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How Will An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) or Avatar Help Your Company Be Successful?

When it comes to marketing to an audience, focus is critical. Once you’ve created a specific target, everything will align. This will help with all product development, content creation, user experience, marketing campaigns, and advertisements. You’ll be able to position your brand so that it speaks to your ideal customer’s aspirations, pain points, and challenges, and most importantly, with a profile in place, you’ll be able to bring your audience through the customer cycle successfully: Target, Attract, Engage, Convert.

What Happens When You Don’t Have An Avatar? 

You can’t be everything to everyone. Without focus, you’ll sell a product/service that no one needs or wants. The more well-defined your audience is, the more tremendous success you’ll have.

So, What Is An Ideal Customer Profile/Avatar?

Your Avatar is your ideal customer. It is not your average customer, but someone loyal to your brand will come back repeatedly and refer you to everyone. The ICP will have specific characteristics of your Avatar, so you know exactly who and how to target for your brand to be successful. From this point forward, everything pertaining to your brand should speak and connect directly with him/her.

How To Create An ICP And How To Bring Them Through The Customer Cycle

Focus on 4 things:

Start bringing him/her to life. (It’ll help to think about a few people you know who you’d like to build your Avatar around) Give them a name.

 

1.    Demographic

 
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Age, Sex, Location, Education, Job, Salary, Marital status, etc.

This is how you’ll be able to target them: Where can you find them?

2.  Characteristics

 
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Interests, Hobbies, Influences (who do they connect with?), What websites do they visit regularly? What social media platforms do they use?

This is how you’ll know how to attract them: What interests them?

3. Goals & Values

 
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What are their desires and aspirations? What results might they be looking for with your product/service? How will it impact their life?

This will help you learn how to engage and connect with them: How can you evoke emotion?

4. Pain Points

 
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What are they striving for in life? What are their challenges?

This will help you convert them into customers. How will you get them to buy? What is your service/product solving for them?

You can take it a step further:
Research your Avatar. Think of a few people you know that fit your ICP and ask them questions that would help your marketing plan, such as:

1.     What entices/motivates them to purchase?
2.     What are five brands that they like and why?
3.     What time do they usually go on social media?
4.     Which platforms do they use the most?

Now, with a clear focus, success is just around the corner. Before releasing anything for your business, you can ask, “Will this speak to my ideal customer?”