Have you asked yourself this question: “Who is my targeted customer?” If so, the question itself could be very telling.

Across my 35 years in the world of business, I’ve seen many companies come and go. Sadly, I have to make this observation: We spend far too much time on superficial marketing and tactical activities when the real work, the real purpose for our calling is creating something wonderful, something we really care about and something that is important to the people who are our “customer avatar.”

This is not to say that the topic of marketing is unimportant, but that much of the complexity around that topic will simply evaporate if we’ve done great work before we get to the tactics of direct mail, e-mail, social media, blogging, etc. And that the process of targeting should be embedded in our work from the very beginning. This instead of simply using it as a sorting device for a mailing list broker.

So if you’re having to ask: “how do we define our customer” it’s probably already too late. You made that decision long ago, whether you were aware of it or not.