One of the most powerful tools in marketing is the “Client Avatar”.
In this short clip, Visionary’s Director, Sanjay, breaks it down:
In online business, the pool of clients you can potentially attract is massive, now that the internet has removed geographic boundaries. This means that you can attract the PERFECT clients for your business online, without ever running out of prospects.
By “perfect clients”, we mean the ones that LOVE your service. They’ll trust you, and buy from you repeatedly. They’ll be happy to invest in your prices, and they’ll recommend you. And more than that, they’ll become your friends.
But attracting perfect clients requires first knowing them EXTREMELY well.
So, before we work on strategic Digital Marketing projects at Visionary Digital Studios, we’ll define your perfect customer – and then record this information as a “character” in a document called the “Client Avatar”.
From then on, you will continually develop your service specifically for this perfect client. Every piece of marketing and communication you do should be designed specifically for this perfect client.
Take it even further … the purpose of your business will become to serve your perfect client, your “Client Avatar”.
When you know your customers this well, they will feel an emotional connection with your brand and your service. Better still, because you know them so well, you will be in the best possible position to serve them.
When focussing your marketing activities on your Client Avatar – the net effect is that you will start attracting clients just like your “Client Avatar”. When done well, this effect is uncanny.
Keep in mind that you can have more than one “Client Avatar”. So at Visionary Digital Studios for example, we work with “Business Owners” and “Marketing Managers”, and have a “Client Avatar” defined for each. Each has their own desires, traits and problems they need solved. By having these perfect clients well documented, we know exactly how we can provide them the most value possible before and after they work with us.
As an example, check out how we have defined one of Visionary Digital Studios’ Client Avatars here:
[VISIONARY DIGITAL STUDIOS CLIENT AVATAR – CEO]
(NOTE: You should take a copy of this template and use it to create your own Customer Avatar)
Now watch our video (or our websites and online marketing), and you will notice that every part of the video: the message, the language, the visuals, the characters, the music … is designed specifically for this Client Avatar. Further still, every piece of marketing we do at Visionary is for this “Client Avatar”.
However, to learn more about how video content can be crafted to resonate with your perfect clients, check out our B2B Video Production services here.
HOW TO USE YOUR CLIENT AVATAR
The Client Avatar should be printed and on the wall in front you and your staff.
Any time you are developing products, marketing or communications you will reference your Client Avatar, and pretend that you are speaking, or designing specifically for them.
You should re-visit your Client Avatar regularly. Add anything you learn about them during sales calls and projects.
Continually refine and perfect your Client Avatar, because these will be the people that you attract into your business.
Fall in love with your “Client Avatar”, because these are the people your business has been built to serve.
See a good example from our work with Telcoworks here.
SO DOES THAT MEAN I WON’T WORK WITH ANYONE WHO ISN’T LIKE MY PERFECT CLIENT?
Of course not.
Having your “Client Avatar” defined means that you’ll attract more people who are similar to your perfect client.
Not all clients will match perfectly though, and there will be people that are very different than your perfect client, that you know you can still help.
You’ll still work with these clients if you choose.
However, as time passes, and your business evolves, you’ll notice that you attract more and more people who are similar to your Client Avatar.
And because every part of your business will have been specifically designed to help THEM, your production and delivery will run smoother, with happier clients.
WHY NOT TRY TO HAVE A WIDE NET AND ATTRACT ALL CUSTOMERS?
Because clients have so many online options when making buying decisions these days.
If they are seeing your marketing, they are almost definitely seeing your competitors’ marketing. So designing your service and your marketing for a very specific person – your “Client Avatar” – allows you to have the competitive advantage, because everything about your business will be designed specifically for them.
This then makes your service superior and your relationships with your clients amazing. And because all of the clients you attract will have similar requirements, it will also make your delivery simpler and more effective.
Having a well defined “Client Avatar” will have a profound impact on everything you do in your business from on.
Plus, focusing on a specific audience can also bring long-term benefits beyond just immediate results. Learn more about the second-order benefits of marketing here.
BONUS INSIGHTS
Being more likely to be chosen is one of several profound impacts of niching down, others include:
– Knowledge you gain from one client will have an impact on ALL your other clients
– Every time you develop a new process or product to help one client, that same process can serve ALL clients
– You can make introductions between clients and contacts that are following the same path
– Having all of your experience concentrated in one niche means you and your team will become experts and thought leaders in your field much faster
All these benefits are compounding too!
To see more client examples of client campaigns that make use of these concepts, check this page out: https://visionarydigitalstudios.com/samples/
