Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today, we're talking about building a customer avatar, and we're going to take you through it step by step. First off, what is a customer avatar? Customer persona, another name for it, Melanie, take it away.
Melanie
It's a way of identifying who your best and most ideal customers are. To do that, we need to ask ourselves some questions about who they are, what their motivations are, so on and so forth. We would normally start with the demographic information.
Esther
Yeah. Demographics include age, the gender, the location, also, very importantly, their economic status. It can also include if they are university graduates or if they are high school Are they married? Are they single? Do they have kids? All of that is your demographic information. So why is all of that important?
Melanie
Well, it helps us better understand where their head is at, where their life has led them to that, and if we can meet them on that journey, I believe.
Esther
Yeah, and I think, too, it helps you get into their head space when you're writing your content. Because at the end of all of this, when you have your customer avatar, it's to help you write your content as if you are speaking directly to them. So if you just say, oh, well, my customers, everyone can buy from me or my product is suitable for every age and stage of life, then your marketing will express that and you won't really be hitting any specific target audience. But if you can break it down and say, well, my audience is 40 to 50 year old, mothers, women, career-driven ladies who don't take time for themselves, need that extra little, pick me up. They need these. I always come back to candles, don't they? Okay, pick a different. Everybody knows now that I love my candles. But if your product... Okay, yoga. We all need between the age of 40 and 50, definitely yoga.
Melanie
You're moving to yoga now. Okay.
Esther
That's either that or candles. But if you have this ideal customer in your head, and I would say not just in your head, but in front of you, you can tailor your message specifically to that person. So another thing I would really say you should hone in on is what exactly they look like. Now, I'm a big one, big visual learner. So having an AI generated or a doodle of the person in front of me that I'm trying to target with my marketing is a real help to me. Otherwise, I'm just going, well, nobody's going to read it, so I can just spout out whatever I want to say in this post. But if you have given the person a face and even a name, then it can help you with talking directly to that person. What else, Melanie?
Melanie
Well, I completely agree with all of that. But I think another area that we need to break down to let people understand that we need to build a better knowledge of is the psychographic information. This includes values. The This includes values and beliefs.
Esther
What's psychographic?
Melanie
Well, this includes values and beliefs and lifestyle. Now we're going from what is perceived as societal norm to a personal understanding of that person.
Esther
Okay, so you're really getting into their head space now. You're really getting into their mindset of they do X, Y, Z on a Saturday morning because they have or do not have kids. They have pets, so they have to get up and there, so they're going to be online at a certain time. That sort of thing?
Melanie
Not quite the same thing. Because now we're looking at their more personality traits rather than their pet types. But we're looking at their challenges, their pain-points, their goals and desires, and And that's more of a personal thing rather than an accepted societal norm.
Esther
Okay. Again, it comes back to really knowing who your audience is and really knowing what it is that they're looking for, why they have the pain points that they have and how they need them to be solved.
Melanie
Yeah.
Esther
But how can a business starting out recognize all these things as well? Because if you haven't had a client yet, how do you know who your ideal client is?
Melanie
Well, a lot of it comes down to personal experience, I suppose. But you can also, and it's not a crime, ask friends and family, tap the people that you already have an access to and workshop it. Some of it will be trial and error, especially if you are starting up afresh, and especially if it's a new area that you've never worked in. But the majority of people who start up a business have some knowledge in that area. So why not use and utilize that knowledge that you've built up over a period of weeks, months or years to your advantage.
Esther
Agreed. Now, when we talk about customer avatars, people sometimes think that there's just one customer avatar that they should be designing for their business. But I would say it's more than that. It's more than the one. I would say no more than four, but that's just me. But I think, too, it depends on the different types of products and services that you have. So if you have a product that both men and women can use, then you would have a male avatar and a female avatar. If you have a product that the whole family could use, then you would want to have an avatar for the kids as well so that you would appeal to them in a different tone of voice or with different imagery than you would to mom and dad. So I would say, even if all your avatars or all your personas are in the same age category, they all are at different stages of their lives. There are 40-year-olds who are just having kids, and there are other 40-year-olds that are almost grandparents. You've got all these different stages that can all maybe, and this is where you'd have to go really into your product and service and go, Is this something that can help this person in this stage of their life or not? And if it's not, then they're not a category that you should be including in your avatars and targeting.
Melanie
Yeah, I think we're talking the behavioural information now. Now that we've understood the psychographic and demographic, there's the behavioural information, which is what you're referring to now. That's shopping habits. Maybe they have brand loyalty. Is there a reason why they're going to buy your product? Is it like you've moved home or you've got a new job, or is it a big life event like moving house or getting married or something like that?
Esther
Having a baby.
Melanie
Having a baby. These are all big, what are referred to as buying triggers. People make these decisions over a period of time. Even if they do have a buying trigger, like having a baby, they still have a decision making process. That can be through seeing ad campaigns, reading reviews or getting personal recommendations. All of these things that we've just mentioned is behavioural information. And some of that you will be doing yourself. So try and tap on what you've done in the past, how you've made decisions. And again, speak to friends and families for further suggestions.
Esther
Yeah. And I would say that you should also use your previous experiences in your marketing in the storytelling that you do. Because thinking about new parents, they are going through something they've never gone through before. Other people have. Everyone has a different experience. Everyone has a different way of looking at it or coming at it. You might have had a baby that slept all through the night from day one. Congratulations. You weren't always that lucky. But other people will be struggling and will be looking for other suggestions from other people who struggled. So maybe your product or service has come out of the struggles that you went through as a new parent or when you moved house or when you started a new job. So all of these things can be used to help. And by giving your stories and telling your stories, and again, the behavioural information will let you know when they're going to be online. If they are new parents, they probably won't be online until after nine o'clock at night when if they're lucky, they get the baby down for a couple of hours or they're up at one o'clock in the morning and scrolling on the phone while baby is having a bottle or getting a nappy changed. But your marketing should be going out at the times that are most relevant or when they're going to be most likely online. If they're moving house, the evenings will be the time they're unpacking everything. So they may, while they're at work the next day, be looking for stuff. So think about when they're going to have the time available to be searching for the information that you're sharing out as well. And I know social media platforms give you suggested times. It's not always true. It's not always correct. So it's important that you think about these things also. There's no point in sending out information to new parents at 9:00, 10:00 in the morning when they've already been up for three, four hours and pulling their hair out. They're not going to be paying attention to it. Another thing I wanted to suggest before we end is to give your personas a name. If you give them a name, it makes them more relevant. It makes you think, I'm talking to Jane, I'm talking to Fatima, I'm talking to Joe. You know? You will be, while you're making your content, you'll have that person's name in your head, and then all their information will come back to you, and all the things that we've just been telling you to keep an eye on and to remember will come to you while you're writing your content. And that's extremely important, too.
Melanie
I would also validate with some real data, because over time, if you've understood or you've developed these avatars, and especially if you've already experienced, you've been in business for a while, you can validate this with some real data using your analytics from your website, your social media, obviously your sales, just to see if it aligns with your customer avatar. And again, you can do surveys and even proper interviews, which I've done in the past when I changed tact a few years back, I interviewed people on a one-to-one basis just to better and further my customer avatar. So there are ways of actually validating it as well.
Esther
Yeah, and don't feel afraid to just stick to the ones that you have. While your business grows with you, you may feel that your customers are changing, and that is completely fine as well to go back to the drawing board every so often and just relook at your customer avatar and maybe new mums are no longer your target audience. Maybe it's mums of teenagers who are also pulling their hair out that are now your new target audience. And they maybe the same people that you sold two years before. They may have seen your stuff from previous years. You just never know when people are watching what you're putting out online. But don't be afraid to switch it up. And it's also valid to keep with the same avatar for the entire lifespan of your business. Because if it works, it works.
Melanie
Well, I hope you found all of this useful today. We've tried to go in as in-depth detail as possible, giving you lots of headings, lots of areas that you may want to work on. You may need to listen to this back and write it down separately. Bless you, your little cotton socks you're going to get right as cramp. And of course, you're going to get the show notes over the next coming few weeks or months as well, so that could be used to your betterment. But that's it for now. We'll be back next week with another podcast. And don't forget to bring your suggestions to us if there's anything you'd like us to cover. And we'll be back to speak to you soon. Bye.
Esther
Bye-bye.
