstacles. Such examples are more useful than a declaration that “I would definitely use this”.

Research does not provide a mathematical guarantee of success. Its value is that it lets you identify a mistaken assumption earlier and turn a general opinion into a decision that can be tested. The result may also show that the idea needs narrowing, or that the basic offer must be organised first.

Do not claim representativeness if you are speaking to a conveniently available group. Record who took part, in what context and who was absent from the sample. A few conversations may reveal important friction, but they cannot tell you how frequent it is across the whole market. An honest limit on the conclusion is part of research’s value.

How do you turn findings into a project?

After the research, write down the observations together with their source, then separate facts from interpretation. The fact that “most interviewees did not understand the difference between the packages” does not automatically mean “we need more text”. Different naming, a simpler comparison or a conversation with an adviser may be needed.

The most important findings should enter the project plan: the scope of the first version, content priorities, information architecture and test criteria. If you want to move from research to an organised work plan, also read how to plan a website project, or see the scope of design and planning.