Welcome back, my friend. I’m so excited for this month’s blog, because here you’ll learn all about why you need to understand your ideal client.
I’m not quite talking about the name of their first pet cat, but more so if they prefer peanut butter over vegemite.
Now you may think I sound a little over the top. However, intimately understanding your ideal client is super essential for your business and your brand.
Branding is an investment for your business, so to do it right you must uncover exactly who your brand is targeting.
So then, what’s an ideal client?
You know the one you want to work with because they light up your day. Who accepts you for you, which means there’s no putting on a pretending hat.
They work with you because they like you, and they’d recommend you and your business in a heartbeat.
This person is what your ideal client looks like. Your job is to uncover all of the information that makes them tick, so you can truly understand them.
Furthermore, your ideal client aligns with your values, business mission and what you offer.
Simply put, you go together like peas and carrots.
Why is it essential you know your ideal client?
Well, it’s all about your messaging.
When you try appealing to everyone, your brand messaging gets lost, and you end up grabbing the attention of no one.
So rather than trying to attract the masses, your goal is to hone in on one person completely.
This strategy helps you create intentional and specific messaging for your brand, which means it’s direct, bold and impactful.
Once you know your ideal client well, it helps you plan your content too. Because when you understand what your clients like, you’re able to create content they actually want to see.
It also helps you know and use their language, so you can apply phrases that resonate with them. Plus, you’ll know exactly where you can find them to speak to them. For example, do they hang out on Insta? If so, then this is where you’ll connect with them.
Why the need to understand your ideal client so intimately?
So your clients feel understood, heard and supported by you. Which means you can give them what they’re looking for.
And it’s because they trust that you understand their pains and problems. This trust means you’re the best solution to solving their problems and creating a new and improved result for them.
Furthermore, by honing in and speaking to one person, you’ll get a higher conversion rate from leads to clients because of your clarity and confidence.
Before you have a minor freak out, this isn’t as hard as it may sound. But no matter your business, product or service, you need to hone in on one ideal client. So you speak only to one person.
This is where your client avatar comes in. But I’ll get to that shortly.
First, I want to break down the differences between the target market and the target audience. As I know, these terms get tossed around a fair bit.
What’s a target market?
A target market is a broad yet specific group of people you want to reach with your messaging.
Such groups like teenage girls 14-17 years old or start-up female entrepreneurs.
Think of your target market as a whole sponge cake. It’s uncut and complete.
Maybe with a few finger marks if you’ve got some taste testing kids like me?
What’s a target audience?
Once you know your target market, you need to move into sectioning your cake to start serving out slices.
A target audience gets super specific on your actual clients and has two parts.
Demographics which is who they are
- Age
- Sex
- Location
- Income
- Occupation
- Education level
- Living status
- Marital status
- Nationality
- Religion
And psychographics which is why they buy
- The problems they’re having
- Their needs and wants
- Who they trust
- What sets off their distrust
- Things they’re afraid of
- Objections towards your industry and making a purchase
- Where they source information
- What influences them to purchase
To identify and discover all of the above, you’ll research your target audience by asking them questions.
Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to create your client avatar.
What’s a client avatar?
Remember the slices of the cake you sectioned off? Well, now it’s time to cut and take out one piece. And that slice becomes the person who you speak to.
That person is your avatar. A client avatar is a fictional character and a single person you create based on the target audience’s information.
If you’re thinking, Kat, what are you on about? Well, stay with me because I’m about to tell you.
Creating this fictional character with specific details gives you a deep description of a single person and tells their story. So you can now speak straight to them and create targeted messaging.
So what information should you put into your avatar?
I like this information to be a mixture of your who, what and how.
Let me break this down,
Who is it you help
- The demographics and psychographics from the above
- Values
- The media they use
- Communities and groups they belong to
- What books they read
A short example,
Vicky is 36 and owns a product business that sells organic homemade cat biscuits. She’s married with two children and lives in a 3 bedroom house in a quiet town in Tasmania. She values family, work-life balance, animal rights and honesty. In her spare time, she hangs out in animal lover facebook groups and likes to spread the word about feeding animals organically.
She’s unsure if her branding is on point but has no idea where to start, and she’s scared of working with a designer who doesn’t understand her and her business.
What problems they have and how you help them
- What are their desires?
- Do they have dreams? If so, how can you help them get there?
- What are their problems? What are they struggling to solve on their own?
- What are their pain points around their problems? Delve into their feelings here. How do they feel when they are unable to solve their problems?
- What are their beliefs? Most people have preconceived ideas about your industry, so uncover these and bust those myths because this stops the obstacle from getting in the way.
About how you help them
When I say ‘how you help them’, I mean what you do to help your client avatar. This how is like the evidence to support that you’re the solution to the problem.
- Why you help solve this problem
- Share your story
- What’s your reason?
- Your values
- Qualifications
Understanding how it is you help your avatar becomes your point of connecting with them.
You’ve told them you understand who they are by the books they read and the groups they belong to.
Then you’ve gone further into understanding their deepest desires, problems and belief systems.
So now you’re jumping in and connecting with them on the deepest level. And reassuring your ideal client that you’re the right person to help them.
So there it is, my friend, why your ideal client is so important, what an avatar is and what information you should put into your fictional character.
And finally, remember, you can’t sell all the things to all the people.
Further to this, you’re not for everyone, and that’s totally ok.
Because guess what?
It helps if you’re not for everyone because your business services your ideal clients.
After all, you understand them and in this blog, you’ve learnt about how you can connect with them.
Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the above information?
Please don’t worry because I’ve got you.
I created an Ideal Client Avatar Workbook for you, which includes a profile worksheet to print off and stick on your wall as a reminder.
It’s got all the info and probing questions you need to conduct your research so you can understand your ideal client and create your avatar.
Also if you’re a little stumped when it comes to your business branding you can download my free branding workbook it’s full of useful information to get you started.
If you’re ready to bring your brand to life shoot me an email and let’s get you started.