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Create a Buyer Avatar in 5 Straightforward Steps

Create a Customer Avatar in 5 Easy Steps

Many of you like to jump right in and start creating ads, writing copies, creating landing pages, and all the other fun marketing things.

BUT if you don't have a customer avatar, you seriously affect your results. If you don't know who your customer is, how the hell can you market him ?! A clear understanding of your customer practically affects EVERY aspect of your marketing and sales process.

One caveat: if you create this avatar, you may need to reach your customers and buyers. Don't let that stop you from starting this process.

In our YouTube series Marketing championship with DigitalMarketerI will show you how to create a customer avatar in just 5 steps.

Number 1: Identify the goals and values

Well, these are NOT YOUR goals and values, so don't project them onto your ideal customer!

Let's start with the goals:

What are the goals of your ideal customer that can be achieved through YOUR business, service or offer?

To take this out of the summary, I use one of our avatars: "Agency Eric"

What are Eric's "will" statements? This will make it clear what his goals are:

"Eric wants …"

  • Increase his agency business
  • Increase the skills of his team
  • Scale his business

Having someone who can help you achieve your goals doesn't mean much if you don't have consistent values. I could have an offer that charges your traffic, but if I'm a dodgy guy who does all the black hat tricks in the book, you'll probably stay away.

Therefore, you need to list values ​​with goals at the same time.

A good way to start this exercise is to phrase it like this:

"(Name of customer avatar) is required …"

What are his personal or professional obligations? What does she want to achieve? How are they ready to achieve these things?

With our avatar:

Agency Eric is committed to …

  • Professional development
  • Value creation for its customers
  • Use white hat marketing tactics

This type of information helps you advance product creation, offer copies, content, and more.

Number 2: Find your sources of information

Marketing is essentially about getting the right message across to the right person at the right time.

This understanding lacks another important factor: marketing for you in the right place.

What books do your customers read? Which magazines?

Do they frequent certain types of blogs? What about certain blogs?

What conferences or trading shoes are they going to?

Who are their "gurus"?

This will help you figure out where to place advertising and how to speak to them in a language they understand.

The BEST and EASIEST way to answer these questions without becoming a huge list of nonsense is to use the trick "But nobody else would" …

"My ideal customer would read (BOOK), but nobody else would."

"My ideal customer would attend (CONFERENCE), but nobody else would attend."

This is crucial to find out where you are addressing your target audience, what you are talking to and how.

Number 3: Write down your demographic information

This section always felt strange to me and I honestly found it lame. Creating this fictional person may seem strange, but it really gives you a complete picture of your customer. It makes them "real" or as real as a fake avatar can be …

You want to name your avatar – just like we have the Eric agency.

How old, what is his gender? Is that important? What about your marital status? Do you have children? Where do they live

Next you want to enter the basic data – job, title, income, education.

Another thing you want to do is try to list a "quote" that you would use. This helps you get in your head.

For us, Agency Eric is a 40-year-old married man with two children who lives in Orlando, Florida. He is the CEO and founder of a digital marketing agency that earns ~ $ 150,000 a year. It is known that he said more than a few times, "I surround myself with people who are smarter than me."

That gives a much nicer picture than just saying, "Oh, our main perspective is an agency owner."

Number 4: List your challenges and weaknesses

Now that your avatar is a bit more real, you want to deal with its challenges and its main pain points (or in some cases its fears).

Of course, you should limit them to challenges and weaknesses that your company or service can help with!

This step will help you identify your main copy hooks and fill in gaps in your product catalog.

Number 5: Identify the objections to the sale and their role in the buying process

These are often overlooked, especially the opposition section. Nobody has a product or service that is so great that literally everyone wants to use it when they become aware of it. It just doesn't happen.

It is important WHY your ideal customer does not want to work with YOU at this time.

If you ask this question, you will get more into your head and better predict objections in your marketing copy and sales scripts.

After all, and this is more on the B2B side, are you the decision maker or a lawyer? If you are a decision maker, you can push for the sale. If it is a lawyer that needs approval, you will need to change the copy and likely provide other types of content such as pitch decks, offer templates, etc.

To create a customer avatar, you need to summarize the following:

  1. Identify your goals and values
  2. Find their sources of information
  3. Fill in your demographic information (and NAME)
  4. Identify challenges and pain points
  5. List their objections and their role in the buying process

For more details, get a downloadable customer avatar worksheet and see some examples of our customer avatars – click HERE. Seriously. Do it. This is the most important thing you can do for your company today.

You can find more tips on the marketing championship on our YouTube channel.

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