Defining your market is KEY to success in business. Sharon Pearson, one of my mentors and the most successful person in Sales and Marketing that I know, calls this ‘creating an Avatar’.
What is an Avatar?
Avatar
Your Avatar is the character that embodies who your market or your customer is.
When you visualize your customer:
- What do they look like?
- What’s important to them?
- What is their biggest problem that you can solve?
Say for example, you are marketing a product or service directed at teachers. What do they have in common? What do they think about? Create the most detailed picture that you possibly can, and you’ve got your Avatar.
My Avatar, for example, is someone who wants more from their life than they are currently experiencing. They could be male or female. They are in their early thirties and up to mid-fifties. They want to make more money, but money is a vehicle for them: they want to be FREE, free to travel, free to choose how they spend their time and with whom. They want to grow as people and in business. And they want to contribute, make a difference in some way.
This, of course, is only a very brief version of my Avatar. They are all that, and so much more! The more you get to know about your Avatar, the easier you will find it to adress the right marketing message to them.
If you already have a brick-and-mortar business this could be easier in some respects, because you already have a client base who you meet on a daily basis. In this case, I strongly suggest you study them.
- Give some of your best clients a call and simply ask.
- Design a form that you (or your staff) could help them filling in when they visit your business.
- Design an online survey and send it to your mailing list (online surveys are something I’ll get into in a lot more detail soon).
Your customers will love the attention. Everybody likes to talk about themselves, make their opinion known and feel validated. You will be amazed how much you are going to find out about them AND about your business. At the same time, your customers will instantly value you and your business more, because you have shown that you care.
If you haven’t got a business yet and therefore no list of clients, create your Avatar in a way that describes your ideal future client. At the end of the day, you want to create a business that you love and that has meaning for you, and the people you work with are an essential part of that.
Here are some questions you might want to consider about your Avatar before you do anything else:
- Are they male or female (or both),
- How old are they,
- Where do they live,
- Do they have family, children,
- What is their marital status,
- What is their state of mind (Are they happy? Outgoing? Depressed?)
- Do they rent or own their own home,
- Where do they hang out,
- What are their problems,
- What is their biggest problem, the one that keeps them awake at night,
- What vision do they have for their life,
- What do they love to do,
- What do they do on a daily basis,
- Where can you meet them,
- How do they like to communicate (Phone? E-mail? Letter?)
- What other businesses do they frequent,
- What do they eat and drink,
- What are their hobbies,
- Do they have a job or do they own a business,
- How much money do they make,
- What do they really want,
- What do they buy,
- What are they frustrated with?
You can add to this list, and the more you can find out about your market, the better the picture that you can paint of your Avatar, the easier you will find it to create a product for them that they will want to buy and will get value from.
So, if you are ready to create the meaningful and successful business and the lifestyle that you have always dreamt of, creating an Avatar is your first step.
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