AVATAR ALCHEMY

Resonant Relationship - The What  +  Why of Avatar Alchemy

The creation process for our Avatar, our hero, our ideal customer, has the power to be one of the most illuminating steps in building our marketing strategy. When done correctly, it can create total clarity around the “what to say”, how to say it, when and “where to say it” components of reaching and building connections with potential customers.

An avatar could also be known as a “buyer persona” and it is a detailed profile of your ideal client. In some sense, our niche and our avatar are two sides of the same coin. Our niche, though, generally refers to our specialization while our avatar refers to specific details about our ideal client. So, while they are 100% interlinked, it is important for them both to be fully developed.

From a pure best-practices standpoint, understanding our ideal customer (avatar) is essential for creating clarity around our marketing messaging. You may have heard an old marketing adage that goes like this, “If you’re speaking to everyone, you’re speaking to no one.” I’m here to tell you, maybe frustratingly, that it’s true.

When we try to market ourselves as a jack of all-trades we

1. Devalue our work via the process of commoditization vs specialization and

2. Make it nearly impossible for someone to clearly see the real benefits of working with us.

On the other hand, when we know who we are speaking to, and what pain points and obstacles are in their way, we’re able to develop content, messaging, and even graphics that can connect and create a positive impact.

For example, if I am marketing myself as a health coach that focuses on gut health, but I don’t know exactly who my ideal client is, my messaging will have to be fairly general about the basic health gut-health-driven issues that impact a broad range of people like “aches and pains, weight gain, fatigue, etc”. These issues are so ubiquitous that the messaging around them is no longer impactful, we see ads for things that can help with these issues ALL of the time and don’t feel the need to go deeper. Not to mention, our advertising costs will be sky-high because we don’t know where specifically to target.

Now, if I’m a health coach that works specifically to improve the gut health of women in the health care industry, who have been extremely high-performers for over a decade but have recently seen a decline in energy - my messaging can be extremely specific. With this kind of crystal clarity, I can create content, programs, and messaging that truly resonates with the issues that they are going through and I can provide real impact early on in the process by offering specific and actionable education and tools.

Here is how we can use this information to build a formula for our elevator pitch or our “I help” statement: General Service Understandable + Who we serve/Avatar + Transformation we supply + our Niche

I’m a Health Coach (general) that works with women over 40 in the health-care field (avatar) to regain the energy, mental stamina, & body composition they had in their 20s (transformation) by transforming their gut health (niche).

Not only can we create messaging that is specific, and therefore memorable and “Sticky”, we can also use this information to figure out where they might be looking for help already (support groups, industry groups) and what kinds of things might be standing in their way (not enough time, culturally unacceptable to acknowledge burnout, etc).

This process goes beyond guessing at simple demographic data and dives deep into the psychographic, geographic, behavioral, and preferences of our potential customers. We aren’t here to only determine age, gender, and socioeconomic status.

When we know who our ideal clients are we are able to create with total clarity - both allowing our creations to meet clients exactly where they are and reducing the amount of time we spend on the "What do I do next" rollercoaster of marketing in entrepreneurship.

Now that you know the Why - interested in the How? I'm developing a new course just for you. Stay tuned.