Hello. There are formal accepted terms that define market research, but since I'm a market research professional, I've had to adapt to new ways of collecting information and new ways to interpret it, so I have a less formal definition. For this lesson, we will start by defining market research in both the formal and informal terms. I will also introduce an overview of common tools and techniques used in market research. After this lesson, you'll be able to define market research and also recall and describe common tools and techniques. Let's get started. I'm going to start off with my definition of market research, which is a scientific or structured process of gathering very specific data, and analyzing it to best assess a situation. Now SMR, a leading international professional market researchers association, has a much more formal definition of market research. Here it is, research, which includes all forms of market opinions and social research and data analytics, is a systematic gathering and interpretation of information about individuals in organizations. It uses the statistical and analytical methods and techniques of the applied social behavioral and data sciences to generate insights and support decision making by providers of goods and services, governments, nonprofit organizations, and the general public. Market research often begins with assessing a problem and matching a research tool to the problem in order to gather information. You then analyze the information and communicate the analysis to the stakeholders. The data or information gathering and analytical techniques often differ based on the situation. When one thinks of market research they may think about the data collection tools and techniques such as surveys, focus groups, secondary research, in-depth interviews, and observational research, or you might think about the market research process itself. There are two basic parts of the market research process. One part is collecting the data, the other part is analyzing it. There are also two kinds of data market researches collect, those that are qualitative and those that are quantitative. You will learn how to collect and analyze data further along using various tools. For now lets discuss some analytical tools. Those most often batted around the market research world on the qualitative side include, content or text analysis, and coding or grouping techniques. Qualitative techniques also include reading cues from facial expression or interpreting how a person reacts to market research questions or stimuli. On the quantitative side, the analytical tools include descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, regression models, multivaried analyses, data mining, predictive modeling, and conjoint analysis. There is also software and other methods. You'll learn more about these methods, tools, and approaches further on. Right now, I'm just going to provide a quick overview. That wraps up our first look at a definition of market research and some of the tools used. Now you should be able to define market research, in the context of today's business environment, and recall some of the tools and techniques used for market research.