Market research is a business discipline that provides actionable insights about consumers’ behaviors, attitudes and demographics. Typical market research efforts include:

• Competitive analysis
• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Usability testing
• Ethnography 

These efforts help capture consumers’ attitudes, behaviors and motivations, providing insights that can help guide product development, marketing and positioning.

For example, a company developing a new product might want to understand the current competitive landscape. It might conduct focus groups and surveys to understand consumers’ attitudes and behaviors around the product concept, and then test advertising and positioning to understand how to best market the product.

Digital products, such as games and apps, require a new approach to market research that differs from traditional product marketing. The digital product and service space is changing rapidly as consumer behaviors develop. Product cycles are much faster than for traditional products. A younger, tech-savvy market is demanding better digital products, faster and at a lower price. These market conditions combine to place an enormous burden on digital product developers.

Knowledge and experience in the interactive and media space is a core competency in this fast-changing market. An experienced market researcher, adept at garnering the deepest customer insights, is essential in this domain of exciting, new-to-the-world products.

Now more than ever, market research is an essential facet of product development. Integrating unbiased consumer feedback into the product development and marketing cycle is a critical success factor.