The difference between a hobby blogger and one that is making a profit establishing themselves as a brand is knowing who their audience is based on their ideal client avatar. We have a tendency to think that more eyes are better, but if those eyes aren’t connected to someone that’s going to connect with you and result in a profit via a continued reader or purchaser of your products and service, then it’s of little use. The goal isn’t all the eyes – but the right eyes.
You can have all the right programs, the right software, the right products, but if you don’t get them in front of the right eyes, it’s all for loss. You could solve hunger in the middle east, but if your audience is here in the US then your content isn’t going to make sense or resonate with them. That’s a little drastic of an example, but you get it.
What is an avatar?
A client avatar is a person you dream up or know, that represents your ideal audience. The point of an avatar is to write to them. So instead of writing blog posts for the masses and using language that would please everyone, you write a blog post as if you’re writing a letter or email to your friend. It gives you the ability to establish that relationship with your reader. No one likes to be talked at – but rather talked to. You have the ability and opportunity to do that when you blog to a “specific person”.
Now as I said, an avatar can be someone you’ve made up or someone that you know. Either way, this person should inspire your work and keep you in check. It is super helpful when you have a friend that is your ideal client avatar because they can often times be very direct and frank with you about whether you’re staying on brand or coming off as salesy/fake.
An avatar should establish who your tribe consists of and who your perfect match is.
How do I design my avatar?
An avatar is meant to be really specific. You’ll look at the demographics and psychographics of your avatar to help determine how they make decisions and view your content, and products or services you offer. Both demographics and psychographics are a part of market research. When you have and know your avatar, you can spend less time floundering in Facebook groups asking random questions to random people in hopes for guidance. By determining your client’s demographics first, you can typically determine the psychographics much more easily.
Questions to ask in determining the demographics and psychographics of your client avatar:
*Demographics are the more factual points, whereas psychographics are more based on how your avatar thinks and makes choices. Both come into play when determining how to speak or sell to them. If you don’t know the answers to these about yourself and your brand, I suggest doing this twice – once for you and your brand and once for your avatar.*
- Is this person male, female, or both? For the purpose of the rest of this list, I will be using she.
- Where does she live?
- How old is she?
- Does she have a job? Where?
- What is her marital status?
- Where did she go to school? Private or public?
- What kind of education does she have?
- What is she skilled in?
- What does she have natural passions for?
- What is her backstory? Does she come from a home of divorce? Did she grow up on a farm?
- Does she have kids? What ages are they?
- What is this family’s annual salary?
- Where do they like to shop? Are they about a thrifty deal or are they looking for quality and experience?
- What are their top 5 values?
Okay, I’ve answered the questions – now what?
Now you put it all together. You give your person a name. You give them an age. You give their spouse a name and age, etc. The more specific you can get about who they are and what their life entails, the easier it will be to speak to them and help them through their problem areas – whether it’s something as deep as dealing with divorce or loss, or something simple such as how to make dinner for 8 people every night.
