How to Find And Connect With Your Perfect Client

Every business needs one - an “avatar” to represent your ideal client. In this article, we’ll go deeper into how you can find out who exactly your ideal client is - and how to create your “ideal client avatar” based on that.

It’s much harder to design products, offer services or create content if you don’t know who you’re doing it for. Knowing your avatar is crucial to creating stuff that people will LOVE - and buy.

This article was originally published in video format - you can watch it below if you prefer that to reading.

What is an “Avatar” in digital marketing?

Avatar is short for “ideal client avatar” or “ideal customer avatar.” Some call it a “buyer persona” and it can apply to any representation of your audience - whether they’re actual clients, customers, donors, collaborators, or other stakeholders.

This is the one person that doesn’t just like what you do, but also engages with your content online and buys what you are selling.

What your Brand’s Persona is Not

• An avatar is NOT an audience. E.g., your avatar can’t be “women between the ages of 25 and 65”; that’s a group of people, not the “one person” you keep in mind when you create your stuff.

• An avatar is NOT a niche. E.g., your avatar can’t be “restaurants”; that’s the industry you could be targeting with your products or services, but it’s not the person who would buy from you.

• An avatar is NOT a product. E.g., “children’s clothing” or “coaching” definitely aren’t your ideal client; they’re what you want to sell to that person.   

There’s a big difference between your target audience, your niche, your product and your actual Avatar.

How to Define Your ICA

Your Avatar is one specific person, real or imaginary, that you have in mind whenever you’re creating a new product.

Who is that one person you are trying to help?

You might think that you want to help everyone and anyone in the whole world. This is the quickest way to end up appealing to no-one.

When you’re starting out in business, you need to get very specific. You want to have that one particular person in mind, and make sure you reach that person.

By doing this, you will end up reaching more people just like your Avatar.

Having an “ideal client” doesn’t mean they’re the only potential client you’re going to reach with your marketing efforts; on the contrary, they’re the people that are going to be your raving fans… but it doesn’t mean you’d be excluding anyone who does NOT fit the description.

You will create a description of your persona for yourself and your marketing plan - however, you won’t be sharing the description with the outside world.

Describing Your Avatar

Give your Avatar a name, an age, a whole life! Do your research, and try to find out as much about them as possible.

• What does your avatar do?

• What do they like?

• What is he or she passionate about?

• Where do they hang out online?

• What makes them stressed?

• And most importantly, how can you and your business help this person?

The better you get to know your Ideal Client Avatar, what content they will engage with, what they need and how you can help them - the easier it is to create suitable content and products for your brand.

Let’s give you an example…

Meet Monica. Monica is a 55-year-old woman with grown-up children (her 17-year-old son still lives at home, her 20-year-old daughter is currently studying abroad.) Monica works a 9-to-5 in administration for a local company but is growing fed up with her job. Her boss is good to her, and the client contacts are a welcome diversion, but she doesn’t want to spend another decade (or more) sitting behind a desk. She spends quite a bit of time at work surfing the internet and connecting with friends on Facebook.

Weekends are when she comes alive; that’s when she goes hiking (sometimes with her husband, sometimes with a group of hiking friends). She used to go camping during the holidays, but now enjoys a little more comfort; she’s booked a hiking holiday for the summer and would love to explore adventure sports too.

She firmly believes that health starts at home. She’s into organic food, shops at farmers’ markets and tries to stay away from processed foods.  

As you can see, you can (and should) have a whole story describing your Avatar.

The more specific the description for your ideal client, the better you know what kind of content to create to reach them with your online and offline marketing.

You’ll see what kind of products they need, what services they need from you, and how best you can help them.

Why Every Brand Needs An Avatar

After you have fully described your ICA, every time you create something for your business, whether that’s free content or a paid product or service, think to yourself, “Would “Monica” like this? Is this something that “Monica” needs? Would “Monica” buy this product?”

Creating an avatar helps you to get specific - and to focus on what your audience REALLY needs.  By always having your ideal customer in mind, you’ll be able to create better content, products and services for her, and in turn, for your whole target audience.

As a business, the easiest way to create products, offer services or create content is by knowing exactly WHO you’re creating them for, what that person needs, and what they need to end up buying what you’re selling.

Your Turn Now… Who’s Your Ideal Client?

If you don’t have an Avatar, now’s the time to start brainstorming. Take a few minutes, hours or even days to come up with a model for your ideal client. For starters, what would you call him or her?

After all, once you know exactly who it is you want to appeal to, they’re much easier to find!

Once you’ve got your Ideal Client Avatar in mind, I’d love to hear about them! Let me know in the comments, who is he or she, what’s their story, and how do YOU help them?