Knowing your target audience is THE number one rule when it comes to marketing your small business – but is it enough to just “know” your potential customers? Creating a customer avatar can help you truly understand who your potential customers are and what they want to see from you as a small business. Here’s how you can create a customer avatar for your business.
What is a customer avatar?
A customer avatar is a representation of your target audience. Think about the scene from Toy Story where the alien is being grabbed in the claw machine – you are selecting “someone” to represent the whole.
You are selecting a random potential customer (or an alien in this analogy) with the claw machine so that you can get an example of the type of people who are interested in your small business.
I personally like to name my customer avatars. It gives them a more personal and real feeling – so I am constantly reminded that they are supposed to be a real representation of my target market.
Why do I need a customer avatar?
When you flesh out, and I mean REALLY flesh out a customer avatar – you’re going to understand your target audience inside and out. With such an in-depth understanding of who they are as consumers, as people, you will be able to better provide them with what they need from your small business.
Which in turn means you will be more effective with your marketing dollars, and hopefully will be able to spend less money on advertising and marketing initiatives.
How do I create a customer avatar?
The key to creating a good quality, helpful customer avatar is to include as much detail as possible. Here are 9 traits you want to understand and fill in for your avatar.
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Basic Demographics:
This is the bare minimum, and honestly where most people stop when they are trying to figure out who their target audience is. It’s not wrong, but when you learn more about your potential customers – you will build stronger relationships with them.
Basic demographics include: age, gender, income level, location, household information, and occupation.
2. Lifestyle & Values
We are combining some traits because they go hand-in-hand, starting with lifestyle and values. The type of values someone has usually has a strong impact on their lifestyle. If someone is a vegan, the way they shop and where they go out to eat changes. It could be that they are homebodies because of the difficulty of finding vegan-friendly options at restaurants.
Children can be an important part of understanding your target audience that is sometimes overlooked. The lifestyle of someone who has NO kids (and does not plan to have kids) is very different from those who do.
3. Language and Communication Style
Vivian and I are 15 years apart. Sometimes I use verbiage that she does not understand, but that is a part of my everyday life. This is an important part of your customer avatar creation process because it will likely impact your brand voice. It could be that your audience uses and responds well to sarcasm. They’ll feel seen and be more receptive to your messaging when you can mimic (well) their language style.
Preferred communication style will also have an impact on your marketing strategies. Millennials love receiving emails, but Baby Boomers would prefer direct mail. For your marketing initiatives to be effective, you need to be using communication styles that your target audience will actually interact with.
4. Motivations and Fears
This may seem silly, but remember – we want to be able to create a deep understanding and relationship with our potential customers. Motivations and fears also have a larger impact on purchasing decisions than we think.
Example: If I am motivated by the desire to be fashion forward, and to know all the trends before they’re trending – then I am more likely to take a risk on a new and potentially more expensive product.
“How do I learn my customer avatar’s motivations and fears?”
Research. Create a survey, do research on the generation you’re targeting, see what other research has already been done out there. It could also be helpful to simply try to imagine yourself as your target audience. Embody who they are and see what you learn.
5. Goals & Aspirations
Like motivations and fears – goals and aspirations are equally impactful when it comes to purchasing decisions. It could be that they are looking to care for their health more seriously so they are spending money on running equipment. Or they want to express who they are more (so they are looking for unique accessory pieces). Either way, if you can find out what their goals are and explain why your product/service can help them achieve those goals, then you are more likely to make sales.
6. Pain Points
As consumers, we make purchases because of pain points. We have a problem that this product/service can solve. Find the pain points that your product/service can help with and then find which pain points your target audience is specifically dealing with.
It could be that while looking at pain points you can solve, you realize that there is an entire section of your target audience that you’ve been neglecting!
7. Personality Traits
Creating a personality for your customer avatar may feel silly, but it’s a huge help when trying to connect with your target audience. Consider personality traits like: adventurous, risk adverse, bold, creative, or open to new experiences.
Pro tip: You can use the Technology Adoption Curve to learn more about your target audience. This graph displays different groups of people and how they interact with technology. Innovators are the people who are open to new experiences and want to take a chance on new technology. They are ahead of the bellcurve. The opposite is true for laggards. They are risk adverse and are less likely to be okay with technology changes. (Think about that person you know who still has a flip phone in 2025.)
This curve is helpful not just for the tech field because once you place your target audience, you get a better understanding of their thought process. If your customer avatar is in the early majority, then they are likely more in tune with new trends, want to try the latest fashions, etc. They are less risk adverse, and you can use that to your advantage.
8. Digital and Non-Digital Location
This relates back to language and communication style in an interesting way. Remember how we mentioned communication style was important when interacting with your target audience? Millennials prefer email marketing, not only because this is their preferred communication style, but this is also a digital location for them. They will be in their inbox, checking their emails.
Finding where your target audience “hangs out”, both IRL and in the digital world can help you reach them easier. Do your potential customers use Instagram or TikTok the most? Are they using YouTube for entertainment? Are they sticking to other streaming platforms like Netflix? This could be the difference between you creating a OTT ad (over the top – how we refer to ads within streaming platforms) or a YouTube ad.
Discovering where your customer avatar would hang out in person can also help you with more traditional marketing initiatives. Even simply setting up flyers or business cards in their favorite coffee shops can make a difference.
Marketing is about touch points and becoming top of mind for potential customers. There more often your target audience sees you – the more primed they become to make a purchase. Every touch point matters, so please consider putting up flyers or leaving business cards in places your target customers frequent.
9. Interests & Hobbies:
Your customer avatar is a person (that you made up, yes, but a person nonetheless), and therefore they need interests and hobbies. This can help you with your marketing messaging and getting creative with your campaigns.
Example: You are a local bookstore. You notice that a majority of your (potential) customers are interested in romance novels. Creating a window display that highlights all the romance novels that you have in store will show readers that you know what they want – and you have it available!
Your customer avatar will not be a perfect representation of your entire target audience. Audiences are large and varied, this is why we suggest creating segments of your target audience. However, for your customer avatar you simply need a well fleshed out example of someone who could be in your target audience.
Once you create an avatar, you can ask yourself if they would be receptive to your marketing initiatives.
About The Author
Vivian & Chelsea
The Seasoned Marketer is a sister duo, Vivian and Chelsea, who both became marketing professionals. With a combined 15+ years of experience in the marketing field, they decided to share their knowledge specifically with small business owners who want to keep their marketing in-house but just need a little help.
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