Know Your Customer or Risk Failure
According to Forbes, 85% of products fail when companies don’t talk to consumers. Why? Most companies understand their clients “a mile wide and an inch deep.” They think they know enough about their customer’s needs, pain points, and desires, but it’s often superficial knowledge, not deep enough to anticipate trends and changing needs.
Teams often make product decisions in a vacuum or project their own needs and pain points on the customer. In my career, I often had to remind my peers and leaders that we were not our target audience and that we should leverage data and customer quotes for insights when making a business decision.
When designing a new product or starting a business, we’re often asked who our ideal/target client is. Why? Because you can’t be everything to everyone. Focus on a solution for a specific pain point* for a particular client segment. Use your Ideal Client Avatar to get as close to your customer as you are with your best friend - someone you understand intrinsically, where you can anticipate their actions.
Why create a well-defined Ideal Client Avatar?
'"Until you understand your customers — deeply and genuinely — you cannot truly serve them."
~ Rasheed Ogunlaru, Author of Soul Trader
There are many reasons to create a well-defined avatar. Here are a few of the most important ones …
Product/Program Development: Knowing your ideal client's needs allows you to develop better products or services —> solving their specific pain points
Efficient Resource Allocation: By targeting your efforts, you can allocate your resources (time & money) more efficiently —> maximizing your ROI
Increase Engagement: Relevant content and messaging resonate better with your ideal clients —> higher engagement levels
Higher Conversion: When your messaging speaks directly to your ideal client in their words about their pain points or desires in their preferred channel —> they are more likely to become a paying client
Adaptability: As markets or client needs change, having a well-defined avatar allows you to adapt —> stay relevant and appealing to your ideal client over time
What is a well-defined Ideal Client Avatar?
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
~ Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple
It’s easy to define your ideal client by their demographics (age, income, education, etc.). But does that give you enough insights into their pain to present a solution? Sometimes the critical connection is psychographic (how they think, act, or feel; what they appreciate or value). You need to find that unique connection that is the reason they all want your product or service.
Create an ideal client profile that summarizes the critical details and guides your decisions from product development through marketing & sales. Make this persona come alive. They should become as close to you as your best friend - someone you understand intrinsically, where you can anticipate their actions.
Who they are (demographics: age, gender, income, profession, marital status, level of education)
Name your ideal client and select a picture of them - it could be an actual client, a movie character, or a fictional person
Make it come alive as a natural person. No one has 2.3 kids. They have 2 or 3 kids, which might impact your product/service (or be irrelevant)
Where they are (location: physical or virtual)
Where do they live - either their zip code or type of lifestyle (urban, suburban, rural)
What online channels do they use to seek info? What social media apps or blogs do they read regularly?
How they think, act, and feel (psychographics: what they appreciate and value)
What are their goals and values? Do they align with your business/brand values?
How do they make buying decisions? What brands do they buy? Where do they shop (discount, department, boutique, or luxury stores)?
What makes this customer segment unique from similar people who aren’t your customers?
An excellent way to check is to declare, “My ideal customer [does/reads/attends x], but no one else would.”
* Why do I say you should solve a Pain Point vs just a Problem? A problem can be ignored, but a pain point can’t be. One of my mentors uses this analogy: If you have a dent in your car door, you can ignore it. If your brakes don’t work, you will immediately pay whatever it costs to fix them. Find a pain point to solve.
How do I create a well-defined Ideal Client Avatar?
"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said."
~ Peter Drucker, Best-Selling Author
Interview, create, and iterate.
Interview prospects
Identify prospects that look to meet your ideal client profile. Don’t rely on interviews from 1-2 prospects. Over time, talk to hundreds as you continue to learn and validate your hypotheses about them.
Look for challenges that make it harder for the prospect to solve their pain themselves. Later in the product design process, these become opportunities to explore.
Create a summary document
Limit the avatar to 1 page. Summarize the critical information relevant to the situation your product or service is solving. This is the art. What should you include that is relevant, gives the team insights, and inspires the team to develop innovative solutions for this ideal client - only on 1 page?
Share it with the whole team. Make sure everyone references it regularly - for all decisions, large and small.
Iterate and update
This should be a living document. Update it regularly, especially at the beginning, as you learn more about your ideal client.
Who should use the Ideal Client Avatar that we create?
“Customer service shouldn’t just be a department—it should be the entire company.”
~ Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos
Everyone on the team. Every decision you make should tie back to an insight from the Ideal Client Avatar. Make the ideal client your best friend. Design the product or service just for them (and all the others like them in your market.)
What’s Next?
Creating your Ideal Client Avatar is foundational, not the end of the process. It’s one of the first steps. Next, you should create a transformation story - how your product or service will move your ideal client from pain to pleasure, from failure to success. After that, you can start developing marketing messages targeted to your ideal client using their words in their preferred channels to sell your product or service, highlighting the essential features and benefits that are important to them.
And I’ll leave you with a final quote …
“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
~ Sam Walton, Founder, Walmart
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I'm Elizabeth, a Business Coach, Consultant, and Fractional Executive. My superpower is operating at the intersection of strategy, leadership, marketing, and communication — skills I built over my 30-year career at top US banks and tech companies. I love working with clients to develop their growth strategy, define their ideal client, design a new product, or digitally transform their customers’ experience.
After working with me, some clients say they can slay dragons. Do you want to slay dragons with me?
