7 Easy Steps to Create Your Ideal Customer Avatar (with Example & Free Template)
Are you struggling to attract your target customers? Do you need a solution to this problem, but are not sure where to begin?
Well if that’s you, then let me reveal a secret to you. This is one of the most important techniques that successful businesses use to acquire their ideal customers.
It is none other than “The Customer Avatar” (Keep reading to create your own!)…
It’s been proven again and again by business after business that in fact, not having a clearly defined target market can actually harm your business.
So, in this article we’re going to dive into the basic customer avatar questions which will give you a real head start in defining the ideal customer avatar for your business.
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
-Steve Jobs
· WHAT IS A CUSTOMER AVATAR?
A Customer Avatar is an average representation of your ideal customer. It helps you understand your prospective clients’ buying behavior and produce tailor-made content and strategies targeting them. It makes it easier for you to fulfill their specific needs and provide a solution to their pain-points.
The best and most real Avatar is based on actual market research to collect information about your target audience through questionnaires, surveys, intake forms, interviews, etc.
You can even have multiple Customer Avatars depending on the specific needs of your business.
· WHAT IS A NEGATIVE CUSTOMER AVATAR?
Crafting a negative Customer Avatar can be as helpful as creating your ideal Customer Avatar. It is basically an exclusionary representation of who you don’t want as a customer which could help you refine your Marketing strategy by leaps and bounds.
This should include those customers who have proved to be a total nightmare in the past. Note down the things that made this relationship troublesome and work on making changes based on these observations.
Making a negative Customer Avatar doesn’t necessarily mean to focus on just the personal aspects. It might also include prospects that are just too impractical to acquire, like, clients who are already way too technically advanced for your service, or people who are only consuming your content for research purposes.
· WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF CREATING A CUSTOMER AVATAR?
One differentiator that helps one set their product/service apart in the industry is to know who they are catering to and what their needs are. This is the major difference between those who are at the top of the game versus those that never make it past average.
Asking quality questions and creating strategies based on the need of the market helps before, during, and after the project.
This will result in you being hired as a real consultant who actually helps in actively solving core problems while generating immense value and inculcating a high possibility of getting a repeating customer in the future.
· STEPS TO DEFINE YOUR CUSTOMER AVATAR:
Here’s a breakdown of what you need to understand and define to deliver great value to your target audience. You can find the following information through surveys, questionnaires, researching various social media handles like Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or their website, etc. Note down anything and everything that helps you understand them better in a structured and clearly defined manner as shown below:
1. Name Your Avatar
This helps in humanizing your Avatar’s profile. You can even create different samples based on gender and giving them names accordingly.
2. Find a Picture
Put a face to their name by finding a stock photo online which best represents how your avatar would look in real life.
3. Demographics
Make a list of all the basic demographic details as follows:
age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, language and number of family members.
4. Goals
Write down the primary aims and objectives that they want to achieve for their business.
5. Discover their Story/Background
Understanding the background of your prospective customer helps give valuable insight into where your client is coming from and what needs to be done to satisfy their needs.
6. Challenges/Pain Points
This is the most important point as you are the one who has to provide a solution for their pain points.
7. Sources of Information
This includes the sources that the client follows and refers to. This section includes books, magazines, blogs, websites, etc.
Here’s a template that you could use to create your own Customer Avatar:
For more clarity and a better understanding, I’ll share a sample Customer Avatar with you that I created for my own personal use for my work as an International Freelance Digital Marketer:
i. Name: Sheila Dawson
ii. Picture
iii. Demographics
Age: 54
Sex: female
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Education level: postgraduate
Occupation: Marketing Consultant
Annual income level: $175,000
Marital status: Married
Language: English
Number of family members: 4
iv. Goals
1. Increase profits
2. Outsource work
3. Better time management
4. Travel more
5. Spend time with family
v. Discover their Story/Background
Sheila is a dedicated wife and mother of two kids who owns a marketing consultancy firm in Minneapolis and wants to save her time by hiring experts who could help her increase profits and spend more time with her family.
vi. Challenges/Pain Points
1. Lack of capable manpower
2. Needs to scale her business
3. Overworked
4. Lack of proper sales funnels
vii. Sources of Information
Books/Magazines: Self-help books, Reader’s Digest
Blogs/Websites: www.digitalmarketer.com, www.hubspot.com
Gurus: Neil Patel, Mark Cuban
Others: Shark Tank fan
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to consider your Customer Avatar while formulating your Digital Marketing Strategy. You need to conduct thorough research and create a plan that is fine-tuned to your business needs.
Once you have your Customer Avatar fully mapped out, you can then use it to target an audience and test it using boosted posts on all forms of Social Media.
