This is an important question for all sorts of reasons, especially in relation to the future success of your business.While it is important to understand your target audience you cannot really relate to them unless you are exactly the same as them. For example, you simply will not be able to comprehend what your ideal customer will think or feel throughout their everyday life, or how negatively their problems affect them every day without you yourself being able to walk in the same shoes.I doubt that you will ever understand what challenges your prospective customer faces unless you are actually selling a product or service that has helped or does help you!Talking about walking in the same shoes – let's say that you have found a niche market for shoe lifts (these are inserts that go into your shoes to make you taller). It feels great to you that you are helping short people feel a little better about themselves through using your shoe lifts.But how could you possibly know how they think or feel about their lack of height if you yourself are over six foot tall?
Get to know your target customers better
The point I am trying to make here is that the better you can think or feel what life is like from your target customers point of view, the better your sales and marketing efforts will be in attracting and engaging with them.The most successful marketers working for big-brand names make it their business to be absolutely in-tune with their target audience at every level.Many leading marketers in these fields actually are customers themselves so they constantly live with the very products that they are selling. They know their target market inside-out because they are one of them.So, how well do you really know the person that you are selling to? Do you really know them at all?
Time to do your homework!
If you don't think that you know your target customer very well, or you can even admit to not knowing them at all, then it is time to learn as much about them as you can.Believe me, the sales and marketing world is a cut-throat business these days. If you don't know your target customer at all well, you can guarantee that your direct competitors probably will!The best way to really get to know and understand your target audience is to build yourself your ideal customer avatar. You need to narrow down and get to know your ideal client or customer.
How to define your customer avatar
You may be wondering why it is so important to build a customer avatar. The simple answer to this is because knowing your ideal customer inside out will allow you to know their pain points.Knowing how your product or service can help to solve, reduce or manage their related problem will allow you to better target your marketing and make it more effective.
By defining your customer avatar you will be able to:
- Find out where should you advertise your product or service to maximize its exposure to your target customer
- The best vocabulary and tone of voice to use in your marketing
- The type or style of marketing that connects with your ideal customer
- What story your marketing content should be telling
Visualising your customer avatar
Humans are quite visual creatures by nature so it will help your efforts to understand your customer greatly if you give your avatar a name and a composite picture. You could use a cartoon image or a stock photograph of someone that looks like your kind of customer.By picturing them as an actual person you can ask yourself more questions and come up with a background story for your customer.
There is something about 'Mary'
Let's say that you name your customer avatar Mary. You could then think about how your product or service will help Mary to solve an issue. Then ask yourself where you can position your product or service where it will reach Mary.Let's say that Mary has a problem with dry, flaky skin. She is very self-conscious about her skin and is yet to find an effective skin cream that helps. She also works long hours in an air-conditioned office that has a drying effect on her skin.Mary often flies overseas on business, so also needs to be able to safely carry a conveniently sized and packaged skin cream that complies with airline safety rules.Mary needs a high-quality skin cream that is pleasant to use and easy to apply. She also needs to be able to carry it with her to apply during her lunch break at work and during trips.
How your skin cream can help Mary
Your skin cream has proven to be very effective in soothing and nourishing dry skin. It also comes conveniently contained in a travel pack that can be easily and safely carried in a handbag, which makes it ideal to be used when away from home while at work or while travelling.
Here are some questions to ask yourself about Mary:
- Which social media platform will Mary use this week?
- Where does Mary work? Will she be online at home in the evening or during the day?
- What magazines does Mary read?
- What sort of message would make Mary stop to take notice of our product?
Finding answers to these questions will help you get a better feel for Mary, how to reach her and how your dry skin cream can help her with:
- Effectively treating her dry skin
- Being able to carry a supply of cream with her
- Trusting the cream packaging won't break or leak in her handbag
- Is supplied in conveniently sized packs to meet with air travel safety rules
Why it is about more than numbers
Your marketing success has more than just statistics and figures to look at. Yes, numbers are useful for looking at your sales as a whole, but by going deeper and creating an individual end user avatar you can help yourself to keep your marketing message on point and targeted to the individual.If you take the time to build your ideal customer avatar and get to know them inside out as if they were a real person, you could even start to ask them rhetorical questions. Your avatar will be able to answer your questions to help you make better marketing decisions.Too many marketers fail when they try to target 'everyone' as their prospective customer. The trouble is if you target everybody then you will end up attracting no-one.
Don't forget to include the human touch
Creating an ideal customer avatar is building a fictional character that embodies your ideal customer. You may, in fact, have need of more than one customer avatar if your product or service also appeals to different customers – this is fine too.However, remember that once you have gained your customers you will need to do your very best to retain their custom and trust in your business.You should never forget the human touch in business. This means having real-life people to take care of their needs and be there to answer their live questions.Make sure your customer calls are answered by a real person that can help them. If you are too busy to do this yourself because you are a sole trader or small company with minimal staff, you can solve this problem with our Unlimited Call Handling Service from Capital Office, London.So while you are busy creating your ideal customer avatar and using him or her to help devise your next marketing strategy, you can feel reassured that you are not missing a single telephone call.You can be free to concentrate on your next marketing campaign safe in the knowledge that your business calls are being handled by our team of professional personal assistants who will be answering your clients with your chosen greeting and dealing with your calls as you instruct.Don't forget that Capital Office can supply you with a whole range of helpful virtual office services that are ideal for small businesses and solo-entrepreneurs that want to keep their costs down while providing their customers with top-class customer services.Good luck with building your ideal customer avatar! We hope you find this information useful.
