Understanding your Customer Avatar - How to have a better conversation with your Customers.

Hey everyone, this week I did a post talking about the Customer Avatar. Well, I actually did a rant, particularly on LinkedIn. When I talk about Customer Avatar, Ideal Prospect, Customer Persona they are all one in the same thing.

I'll read this post out to you here and then I’ll discuss a little bit more around it and in a little more depth on the Customer Avatar. So, for all those people out there saying “don't bother with your customer avatar, your customer persona, your ideal prospect” I say absolute bollocks to you.

I’ve seen loads of comments recently regarding your customer avatar stating don't be obsessed with it. You don't need to do it in that much detail and even down to one person on zoom networking call saying, she trains people on how to use LinkedIn for lead generation, but tells people don't follow your customer persona, which is absolutely shocking. You know, it is absolute bollocks. When challenged on this she started back peddling and realised what she had just said.

I'd additionally seen a statement on a magazine in bold print on the front cover “stop obsessing about your ideal customer.” NO! absolutely obsess about your ideal customer. You want to know more about them than they know about themselves because that allows you to be empathetic, it allows you to understand them, it allows you to understand their pains, and frustrations, what they’re going through. I'm going to expand on this later.

The other side of this is Seth Godin statement I included in the LinkedIn post, a quote saying “The relentless pursuit of mass will make you boring, mass means average, it leads to compromise and generalisations. Begin with the smallest viable market, what's the minimum number you would need to make it worth your while".

I added to this in saying “Carve out your niche. Listen to them, listen to their frustrations be market driven not marketing driven.”

Now the reason I say this is if you are a person that is marketing as a generalist, you're just a drop in the ocean. You're a just a small voice in the billions of voices that are in the ocean, and you'll just get lost, you won't see or gain any benefit whatsoever. When you carve out your niche and you fully understand your customer avatar, you can talk to them personally because you know what they’re going through.

Now when we're looking at this from a customer avatar point of view, there are things to note, here’s an example. Let’s say I've got a Social Media Accelerator product, and there's two different versions in this one product, one that's for the beginner and one that's for the more advanced. How I talk and communicate to those people wanting those sessions is completely different based on which session they want, the beginner or the more advanced. So, to reiterate, I won't message or use the same message for the basic, the person that is just starting off with their social media versus somebody that wants the advanced, because they're at a different level. So, there's no point in me sending out a generalist message because it will never cut through to the right Customer Avatar/Ideal Prospect, and it will only confuse our ideal prospect, which we definitely don’t want.

It’s the same again as me doing a Social Media Accelerator versus a big Business Growth Scale-Up Programme, a massive programme, two completely different services and products. So, they have two completely different prospects, costs, so being generalist in your approach means you’ve lost your prospects.

In building the Customer Avatar some of the things we look at here are, what they feel, and this is both before and after engaging with your product and or service. What is the customer avatar feeling before, what's their average day look like? What is their wants', what is their current status, what their frustrations, what are their fears, what are their aspirations, and again, we want to look at this from a before and after point of view of the product and service you're looking at?

From there we can then get into psychographics. We look at interests, influencers they follow, authors and books they read, publications they read, software they use. I've got down here associations or groups they're in. Groups they belong to on LinkedIn, Facebook. A brilliant way of social listening to your ideal prospects. Additionally, what websites they visit, magazines, conferences, all these things build the picture. Where do they hang out, like we just said it could be that they're hanging out on LinkedIn, could be that they're hanging out on Facebook, could be in Twitter. This is potentially where you want to put your message. And it must be market driven, not marketing driven, which is what I've said earlier.

Now from there when you understand this customer avatar, we now have the 3M's, Market, Message, Media.

You’ve built your Customer Avatar, so you understand your market, and you now really understand how you're going to message them. And messaging them is all about your Customer Value Journey (CVJ) walking people through this CVJ process. Awareness, Engage, Subscribe, Convert, Excite, Ascend, Advocate, Promote, and each one of those is a unique way of messaging.

Once we've got the Market and Messaging right, we then onto the platform, the media, where are they hanging out and we've already got this information because we've learned it back when we built the Customer Avatar, so the quality and effort placed on building this is very, very important.

This is one of the fundamental basics, and it really does piss me off when people say you don't need to know it you, don't need to do, you need to spend time on it. And for every service and every product you have, you need to understand it. Different products will lead to different customer avatars.

Make sure you really understand what your Customer Avatar(s) are going through, their pains, frustrations, aspirations. How they feel both before and after.

PS: if you need support in building your Customer Value Journey (Sales Funnel), then we can certainly help and one programme great for this is our Marketing Power Hour, there is a link below. If you'd like to contact us to discuss more please Click Here.

My original LinkedIn post texts....

Post One...

***Rant Alert***

For all the people out there saying don't bother with your customer avatar, persona, ideal prospect, I say absolute bollocks to you.

I've seen loads of comments recently, one on a magazine "stop obsessing about your ideal customer" - No! Obsess about your ideal customer, know them better than they know themselves, just like you should know your products like no one else.

"The relentless pursuit of mass will make you boring, mass means average, it leads to compromise and generalisations. Begin with the smallest viable market, what's the minimum number you would need to make it worth your while" - Seth Godin

Carve out your Niche, listen to them, listen to their frustrations, be market driven not marketing driven.

Don't be one of the billions of whispers in a sea of voices, choose who you serve, it leads to growth.

#Entrepreneurship #NewWayGrowth #DigitalMarketing #SocialMedia #ukmfg

PS: if you need support in choosing who you serve don't hesitate to send me a message or connect.

Post Two...

Customer Avatar - Follow up from my rant 😁

- Customer Avatar is a key fundamental
- Look at what they feel
- What’s their Average Day
- Status
- Their Frustrations, Fears, Wants and Aspirations

Psychographics

- Influencers they follow
- Interests
- Software They Use
- Publications
- Authors
- Groups They belong too
- Magazines
- Conferences
- Websites

This builds into getting to grips with your Market, Message and Media.

PS: if you need a helping hand in building this let me know and additionally you can download our CV Exercise here - Click Here