There is nothing more important to the success of your content strategy than knowing to whom exactly your efforts are being directed.
Good content isn’t just words on a page or nice visuals. If you don’t know the ideal consumer for this content, you will never market to him or her as effectively as you could.
This is why you need to develop an ideal avatar. It defines who your customer is and gives you a point of reference for answering key questions within your content – questions like:
• Where should I be focusing my advertising efforts?
• What types of content will appeal to my ideal avatar?
• What kind of tone and vocabulary should I be using in my copy?
• What story should I be telling with my content?
• What is my ideal avatar’s “pain,” and how will my product ease it?
The good news is that these questions are relatively easy to answer once you’ve clearly defined whom it is that you want to target with your content. Use your imagination and see this person, right down to the smallest details.
A Poor Avatar
Most companies when developing an ideal avatar never go much further than this:
“Our ideal customer is one who has tried a number of online workout video programs in the past and has paid money for videos that promised great results but never delivered. This customer wants to find an online program that works and that he can trust. He wants to increase his core strength and lose 15 pounds in the next 3 months.”
Here’s the problem with that description:
1. You aren’t dealing with nameless, faceless consumers in the real world. You are looking for your content to appeal to a very specific demographic. There is nothing specific about “our customer.”
2. The description reads like a bunch of marketing mumbo-jumbo. It never touches on the emotions and frustration that accompanies being duped into spending lots of money on cheap videos. Those are the kinds of details you need to determine, not just what this person’s goals are.
A Better Example
First, let’s give our avatar a name. Let’s call him Mike Parker. Now, let’s get to know Mike.
Mike Parker is male, Caucasian, and 37 years old. He is 5′ 11” tall and weighs 205 pounds. He has been driving a tractor-trailer for the last nine years. He tries hard to maintain a regular exercise routine even when he’s on the road.
Mike has a wife who is 34, and his marriage is stable. He has two children, ages 9 and 7, both girls. They live in a small rural area that is underserved in the fitness market so joining a gym is not convenient or practical for Mike. He owns a decent set of weights, a bench, and a few other pieces of exercise equipment that he uses on weekends or between runs.
Mike depends on video fitness courses because, at the moment, they are his best avenue for receiving expert fitness training advice, and he can take them on the road via his smartphone.
Mike has spent over $600 in the last three months on video workout courses and has found the quality of most of them to be really poor. He is starting to lose trust and is feeling discouraged by the lack of good content that seems to be out there. He wants to lose about 15 pounds but finds it difficult since he’s on the road so much and has little time to devote to exercise.
So, now that we know a bit more about Mike, we can start to build content around him. We know his hot buttons (getting duped over and over again, not having the time to keep up with a workout routine, not having access to a gym), and we know what he expects from this kind of product.
With all of that in mind, we start the process of gaining trust. We present Mike with content that accurately represents the product. We get him on our email list and provide information on a regular basis about our product and explain how it will solve the problems he faces (between time constraints and not wanting to throw away any more good money). We might even produce a few free videos and offer a discount on a monthly subscription. We might also emphasize our money-back guarantee just to prove we’re not going to scam him like the others.
Avatar Basics
The above example is just a thumbnail sketch. Your actual avatar should be more involved and precise. If you find it difficult to create one yourself, there are a number of templates that can help get you started filling in all the relevant blanks.
An avatar is also a great tool to present to a copywriting company or custom writing service if you are outsourcing your content creation. Here are a few things to include when developing your ideal avatar.
• Demographic information
• An actual name, age, and physical description
• His or her story as it relates to your product
• What problem your product will solve for THIS PERSON
Once you have those details set, it will be much easier for you (or someone else) to create content around your ideal customer.