How To Create and Use a Customer Avatar In 2023

You can gain more business while spending less on promotions by creating and using a customer avatar. When you know everything you can learn about your customers, you’ll know where and when to reach them and what to say to gain their trust and business.

Of course, you may be wondering:

What Is a Customer Avatar?

A customer avatar is a detailed description of your ideal customer — the person most likely to buy your products and services. You may need more than one avatar if you serve multiple customer types.

You probably have a good general idea of who your customers are. However, a more specific information set emerges when you start digging into the research and quantifying what you know with the statistics and behaviors that make up avatars. You can use avatars in all of your marketing efforts to build a highly effective marketing strategy that attracts more business for less investment.

Learning how to create an avatar may appear complicated, but you already know most of the information, and there are many tools and resources that can help you succeed. You can even hire a professional.

To truly benefit, you’ll need data about your customer:

Demographics: age, gender, income, education, occupation, marital status, family size, and more
Psychographics: values, attitudes, personality, lifestyle, interests, opinions, and motivations
Pain points: the problems facing a potential customer
Challenges: things that keep the customer from solving the problem
Desires and goals: what the customer wants
Preferences: what the customer wants the solution to look like

When you’ve assembled all of this information into a document, you’ll know exactly who you are promoting your business to and how to address their concerns personally while promising them the solution they want.

Remember that you’re not just creating a detailed profile of a single person. You’ll need profiles for each of your principal customer types. These profiles will change over time as society and consumer preferences evolve.

You can use the information on social media, search engines, and other advertising platforms to put your personalized message directly in front of the people looking for you.

How Does Creating a Customer Avatar Benefit My Business?

Your customer avatars tell you exactly what problems and challenges your customers want to solve, what outcome they want, and where they hang out online.

With the right avatar, you’ll be able to:

Avoid wasting time and money on channels and platforms your target customers are not on
Put your message directly in front of them
Create products and services they need
Create ads that resonate with them, addressing the real problems they’re trying to solve
Send personalized messages via email, text, and chat that get responses
Become seen as a trusted, knowledgeable authority that can help them quickly
Create customer loyalty by listening to feedback and responding to preferences

Examples of How Small Businesses Can Use Customer Avatars

Each small business type can tailor offerings to individual customer avatars to generate more sales through the platform and channel their clients are active on.

Email List Segmentation

As one hypothetical, a local bakery can use customer avatars to segment an email list and send personalized offers based on preferences and behaviors. They could send a free muffin coupon to frequent coffee buyers or a discount code for a birthday cake to customers with an upcoming birthday.

A fitness studio could use customer avatars to design and advertise programs or packages for varying fitness levels or goals. They could offer:

A weight loss boot camp
Different levels of yoga classes
Massage therapy

Content Marketing

Understanding customers’ and pets’ needs and pain points would enable pet grooming services to create engaging content that will rank on local searches and get attention on social media.

A loyalty program, meanwhile, could offer rewards for repeat visits. The hypothetical business could also market additional services like pet photography, training, and boarding while providing tips on caring for and traveling with different types of pets, along with stories of happy customers and fun contests and quizzes.

What Tools and Resources Can Help Me Create a Customer Avatar?

In the decades since online marketing began, many tools and resources have been developed to help you create a customer avatar and keep it updated because avatars are such a high-value marketing instrument.

These are the top tools and resources to help you work with a customer avatar in 2023:

Surveys and Interviews

Gain insights using SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or Google Forms to create and distribute surveys to customers or prospects. You can get deeper insights into their needs and motivations by conducting interviews via phone, email, video chat, or at the point of sale.

Track and measure the performance of social media posts and ads using Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, or Instagram Insights. These sources also help you learn more about your audience’s demographics, interests, activities, and engagement patterns so you can fine-tune your avatars.

Web Analytics

Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Crazy Egg enable you to monitor and analyze the behavior of your website visitors. They also track key metrics like traffic sources, bounce rates, conversion rates, and average time on a page.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

Manage your interactions with customers and prospects using HubSpot, Salesforce, or Zoho CRM to segment your contacts based on various criteria, such as location, industry, purchase history, or email activity.

Customer Feedback

Collect and display reviews and ratings to tap into the power of word-of-mouth advertising with Trustpilot, Yelp, or Google Reviews. You’ll also be able to identify common themes and trends in your customers’ opinions and experiences and make beneficial adjustments.

New Trends and Platforms Influencing Customer Avatar Creation In 2023

There are three new technologies with the potential to influence the future of customer avatar creation.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and ML can analyze large amounts of data from various sources and then help you:

Segment customers into different groups based on their characteristics and behaviors.
Research and generate personalized content, offers, and recommendations for each customer segment.
Test and optimize your customer avatar over time and provide insights on improving them.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Creating interactive, immersive experiences for your customers allows them to test services, products, and scenarios before purchase. You can collect real-time feedback and data to improve your customer avatars and offerings.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Despite the cryptocurrency market’s gyrations, it’s becoming increasingly accepted. Blockchain and cryptocurrency can help businesses track and verify identities and behaviors. You can use this data to create more reliable and trustworthy customer avatars.

How NeONBRAND Can Help

The professionals at NeONBRAND are experts at creating and maximizing the use of customer avatars for local businesses. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t have the time for DIY, contact us today to start increasing your customer base and increasing your cash flow.