One of the first questions marketing agencies ask new clients is “Who is your ideal customer?” We ask because we’re trying to narrow the focus from “everyone” through “that group of people” towards “this person”.  We’re trying to get an understanding of the “Client Avatar” for the specific business. And for most business owners, it’s a really difficult question to answer – because their ideal client isn’t a specific person (in their view).

Business owners often answer with “anyone” or “everyone”. But, “Everyone is not your customer” as the marketing strategist, best-selling author and successful entrepreneur; Seth Godin famously said. And successful marketing is all about finding and speaking to your audience, not just any audience or all audiences. Your client avatar is important.

Who Is Your Client Avatar?

Clarifying your client avatar is extremely important for a business owner, CEO or marketing manager. You need to understand ‘who’ you are going to be ‘talking to’ when your business sends its messages out to the world. Trying to say everything to everybody doesn’t work. You’ve got to say something specific to somebody specific. Clarifying what and to whom, makes your message far easier to compose.

Let’s take HoneyBee as an example.

We can provide marketing advice and services, SEO tools and know-how, and website creation and on-going support – for almost anyone. But “almost anyone” can be narrowed quite quickly. We want them to be:

• English speaking

• A business owner (or empowered marketing manager, or CEO, etc)

• Have a marketing / advertising / IT budget

• Be discontented with their website and/or marketing

• Have insufficient time and/or knowledge to remedy their discontent

• Be willing and motivated to take action to fix the problem they’ve got but do not want

Or

• Be willing and motivated to take action to obtain the result they want but do not have

And finally

• Be the sort of person and business we like and want to work with.

Now in reality the client avatar of our ideal customer has more criteria, is more focussed, and is a longer list than that above, but hopefully you get the idea. From starting point of “we can provide marketing or SEO services to almost anyone” … with a few simple and straight-forward sorting criteria … we can place a potential client into the “YES” column or the “No” column, as appropriate.

In fact, we don’t do the sorting. By crafting our messages in a specific way, with our criteria in mind – potential clients are either drawn towards HoneyBee, or repelled from HoneyBee. And those who get in touch have generally ‘pre-qualified’ themselves (apart from whether we like them, of course … which clarifies itself shortly thereafter).

And you can do the same for your business.

Have a think about your clients or customers – starting with all of them – and narrowing your focus towards a specific individual, when you consider questions and statements like the following:

• The client you’re excited to work with and would love to speak with everyday.

• They buy from you, repeatedly, pay on time and value your expertise.

• They shout about you from the rooftops to their contacts, friends, family and colleagues.

• To them, you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.

• They’re the best. You like them. They are a pleasure to do business with.

Now, I don’t know who you’re thinking of, but I know it’s not ‘everyone’. You may have a couple of people in mind – and with a bit more thought and clarification, you can get more specific. For example, you can go from ‘a honey bee’ to

• ‘a queen bee’ or

• ‘a worker bee’ or

• ‘a drone’

… and have one, two or three very specific bees … based upon their specific qualities and your specific needs.

So, to finish up on “Who Is Your Client Avatar?” … As I outlined near the top of this article, having a client avatar enables you to hone your words into a specific message for a specific person. A client avatar keeps your messaging on point. Like talking to an old friend you’ve known for years, you’ll understand how to communicate with them, with ease, so you achieve the best results effectively.

And most importantly, you’ll produce your content and compile your copywriting with them at the front and centre of your mind.

If your brain isn’t buzzing too much, let’s continue.

What a Client Avatar Isn’t

As you’ll have understood from the above, a client avatar isn’t (and shouldn’t be) your entire customer base, your entire audience or your entire subscriber list. It’s an in-depth look at one person within your target market. A client avatar is a fictional characterisation of your ideal customer. And you’ll have one for each product, service or offering you sell.

Having said it’s fictional - it shouldn’t be a figment of your imagination. It should be based on data, on facts – and on genuine feelings in the case of ‘liking’ them.

You can construct your client avatar using data from all around you. Have a detailed look at your CRM software, your email subscriber lists, your website analytics, your social media insights, and your team’s professional experiences and feedback. All of these are excellent starting points and each of them will take you from an outline sketch, through to a finely detailed drawing.

And the picture you draw, so to speak, shouldn’t be a caricature of your average customer. You’re trying to produce an accurate drawing of whom you’re striving to attract, to engage with, and to convert. It is not every queen, every worker bee, nor every drone who has bought from you in the past. 

An Accurate Client Avatar is Crucial to Your Marketing Success

To ensure success for your marketing plan you need to get the right message, to the right person, in the right place, at the right time. That’s quite a lot of hurdles to overcome. An accurate client avatar makes it far easier to overcome those hurdles and ensures your marketing is more efficient and effective.

Saying the right words, to a specific client avatar, in the right client location, at the right point in time, is what you’re aiming to do. Each client avatar will help you clarify the specific message, focussing your attention on the right person for your product, service or offering. And getting that right, will ensure your marketing budget is spent wisely, accurately, and effectively.

So, to repeat. Your client avatar helps you find:

• The Right Person: Your client avatar is your visual representation of your ideal customer. Someone who has the right qualities and traits for a successful long term relationship with your business - and in due course, to become an effective ‘promoter’ of your business.

• The Right Message: You should know your client avatar better than your dear old mum. You should know what makes them tick … what they respond to (and don’t respond to) … making it easier to have a conversation with them … attracting them … engaging them … motivating them to buy from you (rather than you selling to them) … and converting them into a happy, long-term customer.

• The Right Place: When your client avatar is accurate, you know exactly where your ideal customers are – you know where they hang out. This means you’re able to focus your marketing messages where they’re most likely to see them.

• The Right Time: Customers will only buy when the time is right – for them. With an accurate client avatar, you have a good idea of when that will be, and you know what they need to progress from the top of your sales funnel, through to the bottom of your sales funnel. And you know how to create an outstanding buying experience – converting a curious prospect into a dream repeat client.

Need Help Drawing Your Client Avatar?

Many business owners find it difficult to draw a client avatar. That’s not unusual, because successful artists take years to hone their craft – and they practice thousands of times before they produce a masterpiece. So don’t beat yourself up if your first client avatar looks like a picture of mummy on a kindergarter wall.

With help your kindergarter picture can be replaced by a high school portrait on the art room wall.

And then it can be replaced by the masterpiece, exhibited in the Arts University end of year show.

All you need to progress from kindergarten to university is help and guidance. And Sophisticated Cloud or HoneyBee will be happy to provide that help and guidance for you. Just get in touch to start your client avatar art class, so to speak.

GUEST BLOGGER AUTHOR:

BERNIE WALES