5 Steps to Define Your Ideal Customer
How to create your ideal client profile, without the confusion
If you run a small business, you’ve probably heard that it’s important to determine your ideal customer. There’s a lot of marketing jargon around this topic, like creating an ideal client avatar, or customer profiling, which can make things more confusing than they need to be. However, the phrase “if you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no-one”, really is true, so it IS important to get to know who we’re selling to.
“When you’re marketing to everyone, you’re marketing to no-one”
Getting clear on your ideal customer can not only help you get more sales in your indie business, but it also makes all of your other decisions easier. If you’re a product seller, it helps you create the right products that will sell. If you’re a service based business, knowing who your clients are will help you create packages and services that they need. It helps with your visuals, your marketing copy, your content strategy… the list goes on and on. So even though it’s a task we often put off, creating an ideal client profile in a way that works for you is a total game changer. So in this step by step guide, I’ll help you get to know your customer in a more creative and fun way, without the fluff and unnecessary faff. Let’s go!
STEP ONE: Look at What You Offer, and How it Helps Your Potential Customers
When you first start a small business, especially if you’re a creative, sometimes it can be hard to look at your product or service as something that solves a problem for your customers. If your brand was born from something that you love to do, it can feel like that’s the only reason you do it. BUT just because you love doing something, doesn’t mean it’s not also helping someone else! For example, if you’re an artist and you sell paintings, you’re solving someone else’s need to decorate their home and express their personal style. A problem doesn’t have to be life or death to be worth solving.
So look at your product or service, and ask yourself:
What are the specific features, and who would they appeal to?
Who would buy this?
Why might they buy my ___ over someone else’s?
Let’s go back to the art example. You might think “my customer is someone who wants to buy a piece of art”. But what type of art is it? What sort of home would it live in? A customer who buys a minimalist black and white print for £25, is likely a completely different person who buys an original A1 size maximalist painting in bright technicolour.
If you start to look closely at the features of your specific offering, you can use them to work out the type of person who might want that in their life. I have more tips on finding your own personal creative style here, which might help with this exercise.
STEP TWO: Look for Clues in Your Past Customers
You don’t have to make up an “ideal customer avatar” out of thin air! You can use market research to find clues about your past customers, and what they have in common. For example:
Chat to them 1-1 if you get the opportunity, ask them questions.
Send out customer surveys.
Snoop their social media 😱🕵🏼
If you find it overwhelming: try choosing ONE person, as an experimental case study, see where it takes you - you can always adjust as you go. By looking at your past customers and finding out more about them, you can also work out if your brand is currently attracting the right sort of people. If you’re finding that lots of similar customers are buying from you, but they’re not the right type of client for you, then you know you’ll need to adjust your marketing strategy slightly to find the people you actually want to work with.
STEP THREE: Imagine Your Dream Client
If you’re not yet attracting the customers that you really want to work with, you could imagine your dream customer instead and use them as your customer avatar. This person could be completely fictional, OR if you find that tricky to imagine, you could use a real person who hasn’t necessarily bought from you yet, but they are someone you’d love to work with. Some examples of where you could look for inspiration for dream customers are:
Social media: do you follow any influencers or who you can imagine would love your product or service?
Your real life: you could use friends, family members or friends of friends for this exercise.
Celebrities: can you think of anyone in the public eye that might fit the personality type you’d dream of working with?
This research is for your eyes only, you don’t have to show anyone, which is perfect if you feel a bit shy about using someone you know as inspiration! Your dream client could be inspired by one person, or they could be a mix of a few different people. But basing that ideal customer on someone real to start with, even if they’ve never bought from you before, can be a huge help.
STEP FOUR: Explore Your Ideal Customer Profile Visually
If, like me, you find those ideal client avatar templates a bit dry and confusing, I’m about to share one of my favourite exercises to help you visualise your customer in a more creative way. We’re going to create a mood board that sums up your ideal customer as a person.
Start a secret Pinterest board, and search for inspiration images that relate to your dream client. For the purpose of this exercise, just choose one person. It could be someone you know, could be a past client, could be a celebrity, or they could be totally made up. I know this can be challenging but stick with me, just for this exercise and you can always throw it in the bin later. You can use these prompts to help you:
Where do they love to shop?
Where do they go on holiday?
What books do they read?
What does their house look like?
Which brands do they love?
What clothes do they wear?
What magazines or blogs do they read?
What organisations do they support?
I know this can feel a bit weird, like you’re making stuff that doesn’t feel relevant to your business. But I find it so helpful to get an idea of your ideal customers visually. Another sneaky tip: if you know of someone who fits your general idea of an ideal client, and they have a public instagram or Pinterest profile, go and have a look. What sort of images are they posting, what brands do they follow? These public profiles can be an absolute goldmine of information. Don’t overthink it, and allow yourself to go down a rabbit hole in this exercise, you might be surprised at what you discover.
STEP FIVE: Ask the Right Questions, Get Better Answers
Once you have a better idea of the type of person you’re trying to attract into your business, being able to have meaningful conversations with them as part of your market research is a real game changer. Instead of posting blanket requests to your instagram followers like “what do you want to hear from me?”, why not try some of these questions instead:
What are you struggling with right now when it comes to ____ (insert your niche here)?
If you could wave a magic wand, what would you change about ___?
When you’re shopping for ___ what do you look for?
Who are your favourite brands and why?
What has been your favourite experience as a customer?
What frustrates you about ___?
What do you need more of right now?
The answers you get from these types of questions will be so much more valuable than the generic “what type of content do you like to see”, because these questions speak to the root of the solution you can provide for them. You can ask these questions via a customer survey, a questions box on instagram, in your social media posts, to your email list, or even in person! You can use the answers not only to get to know your ideal customer better, but also to inform the way you write your sales copy - you can write in their words instead of yours!
Turning away the wrong customers, is just as important as attracting the right ones.
I hope this was useful for you small biz pal! If you want some personalised help with finding, attracting an creating content for your ideal customers, you can find out more about my 1-1 creative consultancy services here, or sign up to the waiting list for my group training: Be the Art Director of Your Own Brand.
