A customer avatar is simply a detailed profile of your target customer. Creating avatars allows you to:
- market to a particular niche and become the "go-to" company.
- increase your sales conversion rate because you're appealing directly to your prospects.
- attract only the right customers and stop wasting time and money on advertising that doesn’t work.
I have had clients tell me they don't need avatars because their products are for everyone. I always tell them to go back and analyze their customers. Without fail, they discover that there is a core of customers they had not identified. These customers:
- spend more
- come back more often
- upgrade to higher levels of products or services
- don’t complain about your price
- generate most of your profits
- are fun to work with and give you great feedback
- and refer you to their friends.
Yes, you can sell to everyone. But some of the other customers you sell to buy only once, don’t appreciate you, make you uncomfortable to work with, argue over price, demand exorbitant amounts of your time, belittle your staff, and contribute very little to your bottom line.
Create avatars that allow you to focus all of your time on the RIGHT people.
You will be in a minority when you create avatars. That’s because most business owners won’t make the effort. As a result, you will have a huge competitive advantage.
Instead of creating forgettable advertising that is generic and bland, you can create tailor-made messages that will attract your ideal client.
- Use creative language your targeted customer uses.
- Address their buying objectives.
- Design offers you know will appeal to your avatar.
- Filter out the people you would rather not work with.
- Choose media your avatar is most likely to look at and respond to.
This results in a huge increase in your conversion rate by attracting more of the right customers. And you will accomplish this without wasting a lot of money on advertising that simply won’t work.
What information goes into a customer avatar?
For each of your various avatars you should have:
- A name
- A picture that best represents the avatar
- Phrases and quotes they might use
- What their expertise and experience is
- Emotions and values they have
- Technology level
- Social and cultural environments
- Demographic information (age, sex, marital status, etc.)
What you are doing is listing all of the common traits of your ideal customers and rolling them into one specific person. Give them a full identity with name, age, occupation, family, etc.
Having this level of specificity helps your customer feel that you really do understand them, almost better than they understand themselves. This allows you to establish a very deep level of trust. That is the key to building a long-term, sustainable business.
Now it’s your turn. Use these forms to help you create avatars for your best customers.