Ideal Customer Avatar

November 28, 2016 by Ed Becker

If you are a small business owner, or a marketing person, or perform any type of business planning and sales; you may be familiar with the concept of an Ideal Customer Avatar.  You may also know the power of having a very detailed picture of your ideal customer. Without the avatar of your ideal customer, you may not have a complete grasp of your target market. For those of you that know the importance of your ideal customer avatar, this article will help you dig deeper and create even more details of your avatar.  If you are new to the idea of avatars this will get you on the right path to creating your Ideal Customer Avatar.

Basic creation of your Ideal Customer Avatar starts with a few details about who  you think your target market is, and who is or is going to buy your products or services. If you stop here because you think that you know your market, you may be mistaken and your marketing will be over-generalized and wasted on potential customers who never will be in your actual target range.

You must get into this creation and dig deep so that the avatar actually becomes a real persona. Yes, you may have more than one Ideal Customer Avatar, if you have multiple market segments or products that are targeted to totally different demographics. You could easily have a handful of avatars; one for each of your markets.

Who do you want to call-in as customers?

Remember that you are creating the type of customer that you believe your product or service will sell to and that your service or product will solve their need/problem. So who do you WANT to sell to? You want to get into their head, know what they think, what they do, what they purchase and where. Know their values and emotions, their social and cultural environment, and demographics –  even down to their hair and eye color if you are willing to dig that deep. Every detail that you can come up with will make your avatar more personal and you will be able to relate better to your target market.

Where do you start?

First,  list all the common traits that you believe your ideal customers have. These can be demographic or psychographic. Now you take all these traits and create one single customer from them. You add more detail as you are create your avatar;  study their lifestyle and needs to get into their heads;   know how to sell them what you offer;  and  create solutions for them. Basically, you walk in the shoes of your ideal customer so that you can think and feel like they do. Write down everything! Give your persona a name so as to easily identify with them.

The deeper you dig in and the more detailed you make this avatar or each avatar you create, the better you can target your customer.   Customize your marketing in ways so that your customers feel you know them,and that you can solve their concerns and problems, and as a result, you develop their trust.

One way that marketers will guide you into creating your Ideal Customer Avatar is to have you meditate about who you had in mind when you created your products or services. Who did you want to serve? When you dig deep into yourself, you not only get a more detailed view of your ideal customer, but you are also ingraining that intention into your marketing to draw that kind of customer to you.