Your Ideal Client/Customer Avatar (ICA)

Marketing is based on a few psychology fundamentals. You’ll hear me go on a LOT about the “know, like and trust” aspects of marketing and it’s so important in many areas of business. If you feel understood, if you feel heard, if the exact problems you’re experiencing can be solved by a particular product or service, if a company’s ethics are in line with yours … these are all key factors which can influence the sales process and sometimes be overlooked. 

To help you get to know your target audience, it’s essential that you build a complete picture of them. If you’re in business already and you’ve already sold to someone or served them, perhaps in a face to face way, or maybe your ICA (your ideal client or customer avatar) is the person you were a number of years ago, then it’s much easier to understand their needs and challenges. 

Sometimes it’s also important to speak to that thing that someone wants when perhaps it’s actually not what they need. Advertising a “lose weight quickly and effortlessly” program might be what they want (because everyone wants something quick and easy these days), however the root of the problem may be much deeper and so it’s important to educate our potential customers and take them from what they THINK they need through to our solution and what they ACTUALLY need to make a difference to their lives.

So consider what challenges your people are experiencing. What they want or what they want to solve or fix. Then think about what they need. This works for products too. Does someone want to buy a painting to show their status, to impress friends, to simply to fill a space on a wall or purely because they love it?

Of course it’s not always about helping people move away from an uncomfortable situation. Often, people are striving to get closer to something. To get into their ideal college or to get a pay rise or a promotion, to go on their dream holiday for half the price. So, depending on what you are offering, consider both what they might be experiencing that they want to move away from as well as a state or “destination” they want to move towards or a point where they can say “I’ve arrived”.