Market & Customer

Four questions inside one, answered in order: name the market broadly; identify the ideal customer inside it; understand what they value; and decide what perceptions you need to build in their mind. The clarity the old high street gave away for free, you now have to manufacture on purpose — that is the discipline this question installs.

Clarity leads to focus, focus requires choices, and choices mean somebody gets left out. Go deep on a defined market and your brand sharpens, because a targeted group has clearer wants and clearer language. A broad audience has nothing in common except that you are shouting at all of them at once. Fuzzy market, fuzzy brand, fuzzy everything downstream — pricing, product, message, hiring. Sharpen the customer and every other decision gets easier.