- Buyer Persona
- Marketing Persona
- Customer Avatar
- Target Market
These are the phrases that are used interchangeably to describe
the fictional, generalized representations of the persona that is most
likely to buy from you.
It is critically important to the success of your marketing, sales,
product development, 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 beautifully to
the importance of having a clearly defined customer avatar.
Having a deep understanding of a clearly defined customer avatar will
help you:
- Determine what social
platforms they are spending their 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 to maximize your exposure.
- Better connect with your
avatar with your copy because you will have an understanding of their
pains, pleasures, desires, and wants.
- Deliver and develop better
products/services because you are able to anticipate your markets’ needs,
behaviors, and concerns.
Creating your avatar
So, having a clearly defined customer avatar is important; the question
is, "How do I create one?" The good news is, that creating a customer
avatar is not difficult to create if you ask the right questions.
"What are the right questions?" you ask. You are in for some
tremendous value because I have created a complete template to help you create
your own customer avatar. This template makes it easy to compile all
of your information, knowledge, experience, and research into one beautiful and
presentable format.
Download your customer avatar
template now and begin the journey of successful marketing,
sales, product development, and delivery of services that will knock the socks
off your perfect customers.
Now, you could download the template I have created and begin filling it
out right away, but 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. I would suggest that you take the time you
need to gather the most accurate information you can to develop your avatar.
Use surveys to capture feedback from your existing customers. Ask Your Target Market is
also a great solution to survey a larger audience base. Adding a Custom Audience Pixel to your website is
also a great way to track and learn more about people who have visited your
website. Interviews are also a great way to capture valuable information.
Interviews can allow you to dive deeper into the answers that are given by
asking "why?" Asking "why" allows you
to uncover the behaviors that drive them.
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/service. The best way to define your 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 (good idea, right?). Through this process, you
may even find yourself realizing that your business is too broad and that you
tighten up your product/service offering so that you can really develop your
niche and position yourself to deliver your best to that market.
Negative avatars
Creating a negative avatar can be as beneficial as creating your
customer avatar. A negative avatar is a generalized representation of the
persona that you don't want as a customer. Having an
understanding of who you don't want to serve as a customer can
sometimes make it easier to know who you dowant to serve as a
customer. If you decide that you'd like to start here I would suggest that you
think of that one customer that was a total nightmare for you to work with and
document all of the things that made the relationship unsuccessful. The key
here is to focus not on personal characteristics of why the individual was not
easy to work with, but rather on the reasons why they didn't make a good fit
for your product or service (such as pricing was too much, the probability of
increased churn, or that they were not properly equipped to be successful
long-term).
Start defining your avatar
- List out your
avatars demographic traits: Examples of demographic traits are
age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation,
religion, and average family size. This area of defining your customer
avatar is typically easy to define.
- Psychographic traits:
Psychographic traits are a little more complicated and require a deeper
understanding of your Avatar. Psychographic traits are based on
values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyle. Examples of
Psychographic traits are: wants a healthy lifestyle, values time with
family, doesn't have much time, uses Pinterest to do home DIY projects.
- Name your avatar: Naming your
avatar humanizes the profile. If you are targeting both men and women you
will want to create both 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
the name, picture, information, and story about your avatar.
- Write a story about your
customer avatar: Image you are your avatar and you are journaling about
the discovery of your product/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/hear about you? How did they feel once
they purchased your product/service?
Takeaways
At the most basic level, developing a customer avatar will help you
become more effective in your messaging which will help you to cut through the
noise in marketing today. Using your customer avatar 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 whom you know you don't want
to serve as a customer and who doesn't make a good fit.
- Give your customer avatar a
name, face, and a personal story to bring him/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.
by Misty Kortes
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