(Watch my Customer Avatar Training Here)
Let’s talk about your ideal customer, we call that a customer avatar.
As a business owner its essential to focus on WHO you are selling to rather than what you are selling. Because without a message that attracts your customer avatar nobody will know what you sell.
Most businesses focus on selling to anyone with a pulse or a chequebook. Maybe thats what your business is doing right now?
The problem with that is you will attract clients who you don’t want to work with. The one’s who haggle on price, pay you late and are a pain in the you know what.
You might have a business where you can work with anybody, maybe you sell burgers, for example.
However, you need to structure your marketing to different avatars who might want a burger for different reasons.
Lets look at McDonald’s
They serve a lot of different avatars.
Children
Teenagers
Young Adults
Familys
Grandparents
My oldest daughter Georgia is 20 years old, what draws her to a McDonalds is a McFlurry or a small snack. She also goes into McDonald’s to charge her mobile phone and meet up with friends.
Georgia hangs out on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, meaning McDonald’s need to market relevant products on those social networks.
What about a tradesperson?
A tradesperson in their 30’s might burn a lot of calories doing manual work. What draws them into a McDonald’s is a larger meal something like a Grand Big Mac.
The tradesperson would also hang out in different places online. They are more likely to use Facebook, Youtube and Instagram as their social platforms of choice.
This means McDonalds need to marketing in a different way to each avatar that uses their services.
Your Business might have multiple Customer Avatars, however for this exercise I want you to focus on ONE.
The one that spends the most money with you, the one you most enjoy working with.
If you sell clothes to ladies from 18 up to 80 picks a range from that who are your best spending customers.
Different Customer Avatars Hang Out In Different Places.
For this exercise focus on your ideal customer, if you are an established business think back to your last 10 clients.
Which 2 did you love to work with?
If you really think about it 2 out of those 10 were much better than the other 8.
Maybe your business is BRAND NEW.
In that case I want you to give this your best guess, then once you have some customers come back and do this again in 3 months.
Every business owner should do this at least twice a year as their business grows. The type of person you feel is your ideal client today can widely change as your business matures.
Grab your Customer Avatar Template here.
Crafting the perfect Customer Avatar:
Gender
Yes I know your business can probably sell to Males and Females. If both are literally then do the Customer Avatar Exercise twice. However on reflection we find most businesses find one gender generally spends more on their product or service.
Even if you fall into the court of being able to serve both males and females your marketing message will be different to each avatar. They will hang out in different places, for example Pinterest is used by more females than males.
Age
You want to pick your customer avatars ideal age, although my business can help business owners of any age. We found business owners over 25 generally had more money to spend on growing their business.
Different age ranges hang out in different places, younger people tend to use TikTok and Snapchat. While older internet users tend to use Linkedin and Facebook.
The marketing to my daughter Georgia who is 20 will be very different than to her Granny who is 75.
People of different ages tend to have varying levels of disposable income. Someone in their 40’s might have more disposable income than a teenager or someone who has retired.
Pick a range of 10 years while doing this Customer Avatar Exercise. So 20-30, 25-35, 60-70 or whatever fits your perfect client.
Those that have a new business you will make a best guess.
Marital Status
Are they married, single or divorced? It matters when it comes to your marketing. People who are married normally have more disposable income. Two incomes splitting the bills, and some bills are cheaper when you are married like insurance.
However if you are a relationship coach, maybe you want single people.
If you run a nightclub single people will be more likely to come back more frequently.
Run a wedding venue? You want to attract those people who are recently engaged.
Its easily overlooked but I am sure with those examples alone you can see the importance of knowing your customer avatars marital status.
Pick a marital status and put that down on your Customer Avatar Workbook.
Location
Hear me out, I get your business might be able to sell to clients in any location.
But is that what you should be doing?
Every business I work with, I suggest they start locally. Be the best coach, ecommerce store, plumber, youtube in your local area. Then start expanding to other areas.
Facebook did not take on the world straight away. They started with Harvard then opened up to one more university at a time.
Start with the area you currently live in, you could even drill down further and pick a borough for example Chelsea, Kensington or Putney.
If I gave you £1000 to spend on marketing and you spent it on the whole of the UK it would have little impact. However that same money spent on Putney would have a much bigger impact and start the process of people knowing you exist.
With platforms like Facebook Advertising the targeting is razor fine, you can target by a postcode its very powerful.
Once you have success in one geographic location, then its time to spread out to other areas.
Pick a location and put it into your Customer Avatar Template.
Lifestyle
The more we know about your Avatar the easier its going to be to find them online.
New Business owners won’t have all these information, so take a best guess and refine as you acquire more and more clients.
You must think about thinks like, do they play golf? Are they active and like to keep fit? Fast Cars keeping them busy at the weekends? Or maybe they are very family focused?
Really think about what your perfect client likes to do in their leisure time. Once you know this time, you can mention their interests in your marketing messaging to draw them into your business.
Certain avatars like different things, so make a note on your workbook. Do they like Tennis, Polo, Rugby, Gymnastics, Holidays or maybe a combination of a number of things.
Profession
What profession are your ideal client? Do they work in a beauty salon? Or maybe they are a high flying CEO.
Do they work in Sales or Marketing or maybe they are the Office Manager?
We must think about the profession of our avatar. If you ran a nightclub, you would probably want sales people who like the party the night away after landing their latest big deal.
Income
Obviously you want to market to people that can afford your product or service. But on the flip side if you try to sell Baked Beans to a Billionaire you probably wont have much luck.
Knowing the approximate income of your Customer Avatar is a must. We are able to target people online by interests that would give us an indication of wealth.
Let’s get as close as we can to their income is it £25,000, £50,000, £100,000 or more.
Fill in on your workbook the ideal income of your avatar.
Goals
What outcome is your Avatar looking for? People who work with me using my Business Accelerator Methodology are looking for one of two things.
More Time or More Money its rarely anything else.
Although I teach marketing, its the outcome they buy that the marketing gives them.
What is the goal of your clients? Imagine you own a restaurant, your avatar might be looking for that special place to celebrate an anniversary or a birthday.
Selling clothes, the outcome might be they want to look dapper for an upcoming interview or date.
Someone looking for a builder might be looking for more space for their growing family.
Focus on what outcome your client wants and note it on your workbook.
Values
What values do your avatar have, are they looking to only work with green companies? They might have previously been let down by your competitor, for them its important that you show reliability.
Examples of values.
- Dependability.
- Reliability.
- Loyalty.
- Commitment.
- Open-mindedness.
- Consistency.
- Honesty.
- Efficiency.
What values are your clients looking for, we must demonstrate those values in our core marketing messaging. Make a note in your workbook all the values that your Customer Avatar is looking for.
Fears, frustrations and challenges
I mentor business owners on how to get more leads and more sales using online marketing. One of the biggest fears my prospects have is they are a technophobes.
However good they believe I am at internet marketing, they believe they wont be able to understand it and it will be too technical.
My job is to demonstrate that any level of IT skills can become world class at Internet Marketing. When they get the right mentor to help, support and guide them to success.
I show them that we hold their hand every step of the way until they get it working. In fact at our Business Accelerator we sit next to them and guide them onto success.
Think about what fears your clients have prior to working with you. Often that fear is a belief in themselves just as much as them not believing in your product or service.
Frustrations could be they have tried Digital Marketing before and it did not work. That happens a lot so I need to show them in my marketing I have a proven methodology to grow their business.
Its simple yet it gets incredible results for those that implement it.
What are your prospects frustrations? Note them down.
Challenges they might face include not being able to afford your product or service immediately. In that case you need to help them buy your product or service, maybe offer a payment plan or partner with a finance company to spread the payments.
What do they like and dislike here and outside business
You must know what your customer like to do outside of business. I love NBA basketball and watch my team the Brooklyn Nets every week without fail.
Whenever the NBA comes to London I get a court-side seat, I also fly to USA a couple of times a year to watch a game or two.
I’m also very focused on my family, and spend a lot of time with my partner Katy and our two daughters Georgia and Amelie.
What does your Customer Avatar like to do in their spare time?
When we know this kind of information we can use it in our marketing to build a strong relationship very fast.
What keeps them up at night
A lot of my prospects are kept up at night due to stress, maybe they work too many hours. Maybe cash is tight in their business and they are unsure where their next paycheque is coming from.
Think about what keeps your clients up at night. If you can demonstrate in your marketing that you have the solution they will do everything they can to work with you.
What do they talk about at home
Currently we talk about holidays, baby stuff and what are we doing next weekend. We have a dog called Denny, so he features in our conversations as we love to spoil him rotten.
What does your customer talk about at home? Obviously you are not in their house listening, but asking them questions each time you speak can give you an educated guess.
Books
Facebook Advertising is so smart, we can target people that have read certain books. My business likes to target people who have read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and “Think & Grow Rich”.
Hint – If you want a FREE copy of my book Expert Mastery grab it here.
What books does your Ideal Customer read? If you are unsure go and take a look at WH Smiths online or Amazon.
Magazines
Just like books we can target Magazines your Customer Avatar reads. For business owners you can target Entrepreneur Magazine, Success Magazine or Forbes.
A lot of businesses could do well targeting the readers or Ideal Home Show, or Grazia depending on their product.
Again WH Smiths online or Amazon are a great place to check out all the popular magazines in your niche.
Blogs
Every niche has a ton of blogs that service that industry. Your job is to note down all the blogs your avatar might read, unsure which blogs they might ready. Simply type in your topic followed by the word blog into Google for more ideas than you could ever need.
Gurus
Every niche has Gurus or celebrities, with online advertising we can target the fans or those people. For example in the UK Jo Wicks a fitness guru, you can easily target his fans on Facebook if your Avatar follow him.
I target fans of Tony Robbins or Gary Vaynerchuk, make a list of all the celebrities in your niche.
(In 2018 I helped promote an event with 2000 Entrepreneurs in London to watch Gary Vaynerchuk)
(A few months later while watch the New York Knicks court-side, I got to hang out with Gary in the VIP area.)
Hint: Some of those celebrities might have books, so go back and add more books to your list.
Conferences
I speak at the London Business Show, its a huge event drawing over 25,000 Entrepreneurs from all over the UK. In every niche there are always lots of exhibitions and conferences you can target their attendees online.
Some great ones are The Ideal Home Show, Grand Designs. However searching online will get you lots of lists of all the big events in your niche.
Make a list of all the conferences your customer avatar would consider attending.
What stops them buying
This is a big consideration when crafting you perfect customer profile.
Now most people focus on the things related to their business that could stop someone buying.
So let’s look at those first.
Maybe they believe they don’t need your product or service.
Or they do want your product or service just not yet.
They might believe your competitor is better value than you.
Maybe their partner will stop them buying a product or service due to previous bad experiences.
All of those are valid, however they are just beliefs and your job is to overcome those objections. Hence crafting this avatar, the more we know the easier it becomes to change their beliefs.
Now what we often overlook is their confidence in themselves.
I lose sales because people don’t believe they will be able to do this internet marketing stuff. They believe they are non technical, so it does not matter how good I am they just won’t be able to do it.
Obviously thats wrong, my oldest student is 84 years olds. So in my marketing I have to demonstrate my Business Accelerator Methodology is something anybody can use in their business.
Another thing that stops them buying in the belief they cannot afford your product. If they needed life saving surgery for a loved one they could find the money. So what they are really saying is they cannot see the value in what you offer.
When someones objection is money, you need to look at ways to help them pay. Maybe offer a payment plan or partner with a finance company to spread the payments so they are more affordable.
How does your customer avatar make decisions
I will cut to the chase, you want people who make FAST decisions. Some people take a huge amount of time to make a decision, they need quotes, testimonials time to think it goes on and one.
If you ever get me as a lead I will be your perfect client, I will either decide to work with you or not within 1 minute.
This is my first property I purchased in 1999, I was 18 at the time and had very little property experience. Check out my story here.
When I viewed the property a number of other people were interested, I saw them as my competition and offered after 10 minutes viewing the property.
I secured the property for £45,000 and now its worth over £300,000. Thats a huge profit I have now and all because I went with my gut and made a fast decision.
You want to work with people who also make a fast decision. Most business owners believe their clients can’t make a fast decision thats just a belief. Ive sold products for many 100’s of thousands of pounds from 15 minute long meetings.
Ive got clients who are builders who from one meeting get products worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Objections
Your Customer Avatars objections are similar to what stops them buying. Let’s give you some examples.
I’ll do it next time.
Can I have time to think about it.
We don’t have enough money.
You can pretty quickly add to that list right?
The reason they have these objections is you have not demonstrated the value of your product or service. Firstly list any objections your avatar have on your workbook.
Then write down how you can overcome those objections using your marketing. Every objection your avatar has can be overcome if you spend the time to think about it.
Use testimonials of clients similar to them to demonstrate how it can work for them. Use stories in your marketing to show them the end result, thats what they buy after all.
Make a list of 10 objections your clients have as well as ways you can overcome them
Conclusion on your Customer Avatar.
Nailing your customer avatar is one of the most important exercises you can do prior to any marketing. Following this simple yet effective process will save you a heap of time and money and ensure you attract your ideal clients faster.
If you found this useful check out my new blog – What Is The Most Important Skill In Business Today.
And this one.
Multiple Streams Of Income, What Business Owners Need To Know.