If your customers are primarily the ultimate consumers or end users of your product or service, identification is generally done in terms of demographic and lifestyle factors.

Demographics are tangible, measurable facts that distinguish one group of people from another. For example:

• ethnic background
• age
• income
• education
• sex
• location
• occupation
• number of people/family
• children's ages

Lifestyle analysis is more concerned with the "intangibles:"

• cultural background
• religious beliefs
• political beliefs
• value systems
• recreation and hobbies
• music preferences
• literature preferences
• food preferences/menu planning
• restaurant preferences
• entertainment preferences
• travel preferences
• social interaction patterns
• media habits

For example, heavy coffee, liquor, and tobacco users are not easily identified with demographic information. They may be found in any age group or socioeconomic category. However, lifestyle analysis shows high correlation with certain characteristics, including media habits, recreational pursuits, social interaction patterns, music, and other attributes. If you can identify these, you can make your promotions or advertising more appealing to these target buyers.

In some product categories, such as alcoholic beverages, there are several skewed segments representing different age groups, demographic characteristics, and lifestyle patterns:

• an 18-to-30 age group, primarily male heavy beer drinkers, with subsegments differentiated by choices of country and western music, rock music, contemporary/jazz, and sports interests
• a 39-to-55 age group including both males and females, with an urban skew and subsegments with wine and hard liquor, differentiated by classical, jazz, new age, and soft rock music, with interests in reading, movies, heavy video rentals, more expensive vacations, and both younger and older children

Information on end users may be obtained from secondary research or original primary company research.