How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

What is a Customer Avatar?

You may have heard or read the term before, but do you know what a customer avatar is? Let us explain. It is a complete profile of what the ideal customer for your products or services would be. It is also often referred to as being a ‘buying persona’ which may help make it more understandable.

Why You Need a Customer Avatar?

There are several good reasons why you need a customer avatar and why it’s worth going to the trouble of creating one if you don’t already have one. First and foremost, it’s important to understand you can’t target everyone. Many businesses are reluctant to establish a customer avatar because they are worried, they are going to miss out on customers.

Rather than missing out, however, by focusing on a more select customer base, using a customer avatar, you are making the whole process more succinct and efficient.

By extension of being able to market more efficiently, having a customer avatar to work with will help you to know what you need to say to make your target audience act. Relevance is hugely important to successful marketing and the only way you can ensure you are relevant to your audience if you know exactly who you are talking to and know how to tailor what you are discussing to them more specifically.

Another great reason why you should create a customer avatar is, simply put, they aren’t as hard to create, as you will see from the next section of this article.

How to Create a Customer Avatar?

An effective customer avatar is one that is detailed and has purpose and depth. The reason you want customer avatars in the first place is so you understand what will motivate them to act on the messages in your marketing.

To do this, you need to think about more than just simple demographics and dig deeper to think about the person you are targeting, looking at the following questions and considerations:

• What is their job and what does the role involve?
• What is their age, sex, salary bracket, educational background, marital status, and family, as well as where they live and where they work?
• Understand their habits and mind by thinking about their interests, attitudes, values, and hobbies
• What are their goals and aspirations, obstacles, and challenges, and the main pain points they face?
• What stops them from buying from you?
• What kind of media do they use?

Research Your Customer Avatars

Another crucial part of creating a customer avatar is by researching what your ideal customer is like. You may have an idea in your head about what your customer avatar looks like, but until you investigate it more and understand the people you are trying to market your business to, these are at best just assumptions.

How you research them very much depends on whether you have existing customers or not. If you have customers use the data and details, you hold on them to build a picture. If you don’t, you can use the solutions your services or products provide to figure out who your target audience is.

How Do I Apply What I’ve Learned to My Business?

The best way to apply what you learn when you start building customer avatars is to see if there are ways you can improve your marketing strategies. Now you know what your customer avatar is, you have a better idea of who you should be trying to sell to.