If you’re starting your creative business and wondering how to identify your ideal client, you’ve probably heard that you should create an ideal customer avatar.

A customer avatar is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. When you create an avatar you define what they look like, their demographics (i.e. their age, income, and employment), and even their name.

But creating your customer avatar and defining their demographics is only scratching the surface of truly knowing your ideal clients. And knowing your ideal client is the starting point to clarify what you sell in your business, as well as how to market your business.

In this blog post, I’m sharing three tips to move beyond the avatar demographics to gain more clarity, direction, and connection with your ideal clients.

(P.S. If you’re starting your creative biz and want a checklist to reduce the overwhelm, I’ve got you covered).

1. Identify Your Ideal Client By Their Psychographics

While demographics are important to identify your ideal client, psychographics are equally if not more important.

Psychographics are someone’s attitudes, beliefs, desires, and worldviews. Pyschographics go beyond the demographics of age and income level. Psychographics dig deep into who a person is and how they show up in the world.

Essentially, demographics represent the facts of who someone is on the surface. Psychographics dig deep into who someone is at their core.

When you dig deep into your client’s psychographics, you can begin to understand what they believe, what motivates them, and what they truly, deeply desire. 

When you know this, you are one step closer to identifying your ideal client and creating an authentic sense of connection and trust with your business.

2. Identify Your Ideal Client By Their Core Desire

Another way to identify your ideal client is to dig into their deepest core desire. 

If you look at ten of your ideal customers, do they share a core desire? How can your business help that desire come to fruition?

Traditional marketing often describes this as “core pain.” In other words, what is a big struggle that your ideal client experiences? How can your business help to solve that pain?

Both desire and pain can be useful research points to identify your ideal client. When I work with 1:1 creative biz coaching clients I encourage them to examine their customers via the lens of desire. The focus on desire is rooted in aspirational marketing which aims to help people move toward the future they desire to reach their dreams and goals.

3. Identify Your Ideal Client By Talking to Real People

Creating a customer avatar is a useful starting point to identify your ideal client. It is also not your end-all-be-all information.

The best way to identify your ideal client is to get out there and talk to real people!

Yes, talking to potential clients (aka: market research) can feel intimidating. It is also one of the most useful action steps to deeply understand your audience, get clear on their core desires, and be the business that provides the solution to help them get their desires met.

Market research doesn’t have to be overwhelming.

Simply pick one to three people who match, or closely match, your client avatar. Ask each person to hop on a short, 1:1 phone call or grab a cup of coffee together. Intentionally sit down and spend 30 minutes (or more) to get to know them.

Ask about their story, their desires, their interests, and their values. Ask open-ended questions to get to know their experiences and their words from their perspective – not from your assumptions.

Once you’ve talked to 1 to 3 people, circle back to your customer avatar and incorporate what you’ve learned. Then talk to 1 to 3 more people and repeat the process.

The more you can listen to and understand the experiences, desires, and values of your ideal customers through first-hand interviews and conversations, the more empathy, trust, and connection you can build with your ideal clients.

Take Action:

Who is your ideal client? Take action!

Interview 1 person this week who closely matches your ideal customer avatar. Be open to what you can learn. Add your knowledge from this market research to your customer avatar to better understand, identify and connect with your ideal clients.

1:1 Biz Coaching

Are you ready to gain even more clarity on your ideal client?

Sign up for 1:1 Creative Biz Coaching with me! I take on a limited number of clients at a time and applications are reviewed on a first-come first-served basis.

Apply here.