48: Streamlining Your Marketing with an Ideal Customer Avatar

Welcome to another episode of the Tiny Marketing Podcast. Today's conversation focuses on the essential exercise of defining and understanding your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA) in marketing. The episode starts by discussing the transformative journey from corporate to entrepreneurship. It highlights the growing pains involved in servicing any client for immediate income and the strategic pivot to identifying and catering to your ICA: the personification of the ideal client who truly and enthusiastically values what you offer.

The episode further delves into the importance of crafting a robust Ideal Customer Avatar. The conversation steers clear from the old fictionalized avatar stereotypes, instead proposing a full-fledged demographic profile for real-life usability and effectiveness. It explains how a well-built ICA could lead to more streamlined marketing, clear messaging, an easier sales process, better problem perception, objection handling, and significantly, the ability to provide desired solutions.

🔗 Resources mentioned:

• https://tinymarketing.me/workshop

Website: https://www.sarahnoelblock.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahnoelblock/
Newsletter: https://tinymarketing.me/newsletter
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Transcript

Sarah Noel Block: Can I tell you a story? Here it goes. When I first started Tiny Marketing, I would take on anyone. My goal was to make up my salary when I left. Well, actually, let's start from the very, very beginning.

Sarah Noel Block: The reason I left corporate America was because COVID was going on. My kids were in virtual school at that point. My husband is a principal and he had to actually be in the school for some reason. And I had enough clients to make up my salary. So there I was, thrust into entrepreneurship.

Sarah Noel Block: Where it was a side hustle before. It had to become my primary. So I was really unprepared for how to do that, and I was unprepared for the type of people who would come to me. So at that time I would say yes to every referral and everybody who came through on my discovery calls. And it was great because I was making a lot of money.

Sarah Noel Block: I was actually at triple what my salary was. But the problem was my offer wasn't perfect for everyone and that made things a lot more difficult. So this is what you need to do instead of working with everybody because you can make more money. Find who needs your offer the most. Find that ideal customer who, when you tell them about your offer, they're like, yeah, I needed that yesterday.

Sarah Noel Block: I'm so glad you told me about that. Those are your people. So in today's episode, we're going to. Be getting into your ideal customer avatar and why it's so important to find who that person is. I'm Sarah Noel Block and this is Tiny Marketing.

Sarah Noel Block: Okay, so first up, let's talk about. What is an ideal customer avatar, because there's a lot of different definitions. You might think of it as one. Of those fictitious customers that people create. Like Bob the Builder, and they have.

Sarah Noel Block: This whole story about how Bob loves. His dog and he's a big fan of the TV show Friends and all this sorts of stuff that doesn't freaking matter. That is not what we're doing here. An ideal customer avatar, when done right, is a demographic. It's psychographics and it's everything you need to know to sell to this person and understand if your offer is right.

Sarah Noel Block: So these are the basics that I include in an ideal customer avatar. And I generally work with B to B companies, so keep that in mind as you're listening to this. What is their job title? What industry are they in? What is their company type like, the structure of it?

Sarah Noel Block: What problems are they going through right now? What triggered them to find a solution? What are their competitive alternatives? So as they're looking for solutions to this problem that they've identified, what are the things outside of your direct competitors that they're looking at? Would they use a spreadsheet?

Sarah Noel Block: Would they use canva? Would they do nothing and just deal with it? Those are things you need to understand. You also need to understand objections. What is it that they're going to push back on when they're trying to make a decision on buying?

Sarah Noel Block: And where do they hang out online? What's the easiest way to sell to them? What is their general decision making process when making a buying decision? So those are all things that you want to highlight in your ideal customer avatar. Next up is, why create that ideal customer avatar?

Sarah Noel Block: And the first reason is streamlined marketing. So how does a ICA create streamlined marketing when the first thing you want to identify is their customer journey? How do you do that for? My process is I interview several customers that my clients love working with and who fall within that box of their ideal customer avatar, and we identify together what their journey was in working with Company X. So interviews are such an easy way to do that, and you could even do this in a group setting if.

Sarah Noel Block: You wanted to do it with a. Panel, or you could do a survey. I find those to be a little less effective. Interviews are the best way to do it. And if you want to do this in an ongoing way, here's an easy.

Sarah Noel Block: Way to do that. Document it as you're going through the process. So as you're having a sales call. Make sure to ask, hey, how did. You find out who I am?

Sarah Noel Block: What triggered this call? And there that's step one. How did you discover that I existed. In the first place? And where did you convert?

Sarah Noel Block: What was the thing that you downloaded? Or what triggered you to schedule a call with me? Or however it was that they converted? Find out those pieces and you can start documenting it. If you're using a CRM system, then make sure to put it in there so you have clear notes on how people are finding you.

Sarah Noel Block: But none of my customers do that. None of my clients do it. So what I do is I interview their customers and we identify that customer journey on those calls. But when you do that, you can. Create a super streamlined marketing plan that.

Sarah Noel Block: Just hits those places that your ideal. Customer hangs out online, let's say. I'm just going to use an example of a client I recently did a strategic story for. We'll call them X. They are not X like Twitter, but.

Sarah Noel Block: Anyway, so I interviewed about five of. X's customers and we were able to realize that, one, they all preferred written media over anything else. So we decided to go a route with blogging. And they also all came through the funnel in a very similar way. So we are able to replicate that.

Sarah Noel Block: Journey over and over again. The thing that I see a lot of small marketing departments and solo entrepreneurs and just small businesses in general, the mistake they make is they think that they need to be everywhere. I need to be on all of the social media platforms. I need to create blogs and repurpose them into videos and podcasts and you don't need to do all of that. Find out what your ideal customer prefers and just do that.

Sarah Noel Block: You don't need to do all the things. Reason number two that you need an ideal customer avatar is clear messaging. It is so much easier to write. Copy for your website, your sales pages. And your sales email sequences when you.

Sarah Noel Block: Have clear and a clear idea of. Who your ideal customer is. So this is the process I go through. Feel free to copy it or feel. Free to work with me to do.

Sarah Noel Block: It yourself, but I do the strategic. Story first with all of my clients. Actually, we're going to back up a second. I start with the strategic spark where. I am having a stakeholder call and.

Sarah Noel Block: We create a strategic spark report with. A marketing opportunities roadmap. So we start with that every single time. Next step is the strategic story and in the strategic story we create the ideal customer avatar first. So that is why I'm always interviewing my clients customers because we need to create that.

Sarah Noel Block: Next up is clear messaging and this is always the order that I think it needs to go in. So next up is clear messaging and. With that we're able to create copy. That directly addresses those objections that customer might have, the transformations that they want, and the triggers that cause them to look for a solution in the first place. Without understanding your ideal customer, your copy is going to be really weak.

Sarah Noel Block: You need to do this first before you write any copy for your website or any sort of sales sequence on your email. Reason number three easier to sell. Once you understand your ideal customer, you'll know what watering holes to hang out. In, what groups are they part of? What Slack or Circle groups are they part of?

Sarah Noel Block: What social media platforms do they hang out online and you're also speaking directly to them, understanding their challenges, the solutions. That they seek out, what alternative competitors. That they are looking at when they are trying to find the solution. You understand all of that and you're speaking to a specific person so it's so much easier to sell. The thing that you want to do is pretend like your ideal customer avatar is a specific person, pick out one of your favorite customers and act like everything that you write or create is for that person and I guarantee you, you will clone your customer.

Sarah Noel Block: Number four understanding the problem. One of the best not best, but one of the most obvious reasons I'll go with one of the most obvious reasons that you should create an ideal customer avatar is that you're going to understand their problems a lot more. What does that mean? That means that you can create offers that speak directly to those problems. So you might have a core offer right now that is killing it, but you probably want more offers that will also kill it.

Sarah Noel Block: Maybe short term projects. Let's say you're trying to get a boost of income around the holidays or the summer slowdown. You'll probably create a new offer or at least put new gift wrap on an old offer. And understand your ideal customer avatars problems is the easiest way to do that. And it's also a great way to bring empathy into your copywriting and your offer.

Sarah Noel Block: Because if you understand their problem, then you probably can relate to it and speak about the emotions involved in that problem. Okay, so let's look at HubSpot as an example. They saw that SMBs small to medium sized businesses were having a hard time connecting marketing with sales and customer service, that they were really Siloed departments. So HubSpot knew that this was a problem for their ideal customer. And what did they do?

Sarah Noel Block: They created a platform that brought all of that together. So all of the data between marketing, sales and customer service was connected. And communication is a lot easier when all of the data is connected and you can collaborate a lot easier. So they saw a problem and they created the solution for it. All right, the fifth reason you should have an ideal customer avatar is because you will understand their objections better than anything else.

Sarah Noel Block: You're going to understand where they're going to push back. So some common ones that you might hear are time, what's my time investment in this? Or I need this done quicker. And understanding those objections will help you refine your processes and your offers until they become the only choice for that ideal customer. The 6th reason you need an ideal customer avatar is providing the desired solutions when you understand your customer inside and out.

Sarah Noel Block: And those objections, the problems that they're having, you can find the best solution for them too. So let's go back to that HubSpot example. They knew that SMBs had a hard time with Silos within the company, that customer service, marketing and sales weren't talking. They decided to connect all of that data. And this sprung from an objection.

Sarah Noel Block: The objection is I don't want a CRM because it doesn't connect with everything. My marketing automation software isn't connected to my CRM, and my sales team aren't connecting to marketing. And then customer service doesn't know what went on when it came to the sales process or what customers interacted with during the marketing process. All of it's disconnected. I don't need your service because it's not going to fix this problem.

Sarah Noel Block: But HubSpot said, wait, what if we. Connected your CRM to your marketing, to your sales, to your customer service, and everything worked well together and you didn't have to create Zaps to connect everything. You didn't have to shoot emails to customer service and just let them know what was going on. Everything is running smoothly and streamlined so they looked at an objection they were having. My data is not connected across all of these platforms and it's a problem.

Sarah Noel Block: I'm not going to bother with a CRM. And they made the solution for it. Let's do a little recap at a cap. So why are we creating Ideal Customer avatars? We're creating them so we can have a streamlined marketing plan.

Sarah Noel Block: We're not going to be doing everything and showing up everywhere. We're going to be showing up only where our ideal customer hangs out. We're going to be producing content to attract them and only them, not everybody. Next, clear messaging. When you understand your customer inside and out, your messaging on your website, your social media, your email will all be so clear and speak directly to that ideal customer.

Sarah Noel Block: Next. Easier to sell. It's so much easier to sell when you have one ideal person in mind, because they generally go through the same buyer's journey. Understanding the problem is next. You understand the problem that ideal Customer has and you understand the objections that they might have on those sales calls, what pushback they would give you and you, because all of these things will know how to handle those objections so much better.

Sarah Noel Block: Make a list of all the objections that you hear on sales calls and what your response is to them. If you don't have a response, start workshopping it. And then last, your solutions. You can tailor the solutions based off of this Ideal Customer avatar, handling those problems that you know that they have and the objections that you know they're going to have when they're making a buying decision that wraps that up. So I really hope that you are.

Sarah Noel Block: Ready and willing to create an Ideal Customer avatar now. So for those of you who are. Listening to this on day one that this goes out, you have an opportunity to go to my live workshop. It's on October 2 at 12:00 P.m. Central Time.

Sarah Noel Block: And in it we're going to be creating a brand messaging plan on a page live. And included in that are hot seats. So we'll have about ten minutes to bring a few people up from the workshop and put them in the hot seat and we can go over the messaging plan that we'll create live. So it's going to kick ass and I want you there. Sign up in our show notes below and if you missed that live one because you literally have to be listening to this the day it comes out.

Sarah Noel Block: To be able to attend live. I'll have upcoming ones coming out, so. I'll keep you ready and willing and updated. I think update is probably the word I'm looking for here. I will keep you updated on the upcoming dates for future workshops.

Sarah Noel Block: All right, thank you so much for joining me today. Make sure to rate review this podcast. So other people see it and you can also watch this on YouTube if you want to see my sweaty face. Because I just took the dogs for. A long walk, so enjoy that.

Sarah Noel Block: All right? I'll see you next.