The reason your ideal client avatar isn’t working - and the simple step to fix it
You’ve been hearing from everywhere and everyone that you need an ideal client avatar (or ICA) for your business - you dutifully followed their advice, but it just doesn’t seem to be helpful…
Your ideal client is Katie, she’s 32 and from London. She loves neutral colours, high fashion and pugs. She earns good money (€100,000+) from her career as a marketing consultant…
Problem is you’re not working with Katie… you spent ages creating this incredible avatar - even down to the colour of her eyes, but she doesn’t seem to exist IRL (or at least you’re not finding her).
I have a hunch as to where you went wrong and the good news is I know how to fix it! Pull up a chair and let’s unpick why your ideal client avatar isn’t working, and how to fix it.
This post may contain affiliate links. These are denoted by a *. If you make a purchase via one of these links I may get a small kickback. I only recommend products and services I use and love myself! Thanks in advance :)
Why isn’t your ideal client avatar working?
The most common mistakes people make when defining their ideal clients is that they stop at the surface level - also known as “Demographic factors” (things like age, income, where they live etc), and skip the slightly deeper - and frankly more useful, (AKA the why they buy) step - and it’s here that the most value is found.
Let’s start by digging into both of these types of data, what they are and why we need both to create a powerful Ideal Client Avatar.
What are demographic factors?
Demographic factors are facts about your ideal client. They’re easy to see from the outside, things like where they live, how much money they make, what job they have etc. Even things like their hair colour is a demographic factor.
Don’t get me wrong, demographic factors are useful when defining your ideal client, it’s mega handy to know how much they earn when you’re pricing your services, or where they live when you’re choosing where to advertise, or have your store. But demographic factors skip the most important piece of information that we need to know about our ideal clients… their “why”.
The power of why
One of my favourite TED talks of all time is Simon Sinek and his golden circles.
A quote that has always stayed with me from this TED talk is
“The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe”
Another way to frame this is that the “why” of your ideal client aligns with your why.
To align the why of your ideal client with your why, you need to first understand their psychographic profile or their motivations, so that you can…
Speak to their motivations, their beliefs, their why in your copy, imagery and brand
Build on this when you communicate how you do what you do
And finally connect with the what you actually do that links it clearly to why it’s important, or put another way - the impact it will have on their lives.
Let’s break this down and make it more tangible…
Psychographic Factors
Psychographic factors is the term we use to describe information that gives us insight about buyer motivations (or the “why they buy”). Psychographic factors are things like:
Beliefs
Values
Lifestyle
Opinions
Why is it important that we include psychographic factors in our ideal client profile?
Although our demographic ideal client profile is really handy, it doesn’t tell us much about the motivations and buying behaviour of our ideal clients, or what attracts them to certain brands over others. This is where a psychographic profile comes in handy.
From this data we can identify themes that will influence our messaging, service offerings and processes. In fact everything that we’re crafting for our brand and website, allowing us to connect directly with the core beliefs and “why” of our ideal clients.
How do you create an ideal client profile that includes psychographic factors?
This is where you may have to go the extra mile, as psychographic factors can be harder to see from the outside than demographic factors (that’s why many people stop at demographics!) Having said that, it doesn't need to be complicated, it just might take you a little time.
To understand the psychographic profile of your ideal client you’re going to need to spend time getting to know them better - asking them direct questions, but also observing and really listening to and engaging with them.
There are a few ways in which you can do this:
Interview previous clients that you’d define as your ideal client. Hop on a call with them and ask them all of the questions!
Interview people in your wider circle that you’d identify as being people you’d love to work with. Haven’t worked with any of your ideal clients before? Find people that fit the demographic profile and ask them the questions below.
Send out an email to your list, or ask on social media for people to complete a survey that unpicks their psychographic profile (NB: In this case you will need to make sure that you’re only targeting people from the right demographic profile e.g. if your ideal client is a retiree, make sure you’re only asking for survey responses from people that fit that profile)
Not sure where to start, or what questions to ask? Download my free Ideal Client Worksheet that has everything you need to craft a powerful ICA to use in your business, including a whole section on Psychographic profiling questions.
So now you have a bunch of Psychographic data to go alongside your Demographic data, what do you do with it next?
Use it in your messaging
Instead of starting with what we do, we can lead with why it’s important
By the “why” I mean the impact it will have on the life of the buyer.
A great way to do this is by capturing past, current and future states in your messaging (i.e. What brought them to this point (their backstory), where they are now (what they’re struggling with or wanting to overcome) and what things could look like in the future for them.
The aim is that when your ideal clients see this they think “wow - she’s reading my mind!”.
Use it in your copy in general
Use actual words that came up in your interviews or surveys, or analogies or stories (with permission).
We want to talk to our clients as they would talk, creating a safe homely space for them, where they feel seen and connected with. Using the same jargon, turn of phrase and cultural references is fab for this - you may also pull on your demographic data here too.
See this on copywriting to engage and convert your ideal clients.
Use it in your sales pitch and FAQs .
By understanding reservations and concerns we can pre-empt these in our communications so that our clients feel a great sense of trust that we’ve already thought about the things that they have on their mind.
Use it to refine your service or product offering
If we’re clear on the impact of what we do (I.e. why people would buy it) and what’s important to them we can refine what we offer so that it actually makes the impact the buyer is looking for.
Use it to create new product or service offerings
(Or retire those that are no longer aligned) - knowing why our clients buy, also allows us to identify more products or services that they’d value.
Use it when selecting your images
Choose images that show the values, the why and the feelings your ideal client wants to experience. Choose images that show the aspirational future state for them. Choose images that they can see themselves in.
So there you have it, the high impact step that often gets missed when people craft their Ideal Client Avatars. Get cracking on identifying and understanding the Psychographic features of your ideal clients and you’ll never look back!
Found this useful?
Check out my other business blogs to support you on your way…
New on the ‘Gram…
