Accelerate Your Marketing During This Pandemic With A Client Avatar

Despite the uncertainty of the economy, or maybe in light of the current economic climate, people are still eager to start small businesses. Throughout history, some of the best businesses and business ideas have been born out of crises.

While the process of founding a company can be scary and risky, it’s filled with hope and opportunity, especially when that business is mission driven. I’ve already discussed the four fundamental concepts behind building a profitable mission driven business – passion, vision, strategy and tactics. Now I want to discuss a key strategy concept: improving your marketing by using a client avatar.

Building a client avatar can help you define the best, most profitable prospects for your business. It’s an essential part of any marketing strategy, especially during a time where people are changing their spending habits dramatically. Yet many small business owners don’t take the time to do it. Here are some tools you can use to help build and use your client avatar.

Why an avatar is important

First, a little about what an avatar is. It’s a fictional person who has the same wants, needs and pain points as the clients you want to serve. “Unless you have the marketing budget of Amazon AMZN , there’s no way to effectively market to everyone,” said Cameo Roberson, Managing Principal of Atlas Park Consulting and Finance, a firm that helps businesses start, grow, manage operations and expand. “Building an ideal client avatar helps to target how your marketing dollars are spent.”

The more details the better. The more exactly you can describe this ideal client, the more effectively you’ll be able to grasp the ins and outs of serving them. Roberson suggests starting by asking yourself a few questions.

• What type of clients do you enjoy working with?
• What are their goals and values?
• What problems are these individuals facing?

By truly understanding your preferred customers, you can more accurately target your marketing campaigns, including content marketing, email marketing and paid advertisements. Knowing whom you’re talking to makes it easier to create content that resonates, engages and inspires perspective clients. Having an avatar can also help create a better customer experience, allowing you to make more intentional and thoughtful interactions.

Overall the goal is to know:

• Who your ideal customer is
• What they want
• Where they spend their time
• How what you do can address their problems

Building Your Avatar

There are many worksheets that can help you build your avatar. One of my favorites was created by Mary Beth Storjohann, Chief Marketing Officer & Partner at Abacus Wealth Partners. Here is her four-step approach.

1.    List Demographics and Psychographics:

You start by listing every trait they share. This will include demographics and psychographics. In short, demographics explain “who” your buyer is, while psychographics explain “why” they buy.

“You may be tempted to skip the Psychographics section, but it’s important to do this work. Knowing what your client or customer values, enjoys, experiences and believes will help you to create truly impactful connections,” Storjohann said. Both are important here, as individuals who fall into the same demographic group don’t necessarily fall into the same psychographic group and vice versa. Knowing both will give you unique insight in how to target your ideal client.

2.    Using those commonalities, you then create a single representation of your ideal client with as many specific details as you can.

The point of this exercise is to describe the person so well, you can easily step into his/her/their shoes. According to Storjohann, “you want to be able to think, speak and experience emotions unique to him/her/them.”  Characteristics to include are:

It may take you a couple of tries to think of all of the characteristics you think apply. Don’t be afraid set the exercise aside and come back to it if you need to.

3.    What is the primary emotion, or set of emotions, your avatar is feeling at the exact moment they discover your services and when he/she/they are about to purchase your services?

Is your avatar excited to find you? Is he/she/they relieved? Calm? Joyful? Empowered?

Knowing how your Avatar is feeling at these exact moments helps you to meet them where they are and create a message that guides them to the next step of your process. You can probably get this information directly from your clients. If you don’t have it already, there’s nothing wrong with asking. Knowing the emotions and energy your clients feel can also help you develop a deeper relationship with your clients. It was also helpful for me to look at an actual list of emotions to consider all of the possibilities.

4.    Lastly, what are his/her/their most significant Questions/Concerns, Values, Dreams, Goals

In her worksheet, Storjohann offers plenty of space to list these concerns. So, don’t be shy. Try listing at least three characteristics in each column. It may also help to ask yourself questions like:

• What are they trying to accomplish?
• What pain points are they experiencing?
• What are their selling points?
• What are the most common needs and wants?
• What really motivates them to take action or energizes them?
• What are his/her/their particular roadblocks?

Lastly, don’t limit yourself to these questions. Think about the person you’ve outlined and fill any gaps you find important in using your custom sections.

If you’re interested in Storjohann’s full worksheet, you can find it here.

How to use your avatar

Now that you have your avatar in place, it’s now time to put him/her/them to work. Here are some key points to think about

Use your avatar as the lens for your marketing material

The point of having an avatar is so you can use him/her/them as the lens that sharpens and focuses your marketing. Samantha Russell, Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer, for Twenty of Ten, a digital marketing platform for financial advisors, suggests combing through your website and social media. “Remember, the more specific you can be, the better,” she said. “Does your message sound like it’s geared toward your avatar’s goals and fears? What questions does your avatar have? What concerns are they facing? Write about those topics!”

You may have more than one

Jennifer Mastrud, Senior Director of Sales and Marketing for the XY Planning Network, made sure to mention that even if you have a specific niche, you likely will have multiple avatars. “If you serve doctors, it’s not helpful to have just one avatar called ‘Doctor Denise,’” she said. “You may have avatars for early career doctors paying off med school debt, doctors in private practice dealing with the liabilities of entrepreneurship, doctors nearing retirement, etc.” Mastrud highlights that your avatars, even within your niche, will likely all need different things from you. As such, your marketing messaging should speak to each of their needs. “The more specific you can get identifying your avatars, the more on point your messaging can be,” she said. So, as you build out your avatars, think about what they need from you.

Your client is the hero of their journey

One last important concept come that I try to implement often comes from author Donald Miller and his company Story Brand. Miller discusses that when building your business and creating messaging geared towards your newly-defined avatar, keep in mind your client or customer is the hero of their journey. Your job is to act as a guide in helping them to achieve their dreams and goals, not to make the narrative about you. So, when crafting blogs, campaigns and general website content, ensure your client or customer is positioned as the hero, and demonstrate that you are there to help them succeed.