Invest in your audience by creating customer avatars.

There is a download at the end of this post.

What are customer avatars? I invest a lot of time into my audience and my clients. I create content that is informative, give away ideas and tips at no charge, and spend time creating relevant and effective ways to help people before they even ask for my help. My business is all about serving my customers. Can I serve them effectively without thinking about who they are, though? That’s where customer avatars come in.

Who are my customers?

Turns out my ideal clients are not just “business owners”. After spending time with a couple of my avatars I discovered that my perfect customer is a little more specific than I used to think. Here’s an example of one of my possible avatars:

Jo – married pottery artist wanting to grow

Jo is a pottery artist. They want to open a studio, offer classes and invite other artists to rent space. They want to bring art to their community and support the local pet shelter with fundraising events. Jo and their spouse both work so time and money are big hurdles.

I help them identify their high priority branding needs. They don’t have the budget for a full website and logo so we’ll put together a microsite and basic logo package. We plan the project in chunks so that they can pay over time. When their studio launches, they will have a solid brand foundation to build on.

I also walk them through using tools like Eventbrite, email marketing and social media so that they feel more confident in their digital marketing. I also refer them to a partner of mine who offers some options for content strategy.

How do I use customer avatars to create brand messaging?

You may be selling your brand to both working moms and middle aged dudes, but you aren’t selling it to them the same way. You aren’t talking to them in the same tone or addressing the exact same issues. A mom using your balm to sooth her toddlers irritated skin isn’t going to relate to using it to make a hipster beard more manageable. You’re going to craft more than one message and talk individually to these two groups of people.

This sounds like a lot of work.

Yes, because it is. But here’s the thing, this is an investment in your business. This is research into your customers and their mindset. If you can’t figure out how to answer the questions, find someone who can give you some outside insight. Maybe someone you think is an ideal customer can help you create a few.

Creating your unique customer avatars is going to be work, but at the end of the day a well thought out customer avatar will gain you three things that are imperative to creating effective brand messaging:

  1. An accurate representation of who your ideal customer is
  2. A clear idea of what problems you help them solve
  3. A detailed story that you can help tell through your brand messaging

Be careful not to fall into the mindset that these are a waste of time. When you are creating your customer avatars remember that they are not:

  1. A repetition of who your current customers already are
  2. Expensive to develop and do not require exorbitant amounts of your time
  3. Created in a vacuum, get out and ask for input from others

For the price of your time you can really step into your customer’s shoes and find valuable information about them that will help you focus your messaging, improve your customer connections and make your marketing more effective. If you put in the time to refine a couple of these avatars, the return can be immeasurable.

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If you’d like help developing your customer avatars and figuring out how you can customize your brand messaging around them, contact me for a free consult to find out how we can work together.