Defining your customer

For some companies, the question "Who is your customer?" strikes them as too simple.  They sell to everyone. They sell to people with two feet (everyone).  They sell to people concerned with money (almost everyone).  People with a home (everyone).  People in the United States (not everyone, but still pretty big).  You should definitely have something more substantial than that!

Benefits of a Defined Customer

• You can really get to know exactly what your customer wants.  This applies to all of the marketing concerns - price, product, promotion, placement.  
• You can reduce spending on advertising and promotions by targeting where and when your customer is most receptive.  
• Your employees have a clear idea of who will buy, making them better able to focus.  
• You can calculate the value of a customer, and decide how much you want to spend on each. 
• Your people will have a better idea of what you do.  
• If you do it well, others may gravitate to your offering just because it has a strong, desirable image.  

Creating Segments

The key is to segment the total market into chunks you feel you can serve well.  I'd suggest starting with a geographic region, such as the USA or New York City.  Then you can further subdivide that group into smaller segments that fit your product.  You can use combinations of the following factors, or any other way of distinguishing people that makes sense.  They generally fall into two categories.

• Demographics - age, sex, race, income
• Psychographics -  personality, values, attitudes, interests, lifestyles

There have been many text books and business books written about the customer. I suggest you give your customer some thought, and if you want to get deeper into talking about your customer, start by reading the wikipedia page about Market Segmentation.  If you really want to get deep into it, the book Market Segmentation: How to do it, how to profit from it by Malcolm McDonald is a great, thorough text.