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How To Identify Your Target Audience And Create Your Perfect Avatar
Why, oh why, on God’s green earth, does it take SO MUCH work to effectively market on social media? If you’ve caught yourself asking this question, don’t worry! It DOES get easier! And I’m going to help you figure out the BIGGEST step of all- identifying your target audience. This article will be short, sweet, and get straight to the point: Who EXACTLY is your ideal customer, client or audience? (Aka your perfect Avatar…)
Yep, your ideal customer/client is also commonly referred to as your ‘Avatar’ or ‘Marketing Persona,’ in case you’ve been seeing that wording in articles or social media groups. Not sure why they need 500 names for the same things (click funnel, anyone??) but I guess at least it keeps things fresh.Â
Or do they do it to confuse us into thinking we need to hire pros to get it figured out? *lightbulb*
Anyhoo… I´ve seen a lot of other articles that already talk about audiences and avatars, so I don’t want to be too redundant but I do want to clarify the process because this should seriously only take you 5-10 minutes to figure out.Â
Some of those articles were fantastic, but some as very vague. I’ve even seen one that literally just prompts readers to write a specific, 500 word paragraph about their perfect customer!
‘Judy loves taking long walks on the beach with her dalmation, Betty, and painstakingly avoids having her husband’s toilet-themed Snapchat profile pop up in her feed…’
Wait…what? No?? Okay, well what does SPECIFIC mean, exactly?!
*cue superhero music* Never fear! OWLLytics is here! *dun duh duh*
Okay so to make this as simple as possible, grab a pen and paper, and let’s work through the process of identifying your ‘typical’ audience member. (It’s okay, grab a pen, I’ll wait.)
How to identify your target audience & create your perfect avatar:
You’re going to want to write down answers to the following questions:
1- What age range is my typical audience member?
2- Is my typical audience member a specific gender?Â
3- What is the average income range for your typical audience member?
4- Does my typical audience member need to live in a specific area for some reason (do you only ship to the continental US, or have a hair salon in SoHo, for example?)
5- What personality type is your product or service most able to relate to or use? (A happy, optimistic person is attracted to different marketing than a moody college kid, for instance.)
6- What profession is your product or service most able to relate to or use? (You would get further by selling your organic window cleaner to a busy stay at home mom than you would by selling it to a workaholic who’s never home, right?)
7- What personality type (and profession) would be most likely and willing to PAY for your product or service? (Does this match questions 5 and 6? If not, why not? This is where you can narrow down to specific traits.)
8- What types of other things (activities, hobbies, jokes, etc) is this person interested in that you could relate to?
9- What kinds of places do you think they would hang out? (Libraries, coffee shops, gyms, nightclubs?)
10- What problem(s) do you solve for this person? Do they have any other particular struggles?
What if I have more than one ideal customer?
If you have multiple answers for some of these questions, that’s totally okay! You can have more than one ideal customer or avatar!Â
In that case, you will want to write down a few different customer personas, so that you can be as specific as possible.Â
For example, if you have a brand of tennis shoes that are extremely comfortable for people who stand all day for work, your ideal customer might be a nurse or doctor. Your ideal customer could also be a waitress. What about a teacher?
Use the questions above to create as many customer avatars as necessary, writing a paragraph about each one as though they were a specific person, such as Nurse Amy, Professor Jamison, or Clara from Olive Garden.Â
Now that I have my target audience figured out, what do I do with it?
Woohoo! You know WHO your ideal customer is!
Now you can create your advertising, social media content, sales pages, etc. to be most appealing for them!Â
If you’re just getting started with social media marketing, or your business is fairly new, try starting with JUST ONE ideal customer- one avatar, and start creating content aimed at them.Â
I suggest starting with whichever one either the most people (so probably not college professors) or the one that YOU can personally relate to the most. It will be much easier to write content or make images if it is something you are already interested in, and that’s always a plus, because relatability matters!
Creating your ideal customer profile or avatar and creating the right content are just the first steps, however.Â
Next, you want to figure out WHERE your ideal customer is most likely to be, and then plan content that speaks to them and post it where they’re going to see it. (You can jump over to our article on choosing which social media platform you should focus on first to find your ideal audience.)
That’s it! See, it doesn’t have to be so hard!
When you take things one step at a time, it is much more manageable, right?
Plus, you’re a business badass so I have total faith in you! I can’t WAIT to see how you dominate the world!
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Got a question? Comment below! I’d love to help! 🙂
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Nice! Another amazing article from you. As always, I learned something new. Thanks a lot! ?
I didn’t realize there’s so much to consider when choosing an avatar. Great info
Love this. You just inspired me to get more creative with my avatar rather than it just being a selfie I took with the front camera lol
I never thought of making my avatar geared toward my target audience. That is such an amazing idea.
it’s so easy and so hard… I’m pretty good in marketing strategies, but not in this, because I do not live a typical life. I don’t watch TV, no magazines, I don’t follow politics nor any sports. So I kinda don’t understand the world of a typical human.
Being unique is a valuable thing in this world. 😉 You can always outsource this part if it’s not one of your strong suits. 🙂
Creating an avatar or a persona is the first thing a business should do, before starting their marketing plan. Without one they will be just wasting money on paid advertising, as they will market to the wrong audience.
It is definitely an important first step. 🙂 Thanks for reading!
Nice insight on how to create an avatar for your business by thinking about your target client(s). They say the same thing for logos for businesses: have something catchy but for the client.
Yes absolutely, logos definitely have a lot of the same considerations since you want your logo to appeal to your ideal audience. 🙂 Thanks!
As a small business owner, this is something I sometimes struggle with. Thanks for these great tips.
I’m glad you find it helpful! Please let me know if you still have any questions. 🙂
Nice! Another amazing article from you. As usual I learned something new from it. Thanks a bunch! 🙂
By using an avatar to define your target audience, you can hone in on the people who align with your business ideals and will want your offerings. It’s not everyone, just the people most likely to buy into your story and help make it a success. Ths is really helpful
Thank you so much, I’m glad you found it useful! 🙂
Social media is a big help to grow your audience I believe that! that because it worked on my blog.
So many great tips on this. Thank you for sharing.
Thank for those tips on building an avatar. I’ve been struggling to build my avatar these tips will help me.
I’m glad you found it helpful! Thank you for reading! 🙂
Identifying the target audience is so difficult. Thanks for this, I will try determining my audience.
well this is not an easy task but you defined very well thank you
Thank you so much! I am glad you found it useful! 🙂
This is the most useful blog post I’ve read in a while. Identifying my target audience has always been a struggle and you gave me some ideas.
Aww thanks! I hope this helps! 🙂