Target customer characterization is a formal process for making up these images, getting them out of individual heads and in front of a market development decision-making group. The idea is to create as many characterizations as possible, one for each different type of customer and application for the product. (It turns out that, as these start to accumulate, they begin to resemble one another so that, somewhere between twenty and fifty, you realize you are just repeating the same formulas with minor tweaks, and that in fact you have outlined eight to ten distinct alternatives.)
