When you’re in our Speaker INsight world you’ll know that all of our training relates back to the importance of knowing your avatar, so this blog is dear to our hearts!

Now just to clear things up, when we say Avatar, we don’t mean the big blue people in the film! We are referring to your ‘Ideal Client Avatar’, which is the person you love working with, who can afford your services, is aligned to your values & has a problem that you can solve!

In our FB group The Connection Hub, we often give feedback on whether we think your avatar would identify with what you are offering and some of the common mistakes we see people make are:

• People know about what they ‘do’ than what their avatar ‘wants’
• Not describing in detail the pain or aspiration of their avatar
• Not addressing what they might have tried before to solve the problem — and how you are different
• Not speaking in an emotional language to build trust & empathy

The reason why people often makes these mistakes is because they haven’t done enough research into their avatar. So we want to help you by suggesting some areas to start you research.

People are also concerned about niching with their avatar because they don’t want to alienate people that don’t quite fit. But it’s back to known phrase that ‘if you’re talking to everyone — you’re talking to nobody!’

Just because you describe circumstances of a particular person, this doesn’t mean that you don’t attract those who have a common problem but a different situation — it’s called the Halo effect.

So let’s get into avatar discovery:

• You are often your avatar as a speaker, author or coach. So this is a great place to start to reflect on what it was like before you found the solution to your problem.
• Psychographics vs demographics — demographics are the things that you know about them, their age gender etc. but just these alone are not enough! Psychographics are what makes the difference when connecting with your avatar — getting under their skin, knowing how they are feeling, their hobbies and their thinking patterns for example.

• Language is key. Once you know what FB groups they’re part of — start looking at the language they use when they ask questions and it’s powerful when you use their phrases and terminology to describe their needs.

So what do you do with this information once you’ve discovered it?

• Targeting them — when you know what they like to do as hobbies, where they shop, who inspires them — you can cleverly use target advertisement around these features to find them and connect with them
• Use case studies / testimonials in your marketing to illustrate how you’ve supported people in exactly their circumstances
• Hang out daily in FB groups where they are — answer questions, give advice & build rapport & trust.
• Use THEIR language on your website & marketing copy

Create surveys for them so you can learn more about their wants & needs & how they like to consume information.