Reasons to invest in UX research

While the ultimate utility of UX research lies in creating user-centered products and solutions, it also has a number of other benefits:

Aids decision-making. What product features should be highlighted prominently? What should the navigation look like? Should your product be designed for both Android and iOS platforms? Finding answers to these questions might be possible based on a wild assumption or a quick internet search, but nothing will yield more accurate and data-backed answers than systematic UX research.
Removes biases. The development of a product goes through the hands of multiple stakeholders and team members who each have their own beliefs and opinions. With UX research, you have data to back up your decisions and it becomes easy to eliminate any reasoning that is not 100% objective.
Allows usability testing. You can test anything from low-fidelity mockups to high-fidelity prototypes with your users and gather their feedback before developing your product's final version to save time and money.
Helps identify solutions. UX research can also be a great way to find solutions for your product's problems — this could be anything from high bounce rates to low conversion rates.
Enhances marketing efforts. Since UX research reveals early on from the product design process what your users’ needs, goals, and behaviors are like, it becomes easy to identify how to target these users in your marketing efforts.