What is a customer avatar?? It is a representation of your perfect, ideal customer who you would like to sell to, or work with, all the time. Sometimes called a persona, it's incredibly useful to know this person inside out so that you can better market to them, sell to them and build a relationship with them so that they shout about your business from the roof tops (in a good way!!).
However, there's a common mistake made in the creation of an avatar which is simply thinking about age, location or gender. We need to understand sooooo much more than that.
Researching and learning more about our avatar should feel like getting to know a new friend. You will feel like you know what makes them laugh, cry or frustrated. You will feel their pains, rejoice their wins and get their vibe. You will be confident about what their social life is like and what they do in their downtime and best of all, you'll be better placed to connect with them easily.
So, where to start?
Here are 5 elements or ways to bring together the really juicy stuff when it comes to creating an avatar that unlocks the potential in your business:
Understand their pain points. You need to really really get what their biggest challenges or difficulties are. It might be that you're able to solve them and that's the start of a great conversation or it might be more about understanding what they need better. Look over your rpevious favourite customers and consider what they said and how they felt. It might be that there is a real need for learning, skilling up or an emotional difficulty. It might seem like there's no problem - but even someone looking for a holiday or a gift, has a challenge about location, price or suitability.
What are their aspirations? Where is your ideal customer trying to get to? Perhaps if theyre a consumer, they want to feel more relaxed, want more time with family, or love nature. If they're another business, maybe they're looking to grow or deliver new products. What do they dream of? Have you ever asked? How are you going to help them get there?
What are their values? It's so useful to know what their values are to really help them better align with yours. Do they believe in buying local or community? Perhaps they are vegan or believe in sustainability. Are they committed to a cause that alings with yours? Like a new friend, we want to find common ground and shared interests to build relationships. The more you share yours, of course, the better able they are to understand the connection.
How is work and leisure for them? It can be super useful to understand more about what they do for work or leisure so you can better place your brand in their life. Do they dislike their job and your business is a weekend excape? Do they adore a particular liesure activity or trying new things and you're there to deliver that? Perhaps you simply need to know if they're more of a Bridgerton person or a horror film fan! Much of your marketing will be engagement related not selling, so the more conversations starter you have the better.
Where do they hang out? Head to your socials and understand more about where they network and chat? Which social channel is their favourite? how do they like to view stuff - short form video, long videos, podcasts, beautiful images, blog posts etc etc. You can tailor your content to suit your ideal avatar and be there just when they need or want you.
As always, we have the opportunity to explore this conversation further in the Forum! How do you research your personas or avatar? Are you a little stuck and need some help? Are you being too general and not focussed enough?
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