- The customer profile (avatar) is designed to help you understand who your ideal customers are for your business.
- The customer avatar (profile) also helps you design marketing messages that respond to the challenges and needs of potential customers to successfully attract them to your business.
No matter how hard you try, chances are you won’t get the conversions your business needs to be profitable in the long run.
If the potential customers that come to your business website are not of high quality, any attempt to retain them will fail.
If you want to succeed in attracting “high quality” potential customers, your strategies will have to be constantly based on your ideal customer profile.
In this article, we share everything you need to know about your business’s ideal customer avatar.
You’ll learn:
- what is the client profile?
- how does the customer avatar help your business?
- how do you establish the ideal customer avatar for your business in just 5 steps?
What is a customer profile?
A customer profile (sometimes called: consumer profile) is a document that lists:
- interests
- buying tickets
- demographic characteristics of a business’s customers, etc.
This document is presented in a way that makes it look like a description of a real person, with a full name and a picture or avatar.
Client profile – example:
Source: https://www.engagebay.com/blog/customer-profile/
Building your ideal customer profile will help you run better online marketing campaigns, which in turn will increase your profits.
With all this useful information about potential customers you will be able to decide which strategy to implement and which to avoid.
For example:
- If your ideal client profile says that they love interacting with brands on Instagram, then you should probably focus on improving your Instagram presence and strategy.
It’s also worth mentioning that a customer profile for a B2C business would look different from that of a B2B business.
The B2B customer profile defines the ideal customer using firmography, such as:
- Company size
- Company revenues
- Industry/field of activity, etc
So, if you sell to other companies, you will need to find out how big they are, what sector they are in and how much they earn on average in a year.
At the same time, it’s also important not to forget that behind some of the decisions made by any company are real people for whom you can build a customer profile.
3 advantages of the ideal client profile
Neither you nor your business can be all things to all people, but you can create a customer profile to learn more about your ideal customer, who they are and what they do.
The main advantages of the customer avatar are:
- The creation and distribution of contextually targeted content on every online marketing channel used to promote the business.
- Information provided by the ideal customer avatar is useful for actively targeting specific consumer segments in Facebook and Google Ads campaigns.
- Increase customer loyalty. When you know what potential customers like and dislike, you can interact with them on a much more personal level.
What is the difference between Buyer Persona & Customer Avatar?
Marketers often use “customer profile / avatar” and “buyer persona” interchangeably, but they are two different terms that serve different purposes.
A customer profile is the type of person who would be a good fit for a business’s product or service.
This ideal customer profile tends to include demographics, lifestyle attributes, and behavioral attributes of the targeted individual.
On the other hand, buyer persona is a hypothetical representation of the customers a business wants to reach based on qualitative data such as goals, motivations, pain points, etc.
So these two terms represent the type of customer a business wants to serve. However, a customer profile will allow that business to drill down into the demographics and other attributes of potential customers.
How to build the customer avatar in 5 steps?
To build an ideal customer avatar, we recommend a systematic approach to gathering information and data about your ideal business customers.
A business that understands a customer’s needs, buying behavior and more will find out much easier what are the best ways to reach their target audience.
Here are 5 simple steps to creating a customer profile.
- Identify your best customers:
The first step is to find and analyze the people who are in love with the products or services of the business.
Some questions you can use to find the best customers:
- Who are the longest standing customers of your business?
- Who recommended my business to friends and family?
- Which clients have I introduced in my case studies?
If you represent a new business and don’t have a lot of customers to work with, think about the type of people who would benefit the most from the product or service you are promoting.
- List notable client attributes:
After making a list of the best customers, write down all their important attributes. The main attributes usually refer to:
- Demographics,
- Pyshography,
- Socioeconomics,
- Geographical segmentation,
- Signature (if B2B client profile).
- Customer survey/analysis:
As you type the attributes above, you will realize that you have more information about some customers than others.
In this case, we recommend that you use surveys to fill in the information gaps.
You can use tools such as SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create surveys on specific customer traits.
- Extract data from business online channels:
Online communication channels are a goldmine of potential customer data. Each marketing channel can reveal new information about who your business customers are.
- Fill in the template with the ideal client avatar:
Now that you have analyzed the top customers of your business, covered all their attributes and have an overview, we recommend that you condense all this information into one document – THE IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE.
- Set a name for your ideal client.
- Set a face for this profile.
- Add demographic information.
- Lists psychographic and socioeconomic attributes.
- Includes a quote from an ideal client.
- Add the goals, pain points and motivating factors of your ideal client.
- Add the type of communication channels they would prefer to use.
When building your ideal customer profile, the level of detail you go into will be entirely up to you.
Once you have created such a profile, make sure you share it with business partners, employees, sales and marketing teams.
This will give everyone a better idea of what types of strategies to adopt. In addition, they will be able to use them to guide their buyer personas and create more effective promotional campaigns.
Benefits of a customer avatar
Let’s see, at the end, what benefits the correct definition of a customer avatar can bring to your business.
- It builds your brand trust
Customers have a big influence on the success of an online business. Companies need to create trusted avatars for potential customers, in order to give them the best possible choice. A well-designed customer avatar can help companies connect with their customers on a personal level, which can ultimately lead to higher sales and customer loyalty.
- Help customers find what they’re looking for
When someone browses through an online store, they are looking for something specific. Buying a product from an online store is increasingly popular today. Potential customers want to be able to easily find what they are looking for and make a purchase quickly and easily.
Making an avatar helps customers feel like they are part of the store’s friend group and that the staff knows their needs. In addition, owning avatars helps customers feel that they are receiving a personal service when they make a purchase.
- Allows customers to feel part of the brand
When it comes to building successful online businesses, a customer avatar is key. The ideal consumer persona allows customers to feel part of the brand and helps them connect with your business on an emotional level.
The more personal and interactive the customer avatar is, the more likely each consumer-turned-customer is to return and recommend your business to their friends. The ideal customer can identify with the customer model in your product or service descriptions, which will more quickly convince them to make a purchase.
- Offer a successful connection between company and customer
If you know how to build a consumer profile, you’ll quickly identify the behavior and motivations that drive customers to make purchases.
; Understanding the motivations behind customer behavior will help you formulate more effective marketing campaigns.Factors that influence a customer’s buying decision include demographics and statistics (age, gender, location), interests, passions and needs. By understanding these factors, you can focus your marketing efforts on the right people and ensure that your products or services meet their needs.
Once you’ve identified what your target customer should look like, it’s important to create the most engaging customer avatar possible. This avatar should represent the types of customers you want to attract to your business. You can use customer avatars to connect with potential buyers and show them how your product or service can help them.
By creating a well-structured customer avatar, you will increase your chances of reaching your target market and converting potential customers into buyers.
- Optimize marketing spend
A customer avatar is important to the success of any online business, as it will save you a lot of costs generated by marketing campaigns. This way, you will leverage your marketing efforts more effectively and more easily track the success of your advertising efforts.
Another reason why a customer avatar is so important to the success of online commerce is to improve conversion rates. By using avatars instead of photos, you’ll be able to create a more personalized experience for your customers. They will be able to interact more easily with your products and services and have more reasons to buy them.
By using a custom avatar, you will generate a unique experience for your customers and have the opportunity to build a direct relationship with each customer, encouraging them to buy from you again.
- Taylor your service or products to better meet consumer needs
Knowing the needs and wants of your customers will lead to tailoring the products or services you offer for them to meet their needs. For example, if they always order the same thing, but want it delivered on a certain day, you could set up an automated delivery system to take care of this.
- Generates loyalty and sales opportunities
When customers feel connected to a particular brand, they are more likely to become loyal customers and buy more products in the future. You can generate loyalty opportunities using customer avatars, but also opportunities to increase sales at the same time, as loyal customers are more likely to recommend your product or service to their friends or family.