Box Crab Digital Square Logo

How to create a customer avatar and why you should

Box Crab Digital customer avatar template

Share This Post

You may have heard of a customer avatar in the past and thought ‘what a waste of time’ but let me explain to you in this article why it is important and I’ve made it easier for you by providing you with a template later in the article, so you have no excuse!

What is a customer avatar?

A customer avatar is a profile of a single person a business creates based on its ideal customer. There are a few pointers here which are important to make sure it’s a good, workable customer avatar. 

First of all, it should be a profile of a single person, not of a general group. This is really going to make sure you’re thinking deeply about who your ideal customer would be. If you’re lucky enough to already have someone who’s your dream client, you could use them as a basis for this customer avatar.

Next, they are not just general demographics. A customer avatar should include information such as where they get their information, their day-to-day challenges and their role in the decision-making process. This is going to help you really understand the individual, and be able to make informed decisions with your marketing using the customer avatar as a basis.

Lastly, you can (and should) have more than one customer avatar created. It’s likely you’re going to have a couple of different types of people you would like to work with and could target with your marketing. It could even be that they’re at different stages of the decision-making process.

Remember, this is a single-person profile of your IDEAL customer. Not the average customer or customers you have at the moment if they’re not your ideal customer.

Why create a customer avatar

The core reason to create a customer avatar is to think deeper about your ideal customer and then have a clear impression of that person on paper to use in other aspects of your business. If you’re clear on the type of customer you’re trying to attract, your marketing is going to be much more streamlined, and therefore you will waste less time and money on attracting the wrong type of customer.

Getting clarity over your ideal customer can also have an impact on other areas of your business. You might come to the realisation that your brand isn’t positioned in a way to attract that type of customer. You could realise that the way you communicate isn’t in line with the way they would communicate. You may even come to the realisation that you’re going to need to hire specific people to be able to resonate with your ideal customer. 

Another great reason to have a customer avatar is to make sure your entire team are on the same page. If you have different members of the team pulling the company in different directions because they thought the type of customer you were trying to attract was actually completely different, this could have a huge negative impact on the business. Making sure your whole team understand who your customer avatars are will help make sure the business is being steered in the right direction.

ideal customer

How do you create a customer avatar?

We’ve created a template on Canva you can use to fill in your customer avatar. If you’re not a Canva user, it’s not a problem, you’ll just need to create an account to get access to the template. I’ve also included a link to download a blank version in case you want to print it out and write this out physically. 

TAKE ME TO THE CANVA TEMPLATE

DOWNLOAD THE PDF VERSION

I’m going to take you through the template and explain each aspect of it but first, it’s important to note that what you write down might be assumptions instead of facts. Rather than just writing what comes to mind and what makes sense for you, take some time to research the type of person you’re looking to attract and then use that to fill in the customer avatar. If you have a person in mind that you’d love to work with, go on their social media profiles to find out more about them. If you don’t, use trusty Google to find out information about the type of person you’re looking to attract. 

Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go through each section…

Demographics

Down the middle of the template are the following demographics for you to fill out: Age; Gender; Marital Status; Number & age of children; Where they live; Occupation; Job title; Annual income; and Level of education. There is one extra one there called “Quote”. This is where you should put a quote they’ve heard that they’re most likely to resonate with.

Goals & Values

In the top left is an area to put their goals & values. Think of as many areas of their life as possible where goals and values would be important. This could be professionally, for their family, for their wealth, for their community, for their religion, and more.

Goals are what the person would like to achieve, whereas values are aspiring qualities they would like to express. For example, someone could have the goal to build a safe space for women to date online with the value of open-mindedness to explore new ways to do this.

Sources of Information

In the bottom left there is an area to put all the sources of information the person would have. There are places to put books, magazines, blogs/websites, conferences, influencers and other. Feel free to add/take away from these options depending on your ideal customer. For example, documentaries might be a source of information for them.

Understanding where someone gets their information from is going to help your marketing massively. Not only will it give you ideas of places you can market, but it will also give you an idea of the type of language the person resonates with the most.

Challenges & Pain Points

In the top right is an area to put challenges and pain points. This isn’t only related to your product or service, but the day-to-day challenges and pain points they have. But of course, any challenge & pain points they have that your product or service will solve are important. 

This is the area you’re most likely to put assumptions down rather than facts. You’re likely to have a bias to assume they have challenges & pain points that your product or service will solve. It’s really important to do your research here to find out if that’s the truth.

Objections & Role

The final area in the bottom right is to put any objections this person might have to your product/service and their role in the decision-making process.

Once again, being clear on the objections will help your marketing language as you’ll be able to deal with the objections there and then. Failing that, you’ll still be well-equipped to deal with them on the sales call.

The role in the decision-making process is also important. They might not necessarily be the decision-maker, but someone who influences the decision of the decision-maker. For example, if you’re selling software for accountants to large accountancy firms, it’s likely that the accountants that use the software day-to-day won’t be the people who make the final decision to use your software or not. But, they’re going to have influence over the people higher up the chain who do make those decisions, so it could be a good idea still to target them with your marketing.

The Cherry on Top

The final part and a great way to visualise your individual is to put a picture of them in the middle. I like to put a picture of them in action rather than just your standard headshot.

If you’re using the Canva template I’ve provided, you can go to elements on the left menu, search for your type of person and then click photos. You will then have a bank of photos to choose from.

Conclusion

There you have it, your very own customer avatar. As I explained earlier, it’s always best to do more than one and actually use them to determine your marketing activities and in other decision-making processes.

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Get updates and learn from the best

More To Explore

Do You Want To Boost Your Business?

drop us a line and keep in touch

Box Crab Digital client meeting