It is critically important to the success of your marketing, sales, and delivery of services that you have a deep understanding of who your customer avatar is.
You’ve likely heard the phrase, “You can’t hit a target you haven’t set.” This applies perfectly to the importance of having a clearly defined customer avatar.
- Determine which social platforms they are spending time on so you know where your business should be present and active
- Be more effective in your advertising. Your marketing dollars will be well spent when you know where to advertise and who to target for maximum exposure.
- Write copy that connects with your business avatar, which will give you a better understanding of their pain points, goals, and successes
- Deliver and develop better products and services because you are able to anticipate your markets’ needs, behaviors, and concerns.
Your Perfect Customer…Avatar
Your Perfect Avatar
So why do we love using the word avatar to talk about who our perfect customer is in the world of entrepreneurialism?
Well, by definition, an avatar does represent a single person, right? So why not make that single person your perfect customer to help you in building your business?
For our purpose here and now, let’s define an avatar as a person (singular) who embodies your perfect customer: they are the person who you are creating your business, your content, your services and your products for.
In fact, your avatar cannot wait for you to launch your business, because what you are going to provide them with is going to help solve the pain point and fill the informational void they are currently experiencing.
Yes, these are the reasons why defining your avatar is SO important!
How important is defining my avatar?
The purpose of this article is not only to provide you with a good example of what defining your avatar might look and sound like, it’s also to show you how important defining your avatar really is.
Without your avatar, you’re going to have a very hard time making decisions that could change the course of your business as you start to grow.
Who is your avatar?
Remember, in defining your avatar you are defining a single person who is looking for the information and resources that you’ll be providing through your business.
Your business will exist to help solve the pain points and fill the informational void your avatar is currently experiencing, and the resources and strategies you share will get them from where they are now, to where they want to be.
Can my avatar evolve?
Yes! Your avatar can (and should!) absolutely evolve.
Just because you define your one perfect customer doesn’t mean there aren’t TONS of other people out there who want and need what it is you have to offer. They may not be your perfect customer, but that doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from what it is you’re providing.
And just because you define your one perfect customer, that doesn’t mean that after having 10 conversations with someone who you think might be your avatar – but ends up NOT actually being your avatar – that your definition can’t change.
How to create a customer avatar
So, having a clearly defined avatar is important; the question is, “How do I create one?” Good news: it’s not difficult if you ask the right questions.
“What are the right questions?” you ask. You’re in luck, because I’ve given you some ideas and examples to help out. There is also a resources below that I found that can be of some help.
Download the Customer Avatar Workbook provide below and begin the journey of successful marketing, sales, and delivery of services that will knock the socks off your perfect customers.
The most effective customer avatars are created with information based on market research as well as information that you gather from your current customer base. You can also create an avatar based around your product or services.
For instance: Let’s say you have weight loss products. Your avatar should be based around people who want to loose weight, get better health, lack of energy and all the benefits of weight loss. Or you provide a way to make extra money. Your ideal avatar should be people who want to make extra money.
I would suggest you take the time needed to gather the most accurate information possible to develop your business avatar. Here are a few ways:
- Use surveys to capture feedback from your existing customers
- Ask Your Target Market is a great solution for surveying a larger audience base
- Adding a Custom Audience Pixel to your website is an effective way to track and learn more about people who have visited your website
- Interviews capture valuable information, and allow you to dive deeper into the answers that are given by asking “why?” This lets you uncover the behaviors that drive them.
- Here is a good Customer Avatar workbook….
- Look at yourself. What would you like or how would you change your life style?
- Look at your products or services. What are the benefits of your product or service? How do they help your customers?
- What problems or issues do solve?
Can You Have Multiple Avatars?
By now you might be thinking, “What if I have more than one avatar?”
Having multiple avatars is perfectly fine. In fact, most businesses will have more than one ideal customer, especially if they offer more than one product or service.
The best way to define your customer avatars is to tackle them one at a time. I would suggest that you start with the market that brings the most profit to your business. Through this process, you may even find yourself realizing that your business is too broad and that you tighten up your product or service offering in order to really develop your niche and position yourself to deliver your best to that market.
What About A Negative Avatar?
Creating a negative avatar can be as beneficial as creating your customer avatar. A negative avatar is a generalized representation of the person that you don’t want as a customer.
Negative Avatar is someone you don’t want.
Having an understanding of who you don’t want to serve as a customer can sometimes make it easier to know who you do want to serve.
A good idea, is to think of that one customer who was a total nightmare to work with and document all of the things that made the relationship unsuccessful. The key here is to not focus on personal characteristics of why the individual was not easy to work with, but rather on the reasons why they weren’t a good fit for your product or service—high prices, the probability of increased churn, not being properly equipped for long-term success.
Define your customer avatar
- Demographic traits: List out your avatar’s demographic traits (e.g., age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, religion, and average family size). This area is typically easy to define.
- Psychographic traits: These are a little more complicated and require a deeper understanding of your customer avatar. They’re based on values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyle. Examples include: wanting a healthy lifestyle, valuing time with family, using Pinterest to do home DIY projects.
- Name your avatar: Naming your avatar humanizes the profile. If you are targeting both men and women, you’ll want to create a male and female name.
- Put a face to their name: Find a picture online in stock photos that best represents what your avatar looks like visually.
- Design a dossier: A dossier is a one-page collection of information about your avatar that includes its name, picture, information, and story.
- Speaking of story: Write one about your customer avatar. Imagine you are your avatar and are journaling about the discovery of your product or service.
- What were they thinking before they bought your product?
- How were they feeling?
- Why were they feeling that way?
- What were they looking for?
- What were they hoping to solve or accomplish?
- How did they find you or hear about you?
- How did they feel once they purchased your product or service?
An Example Of A Good Avatar:
“My avatar is 32. Her name is Sandy. Sandy is a writer. She’s been wanting to start a blog for months now, but she doesn’t know where to start. She’s a good writer, but she could really use some help on how to structure and format a blog post – plus, she’s not really sure what exactly she wants to write about most of the time.
Sandy is working part-time and earning her graduate degree online, so she’s usually studying up on how she can start her blog on the weekends. Sandy lives with her fiancee and they both want to travel more. Both Sandy and her fiancee hate their jobs and don’t make enough money to do the things they want to do.
They plan to get married in the spring. They would like to move out of their apartment and into a home. Both like children, but afraid that they can’t afford children.
Sandy hopes that her part-time job could become a full-time job writing for the companies products.
…Sandy
I not only know a bit about Sandy (her demographics), but I also have a good idea about what her biggest obstacles are and her pain points – and as importantly as what her pain points are, I also know what she wants MOST…to travel, full-time job, a home and children.
Define what you have to offer her. She need more money and hates her job. Sandy may be a good candidate for a network marketing or affiliate marketing program.
Another Good Avatar:
Bob is a 28 year old freelance graphic designer from Ohio. He spends about 4 hours a week reading blog posts and following links on Twitter, and that is where he discovered a link that pointed to Financial Control from SCORE Small Business Advice.
Bob is 5′ 9″ with brown hair and blue eyes. He is good with people. While not stylish, he dresses for his clients. Bob like to read nonfictional books.
Bob’s income is between $60,000 and $70,000 a year. He doesn’t really have a good grasp on how much he is going to make next year as a freelancer, so he’s not sure if he should hustle for more work, or tell his wife: “Yes, we can easily take that vacation this summer”.
Bob spent 4 years working for a large ad agency in town, when he realized that he could do better on his own. He has been freelancing for 2 years now, and is interested in learning about honing his business skills as well as his design skills.
He’s been married for 4 years, and is starting to think seriously about having kids. One of his concerns about having kids is having a good grip on his family’s finances, and feeling a sense of control over how things are going with his freelancing income.
As he learns about SCORE he is thinking that this could be the tool that helps him to gain the needed control over his finances, giving him the confidence to embrace fatherhood without financial fears.
His wife is excited that they can take that vacation without Bob worrying about how much it all costs and his lost work income.
…Bob
Bob quit is job and became a freelance graphic designer. He is married and he and his wife would like children. His wife is excite to travel without worrying about the cost. He want to know more about Business Skills.
Define how you can help Bob. What do you have that will help Bob in his business….ie: business skills, something he can do part-time, maybe something for his wife to help with the finance’s. They may be a good candidate for network marketing or affiliate marketing program.
Takeaways
At the most basic level, developing a customer avatar will help you become more effective in your messaging and cut through the noise in today’s marketing landscape. Using it in combination with a solid lifecycle marketing strategy is a surefire way to explode your business growth. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin creating your customer avatar:
- Create a negative avatar first to gain clarity about who you don’t want to serve as a customer and who isn’t a good fit.
- Give your customer avatar a name, face, and a personal story to bring him or her to life. Be as specific as possible—the more details you have, the more you and your perfect customer will connect.
- Tackle one customer avatar at a time.
- Create your avatar based on market research and customer feedback rather than your own opinion and perception.
A good customer avatar is a must in any business. “If you are marketing to everyone then you are marketing to no one.” Look at some of the top companies and study who they are marketing to: McDonalds, Nike, Walmart, Apple, Home Depot, Pepsi, Disney, Amazon, eBay…..
Define your avatar. Study your avatar and if necessary rewrite your avatar until you know this person. Know who your perfect person is and who is the person you don’t want. Download the Avatar Worksheet. Take a few days to write your Avatar. Take your time. This is not a race but a business building exercise.
Here’s to your success,
