[Introduction] Did you know the people you sell to tell lies? Did you know they’re not always the best at coming up with solutions to their problems – or even identifying those problems to begin with? Armed with SWOT analyses and marketing personas, marketers often feel equipped to take on an audience and win – but there’s a chink in the armour. All of that stuff is market research… and market research often relies heavily on people to recount what they do or think. Hence my opening line. Enter user research – a relative which relies more heavily on direct observation of what people do and think. You become a fly on the wall, rather than turning the people being studied into rats in a lab. Of course, this is a superficial distinction about a nuanced issue – both market research and user research can be said to exist along the same spectrum. But each one has its strengths and weaknesses – but marketers often rely on market research to solve problems which are best solved by user research. In this podcast we explain the differences between the two, their strengths and weaknesses, and how marketers can get the most out of both. If you enjoy listening to the WhatMarketersDo Podcast, follow us on iTunes or Soundcloud.