Creating Your Ideal Customer Avatar: How to Get Crystal Clear on Your Audience Part 2

by Matt McWilliams | Dec 12, 2022 | Business, Podcast

One of the most important things a business can do is create an Ideal Customer Avatar. Your avatar is a fictional person who represents your entire audience or a segment of your audience. This is the ONE person for whom you are going to create content. Today, I’ll walk you step-by-step through the process of creating your avatar and using it to get clear on who you are serving in your business.

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Previous Episodes of The Affiliate Guy

How to Get Crystal Clear on Your Audience Part One

The Proven Path for Building a Rewarding Online Business

How to Outperform Your List Size in Affiliate Promotions: Lessons From 15 Affiliates Who Had Small Lists But Finished High On Affiliate Leaderboards

8 Reasons People Fail At Affiliate Marketing

Time Management is Dead: How to Reclaim Your Time and Revolutionize Your Results with Richie Norton

My Best Affiliate Marketing Advice for the Holidays

Creating Your Ideal Customer Avatar: How to Get Crystal Clear on Your Audience Part 2

One of the most important things a business can do is to create an ideal customer avatar.

Your avatar is a fictional person who represents your entire audience or a segment of your audience.

This is the one person for whom you are going to create content.

Welcome to part two of how to Get Crystal Clear on your audience.

Today, we are talking all about creating your ideal customer avatar.

So in the last episode, I shared kind of the first part of step one of Turn Your Passions into Profits, which is all about how to get clear on who you serve.

And today I’m going to share part two of step one, which is, again, the part about getting crystal clear to your audience.

You got to be able to create an avatar, this person, this fictional person that represents who your audience is, right?

Like I’ll say in the chapter when I read it here in a second, you’re not producing content for the masses.

You’re creating it for an individual.

You’re marketing to an individual.

Now, as I mentioned in the last couple of episodes, we got a professional narrator, a guy that I absolutely love, I’ve listened to him before we’ve ever even thought about having him do my book.

And I didn’t pick him. Actually. My publisher picked him.

And of course, I could reject him if I wanted to, but they found this guy, and as soon as I heard his voice, oh, my go, my gosh, I know that voice.

And I went back and looked, and I listened to, I think, four or five of his books just in the last, like eight or nine months on Audible.

I was like, oh, my gosh, it’s that guy.

His name is Kyle Tate and I’m like, this guy’s amazing, I love this guy’s voice.

Literally one of my favorite books of all time, a biography of the golfer Ben Hogan.

I had just listened to it, like a month before they emailed me, and I was like, that is so cool.

So love this guy again. Great voice, and great energy.

He’s going to do an amazing job on the audiobook, but I wanted an opportunity to share some of it with you and add a few little thoughts as well.

So that’s what we’re talking about today in the Ideal Customer Avatar.

Now, speaking of avatars, one of the things that you get when you preorder the book, when you pre-order the book right now, we’ve got depending upon when you listen to this, we’ve got nearly $1,000 in pre-order bonuses.

And the number one bonus is actually a deeper dive into developing your Ideal Customer avatar.

And what I’m getting ready to share right here, I go pretty deep into Ideal Customer Avatars.

But this bonus training takes a deep dive into the entire process and how to use your ICA, your Ideal Customer avatar to get clarity on your message and your marketing.

This training, it’s going to ensure that you are only working with people you love to serve.

There’s a quote on the pre-order page from Kathy Chavez that says, it was a total breakthrough for me.

You helped me figure out my avatar.

I’ve had this idea for almost two years and never knew how to start.

You helped me put it into gear.

You’re going to get that training when you preorder the book.

So it’s great training, and I’ll tell you that.

So the idea here is I’m going to share these exercises on how to create your ICA, your Ideal Customer avatar.

Do the exercises, then go get the book.

We’ve got links in the show, notes, passionsintoprofitsbook.com make sure you go grab a copy pre-order while all these bonuses, I’m getting $785 plus, depending upon exactly when you order it in, bonuses available.

Go grab a copy now.

We’re trying our best to hit the lists, the bestseller list.

And so the other thing we’re offering for you podcast listeners, if you grab five copies, if you’re like, man, I know I want a copy.

I got two friends and a relative, and maybe I don’t even have a fifth person.

I’ll just give a copy away.

If you go grab five copies, you pre-order five copies.

So you order them from Amazon.

In my new book, Turn Your Passions Into Profits, I show you exactly what types of lead magnets actually convert and lead to explosive list growth. Grab your copy here!

You order from Barnes and Noble or Walmart or Target or wherever, anywhere books are sold, literally, they will send those books on January 10.

They will ship. I think actually, I’ve heard they’re going to ship on January 9, but you’ll get it in your hands on January 11 or 12th.

But if you want an early physical copy, I’ve got about 75 physical copies in my possession.

All right, I will sign and send you an early copy.

So you’ll have this in your hands well before Christmas, weeks before anybody else does.

You could be implementing what’s in this book before you even get the book that you ordered from Amazon.

I will send you a copy for you. Just pre-order five.

So that way you can give four-way or you could do like me, sometimes I keep a copy that’s like my display copy of a book.

When I do videos, I’m like, go buy this book.

Yay, I love this book.

And then you got the copy where I’ve ripped the thing practically apart and it’s dog-eared in 78 places and highlighted all over the place.

Pages are falling out, things like that. So you’ll keep two for yourself.

So passionsintoprofitsbook.com again.

If you order five, just email us at support@mattmcwilliams.com that day, or the next day we will ship you a book.

A physical book, not like a PDF.

No, we’re going to ship you a real physical hardcover book for free.

I’m going to sign it for you as well.

So make sure you do that.

passionsintoprofitsbook.com you can order through any of the major retailers there.

So now let’s jump in and talk about creating your ideal customer avatar.

Again, this is from step one of the book.

Get clear on who you help.

We talked about part one of that last week.

Here’s the second part of step one from the book Turn Your Passions into Profits.

KNOW THY AUDIENCE

An important exercise in getting clarity on who you serve is developing your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA). Your avatar is a fictional person who represents your entire audience or a segment of your audience. This is the one person for whom you are going to create content.

You aren’t producing content for the masses. You aren’t creating products for your audience. You are creating and promoting them for one person, your avatar. You aren’t marketing to your list. You are marketing to an individual.

Luckily, your avatar is probably similar to you at some point on your journey. If you think back to when you first got started, you’ll likely be looking right at your avatar.”

Declaration time.

I am marketing to one individual.

I will be clear about my avatar and focus my marketing on him or her.

Reminder for Audiobook Listeners say it out loud.

Repeat it often if you need to.

I am marketing to one individual.

I will be clear about my avatar and focus my marketing on him or her.

Start with a Name

First, you’ll want to give your avatar a name. My avatar’s name, for example, is PETE. Yes, I always write PETE in all caps. In retrospect, considering that my audience is 52 percent female, I probably should have come up with a more gender-neutral name, but PETE was an actual person in my audience who personified my ideal customer, so we chose that.

So, before you go any further, I want you to take one small step now and choose your avatar’s name. If your audience is overwhelmingly male or female, pick a name that represents your target audience. Or perhaps, like me, you have an existing customer in mind or a particular friend or family member who perfectly represents your ideal customer.

Once you have the name picked out, it’s time to paint a vivid word picture of your avatar. In fact, you want to be so detailed in your description of your avatar that they feel like you know them better than they know themselves.

The name itself doesn’t matter, but your avatar needs a name. When I am creating content or creating a product, I am creating it for PETE. When I start an email or blog post, I imagine that I am writing it specifically for PETE. In fact, I stole a technique from my friend Chandler Bolt, the founder of Self-Publishing School, and I start off each email or blog post with “Hey PETE.” As I write this book, I begin each chapter with those two words as a reminder of who I am writing this book for. I am writing it for PETE, not the masses.

List Their Values and Aspirations

Next, ask about your avatar’s values. What values do they live by? Do they have a certain quote or mantra that they follow, or certain principles that define how they live?

I know PETE’s values. PETE values time with his family. PETE values hustle and perseverance. He values knowledge. He sees himself as a lifelong learner. PETE also values the DIY mindset. He likes to learn how to do things himself. PETE is scrappy and values bootstrapping. He loves reading biographies of tenacious entrepreneurs and startups.

PETE also values a sense of humor. One of the things that most attracted him to his wife is that she made him laugh. He likes to have fun. He doesn’t need to go to wild parties (he’s a family man, after all), but he values somebody who likes to have fun. One of the things I hear constantly in our surveys of the people on our email list is that they appreciate my sense of humor and my ability to keep things light. They also appreciate that I embrace my screw ups and don’t try to be too polished or perfect. PETE loves it when I’m doing a live lesson and forget a word or knock over my mug.

PETE values being able to relate to somebody on a personal level. He values relationships, authenticity, and genuine connection. As a result, I am constantly seeking ways to connect with my audience more personally. I make a point to personally reply to as many emails, social media messages, and texts as possible. Yes, you can text me personally at 260-217-4619, and

I will respond. I send personal welcome emails to new students, and we host weekly live lessons where we get to engage with hundreds of PETEs (male and female), answer their questions, and connect on a deeper level. Take a moment to think through and write down your avatar’s values. Now, they have a name and personal values. Next, we’ll define their goals.

What Are Their Pain Points?

Now, you want to turn your attention to your avatar’s challenges. What are their pain points?

These challenges and pain points are based on their values, which is why you listed those first. When their reality is out of alignment with their values, it creates a pain point, and solving it is likely a challenge.

If your avatar values health and vitality but is a hundred pounds overweight, that is a pain point. And most of us know how challenging it can be to lose weight.

Or perhaps, like PETE, your avatar values time with family, but he’s working a full-time job fifty hours a week and trying to build a side hustle business at night. Time with family, vacations, and relaxing weekends seem like a pipe dream.

How can I help him find that time and live out his values? I can help him take his side hustle and make it a full-time business. If I can help him make enough money in his side hustle to go full-time, he can quit that job he hates and spend more time with his family.

Part of knowing your avatar better than they know themselves is understanding and relating to their deep-seated pains, the real pains that are hidden underneath the more obvious, visible pains. Take, for example, someone trying to quit smoking.

Their addiction and the social stigma that comes from that is certainly enough for most people to want to quit. But often, the real pain lies in their inability to kick a habit. They feel like a failure and have a genuine fear that this habit will be the very thing that takes their life at a young age.

If you are a financial coach, a person might be challenged by the burden of debt, but their deep-seated pain point is that they feel like it’s impossible to get out of debt. They can’t even picture a life without debt. They feel like they’ll always have a car payment, a mortgage, or rely on credit cards to get by. Before you can help them with the tactical side of spending less than they make, you have to help them with the mindset first. This can only happen when you have a deep understanding of their mindset and of their pain points.

So, make a list of their sources of pain. Think about what keeps them up at night, what causes them stress, and what frustrates them. Take a moment to imagine their frustration and their pain. Odds are, this is easy because you’ve been in their exact shoes. That’s how I know PETE’s pain points. I just imagine myself two years into my blogging journey, when I was spending more money each month than I was making.

It’s easy for me to picture PETE’s pain, because his pain was my pain. I can see him waking up at 5:30 in the morning or staying up until 2:00 am writing. I can see him working hard and even enjoying the actual work, only to go another week with no growth, no income, and little to show for his efforts. I can see him questioning why he’s continuing to put in all this effort with no results. I can see that he is ready to give up, and I can see the regret he has, knowing that the world is missing out on his message.

If your avatar’s pains are different than yours were, that’s okay. It just takes a little more effort to really nail them down. Doing calls with your new subscribers, reading their social media posts, and surveying them will help you to really dial in their pain points.

List Their Info Sources

The next thing you want to explore and list is your avatar’s information sources. Where do they get their information? What books and magazines are they reading? What blogs or websites do they frequent? What podcasts are they listening to, and what YouTube channels do they subscribe to? What devices do they use to access this information? Do they go to certain conferences or other events?

For my avatar, PETE, I know that he likes to listen to podcasts by folks such as Ray Edwards, Pat Flynn, and Russell Brunson. He reads books by Robert Cialdini, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Jeff Goins. PETE reads blogs such as ProBlogger, Copyblogger, and Neil Patel.

He spends an average of thirty minutes every day listening to marketing podcasts and fifteen minutes a day reading marketing blogs. He spends another twenty minutes, on average, reading marketing and entrepreneurship books. He spends very little time on YouTube, but he does like to connect via live videos where comments are allowed. I write those things with certainty because I’ve surveyed my audience since 2013, and the numbers have changed very little. As a result, I focus the majority of my marketing efforts on my podcast and live lessons. And this is the first of many books I am writing, since I know PETE reads books (primarily physical books).

So, where is your avatar getting their information? Where are they learning about your topic already? Who is influencing them? Who do they look up to? Who do they follow on social media? Those are the types of things you definitely want to know about your avatar.

Surveys are great, once you have an audience, but what if you don’t have an audience? Then consider your own sources of information. What books, blogs, and magazines do you read? What podcasts do you listen to? Who do you follow on social media, and whose videos do you watch?

Then, once you start attracting a small audience, start asking them these questions. It may even be worth your time early on to get on a video call with them and have a fifteen-minute conversation about these questions as you seek to define your avatar clearly.

Demographics

Lastly, you want to describe your avatar demographically. What is their age and gender? Are they married? How many children do they have? Where do they live? I know, for example, that 72 percent of my audience is married, 61 percent are between forty and fifty-four years old, 82 percent have children, and 84 percent live in the United States. So, PETE is a married forty-fiveyear-old man with three kids, living in the suburbs of Kansas City.

What does your avatar do for work? What is their income, level of education, or any other demographic factors you can think of? If you find that you have more than one passion or avatar, check out the bonus guide on avatars at passionsintoprofitsbook.com/resources. I’ll show you how to narrow it down quickly.

We spent a lot of time here to get you absolute clarity on what your passion is and who you are serving. This was necessary because, without this clarity, all the best tactics and strategies in the world are useless.

Take the time now to go through the exercises for this step. Spend as much time as needed to complete them and feel confident in your assessments. Finish the exercises with 100 percent clarity on what your passion is, who you serve, who your avatar is, and commit to creating a platform that serves your avatar. I’d rather you take a few days to complete these exercises than rush through them (don’t worry, the book isn’t going anywhere), but they shouldn’t take you weeks to complete. Most of our students and clients take between one to four hours to complete all of them.

Now it’s your turn. It’s time to clarify who you help.

EXERCISES

1. Ask yourself the following three questions:

• What is it that people are always asking you for help with?
• What is it that people tell you is really interesting about you?
• What did you struggle with but now enjoy success at?

2. Create your avatar. As a reminder, here are the six steps.

• Give him or her a name.
• List their values.
• List their goals.
• List their information sources.
• List their pain points.
• List any demographic information.

So from there in the book, we go into step two, which is committing to leading.

There are a lot of misconceptions about leadership.

It’s important to acknowledge that leadership isn’t easy.

When we ask our students, ask our clients how they feel about being a leader, they often reply with similar answers that are scary.

They don’t feel up to it.

It’s hard, it’s overwhelming, and I get that.

But this chapter will show you how to be a leader.

And then on in the book, we talk about capturing attention, converting visitors into subscribers, building that community, championing their cause, being the hero to your audience, creating raving fans, conditioning your audience, committing to monetize, and creating consistent content.

Tired of having a small (or no) email list? It’s time to start growing your fast and easy! Grab my new book Turn Your Passions Into Profits now and watch our subscribe count soar!

So there’s a ton in the book that I’m just going to tell you this is the tip of the iceberg.

And we’ll talk a little bit more about the book here over the next few months, but right now you have an opportunity to pre-order that book, and Turn Your Passions Into Profits at passionsintoprofitsbook.com.

If you’re interested in joining the launch team and not only getting an early copy but also being able to promote the book to your audience and share the book with your audience, you can go to passionsintoprofitsbook.com/launchteam.

If you’ve got any questions about the book or what we talked about today, about creating your ideal customer avatar or the launch team, or any of that, you can text me anytime at 260-217-4619.

And make sure if you haven’t yet to hit subscribe, make sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode.

We’re getting toward the end of the year, and that means it’s time.

It’s kind of a cliche time for all the year-end wrap-ups and the predictions for next year.

And so I’ve got my 2023 affiliate marketing predictions.

I’ve done this every year for about five years.

I think I’ve made something like 64 predictions, and I think I’m 59.

For 64, I’m not quite batting 1000.

I don’t have that 100%.

But I think I’ve only been wrong on four or five of my 64-65 predictions over the last five or six years.

So I’ve got some new ones coming up for 2023, and I think I’m going to be spot on.

I think I’m going to be spot on.

Pretty excited about it.