Customer Avatars are known by different terms; Marketing Persona, Buyer persona, or my preference, Customer Avatar.
Having a clear idea of what ideal customer is will makes creating your customer story and marketing much easier. Once you have done that you can focus on their pain points and look to solve your customer's real-life issues which will make it so much easier to sell your product, instead of using a scattergun approach to look come and buy my stuff.
Creating an accurate brand story will mean more effective marketing and will allow you to build a real connection with your audience and as a consequence, a loyal following, which , in turn, will mean more sales.
Having only recently delved into the process of creating and developing customer avatars. I can really see the advantage of knowing your perfect customer – attracting the right buyers and avoiding what can be very costly mistakes of talking to the wrong people.
Creating Customer Avatars
I initially found this very daunting, after all, who is my ideal customer? And my writing is not that creative, producing customer avatars is a real art form and requires quite a bit of skill in order to create a compelling and therefore useful avatar.
The biggest learning outcome I learned was, “the more specific your customer avatar the better”. If you can imagine your avatar you have done an awesome job, and marketing and developing your narrative will be much easier.
Having Trouble Defining Just One? Try Multiple Avatars
When I first started to define my customer avatar I quickly realized that I had more than one. When creating customer avatars it is strongly recommended that you stick to a maximum of two to start with.
There is a really good reason for this; defining your marketing for multiple avatars is a lot of work and will often inevitably mean your targeting will be too broad.
So, although I am defining two customer avatars, I am going to focus my marketing on one, before moving onto the other.
Difference Between Target Audience and Avatar?
Before I started reading more about customer avatars, I misunderstood the difference between the target audience and customer avatars.
Put simply:
Your customer avatar is YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER.
Your target audience could be MEN between ages of 30 and 50.
The language and tone of your marketing will vary when talking to a 30-year old guy versus a 50-year old. As you talk to a 30-year-old differently than you would a 50-year-old, they are both in my target audience but selling to them will require different language, therefore having the same Ad and landing page for men that are 30 and 50 won’t be as effective as having two separate funnels focusing on their particular on what their particular needs are.
For instance, John a 30-year-old programmer working in a busy tech company will need a different language from Andrew a 50-year-old lawyer working in his own private practice at home. John and Andrew are my customer avatars.
Defining My Supplement Brand Customer Avatars
For my product there are two customer avatars I am looking to target, one is male and the other female. The first one is easy as it's very similar to me. I will call my customer avatar persona “Andy Smith”, which may make a few friends smile if they read this (sorry private joke!).
For the female customer avatar, I will call her “Jane Smith”, not particularly original naming here but this is fine.
Male Customer Avatar – Andy Smith
- Age: 44
- Gender: Male
- Race: Caucasian
- Marital Status: Married
- Age of Children: 4 years old
- Location: Austin, Texas
- Occupation: Project Manager
- Job Title: Project Manager Public Works Department
- Annual Income: $90,000
- Exercise: Sedentary
- Health: Eats reasonably healthy but would like to improve
- Alcohol: Socially drinks 3-4 times per month
- BMI: 26 (slightly overweight)
- Social Media: Facebook
Background:
Andy is 44 years old, married 8 years with 1 young child.
He is a homeowner in a nice location in downtown Austin where he and his family enjoy eating out regularly, especially at the weekends for brunch.
Andy has a college degree and went on to study Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. Although keen to do a Masters or a Ph.D., he was keen to start working so that he can start paying off his student loan and is reluctant to get into too much debt.
Following university, Andy soon found employment in a small Architectural firm. After three years he moved to the Public Works Department to be a Project Manager and now manages a number of sites that he travels to each day.
He met his now-wife through friends of friends at a social event and dated for 3-4 years before getting married. Although they were in no rush to have children they had their first child after a few years of marriage.
Andy knows his diet is poor at times and has a sweet tooth. At times his job can be stressful, and caring for a young child and trying to spend time with his wife and friends is difficult. So, as a result, his diet and exercise tend to suffer.
Getting older he feels less energetic and at times spending time with hid kid wears him out. Every year he sets New Year’s resolutions focused on getting back in shape to not just look and feel great but to be more active with his kids.
Challenges:
Andy is motivated to improve himself but never seems to get around to it. He is keen to earn more money and enjoy the finer things in life. With regard to health, he knows he needs to exercise for health and to keep a healthy balanced diet, but adhering to healthy eating is difficult. He seeks easy solutions, which he hopes will make it easier to stay on target.
Objections:
Has no problem spending money on solutions that are showing they work. Skeptical of supplements with big claims but does take multivitamins regularly. Ideally wants to be confident that something works before buying, he is willing to give something a try if it looks like it is up to the job.
Female Customer Avatar – Jane Smith
- Age: 38
- Gender: Female
- Race: Caucasian
- Marital Status: Married
- Age of Children: 4 and 7
- Location: Seattle, Washington
- Occupation: Real Estate Company
- Job Title: Project and Asset Manager
- Annual Income: $85,000
- Exercise: Yoga twice per week
- Health: Eats reasonably healthy but would like to improve
- Alcohol: Not often, maybe once per month
- BMI: 23 (Normal)
- Social Media: Facebook, Instagram
Background:
Jane is 38 years old, married 5 years with 2 young children. She owns her own home in a nice superb not far from work.
Jane has a college degree and went on to be an Under Graduate at Seattle University studying Business Analytics as her Major and Business Administration as her minor.
She enjoys her work as a project manager for a real estate company. Her peers are fun to work with and the only real pressure she experiences is her own due to wanting to perform well at her job.
She met her husband through friends of friends at a social event and after dating for 3-4 years got married. Wanting to have no regrets they tried for children after a few years of marriage. She never imagined being a full-time mother and wants to balance a career with motherhood.
Jane makes an effort to eat well and likes to cook at home when she can. She keeps a healthy weight but sometimes circumstances mean her diet is poor due to demands on her time.
Since having kids her memory isn’t what it was and can sometimes be forgetful. This is from balancing a career and motherhood, and at times finds it a little overwhelming and has feelings of guilt.
Although time can be tight, she makes a big effort to join her weekly yoga classes mostly for health but as an opportunity to socialize with girlfriends.
Challenges:
Jane wants to ensure she eats well but sometimes her busy schedule lets her down. She tries to follow a keto diet. Time is a big issue as she sorts out the kids and drops them off to school before going to work.
Objections:
Is the supplement safe, keto-friendly, who is taking them, and will they actually work. Needs plenty of social proof that it is effective before trying. Tends to listen to close friends for recommendations and opinions. Wants some sort of guarantee to ensure she isn’t ripped off.
Customer Avatar Summary
This article has only scratched the surface on how you can outline your perfect customer, and I will certainly be adding more information to my avatars throughout the next few weeks.
Remember, customer avatars are not static and they may change overtime as you get more sales and refine the marketing message.
There are lots of resources online to help determining and creating your own customer avatar, and I have used these to help me.
Next up I am going to look at the pain points my supplement is looking to address.