In my last few blog posts, I’ve been laying the groundwork so you can understand the importance of having one or (probably) more Ideal Client Avatars to guide your offer creation and marketing for your educational consulting business.
But now it’s time to put the bigger picture, philosophical stuff behind us and get down to the nitty gritty…
Creating your first Ideal Client Avatar (if you haven’t done this before).
So here we go.
The first part of your ICA development involves getting some details down about the people you want to work with. And we’ll break down these details into two broad categories…
- Demographics and
- Psychographics
If the words demographics and psychographics look foreign to you, here are the definitions…
Demographics are the statistical characteristics of a population, such as age, gender, income, education, and occupation.
Psychographics are the personal attributes that influence attitudes and lifestyles, including values, beliefs, opinions, personality, and interests.
These are not the most important things to know about your audience, but they do have value (we’ll get into the most important details about your audience in the next few posts).
Now, you don’t need to know everything about your Ideal Client Avatar. But you want to know enough about them so that they start to come to life for you–enough so that you can begin to visualize them and feel like you’re writing directly to a real person when you write marketing copy for your business.
So, let’s do this.
Audience Demographics and Psychographics, Part 1
In the list below, answer the demographic questions about your Ideal Client Avatar–the people you enjoy working with the most and want to work with more in the future and the people who are willing, even eager, to pay you for your expertise.
If you did the exercise in my previous post and found several people who fit the definition of an Ideal Client in the exercise, use as many details from the ICAs you identified in that exercise here as you can.
Demographics/Interests
Gender: If your Ideal Clients are predominantly male or female, obviously you should use that gender here. If the mix is pretty even, think about the clients you like working with most. Are they more from one gender or the other? If so, use that gender. If you work pretty much equally with people from both genders and neither gender makes up the majority of the clients you enjoy working with most, just pick one for now. Or flip a coin. Or do rock, paper, scissors.
Age Range: Picture a group of your Ideal Clients. About how old are they on average? For this purpose, pick a 10-year range–no more, no less. So, 35-45 works, but not 25-50. I’m sure you work with people of all ages, but nailing down a more narrow range into which most of your best Clients fall will help you focus your marketing language later.
Marital Status: Are most of your best clients married? Single?
Kids (How many? How old?): Again, think about your best clients who fit into the age range you listed previously. How many kids, on average, do they have and how old are they?
Income: If your Ideal Client Avatar is a teacher with a certain number of years of experience in a certain part of the country, what’s the average salary for that group of people? You can probably find this number with a Google search if you don’t know it off the top of your head.
Education (High School vs. Undergrad vs. Advanced Degree? Community College vs. Ivy League? Arts vs. Sciences?): Again, you’re looking for the average education level for the group of people who fit the Ideal Client Avatar you’re building here.
Politics (Democrat vs. Republican? How Strongly Do They Identify as Such?): While it’s almost always a bad idea to get into political discussions in your work with your clients, knowing which way they lean can give you insights into how to talk to them persuasively. In my experience, most educational consultants enjoy working more with people who are on the same wavelength with them politically, but certainly you don’t have to limit yourself.
Spirituality (Faith and Level of Religiosity): The same comments I made above about politics could be repeated verbatim for religion.
Geography (Region of the country? City vs. Suburbs vs. Country?): You don’t have to nail this down too tightly, but if you prefer working with inner city schools, for example, it might make sense for your Ideal Client Avatar to be a teacher in an urban district.
Education Influences: What educational leaders does your ICA follow? What educational publications do they read? Who do they follow online?
Quotation: Think of a one or two-sentence statement that your ICA would make about themselves and quote it here.
Audience Demographics and Psychographics, Part 2
OK, now that you have some basic demographic info down about your ICA, it’s time to dig into the psychographics. These are even more important than the demographics. I think as you answer some of the questions below, you’ll really start to feel your ICA come alive.
Psychographics
Go through the following list of questions and answer any where the answer is so obvious it just jumps out at you. Skip any questions where there’s no obvious answer (If you have to pause to think about it too long, just skip it.)
The goal is to come up with answers to 5-10 of these questions. If you don’t have at least five answers once you’ve run through this list, make up some questions that you already know the answers to and add both the question and answer to the list until you’re in the 5-10 range.
- What kind of books do they read?
- What’s their favorite book or who’s their favorite author?
- What kind of movies do they watch?
- What’s their favorite movie or who’s their favorite actor?
- What kind of music do they listen to?
- Do they have a favorite band? If so, who?
- What kind of car do they drive?
- What kind of clothes do they wear?
- Where do they shop for clothes?
- What is their restaurant/café of choice?
- What is their hot beverage of choice?
- What is their cold beverage of choice?
- Do they follow a particular diet (e.g., vegan, paleo, keto, Mediterranean, etc.)?
- Do they fly business or economy?
- What’s their dream vacation?
- Vegas or Broadway?
- Europe or Tahiti?
- DC or Marvel?
- Morning person or night owl?
- Apple or Android?
- Yoga in the park or bootcamp at the gym?
- Paper copy or Kindle (or audiobook)?
All finished? Excellent!
Can you begin to feel this person becoming more real to you?
Hang on to your answers to these questions. In the next few posts, we’ll add more to this Ideal Client Avatar you’re building. It’s going to be fun!
To Your Success,
Willy
P.S.–I don’t believe that I have clearly stated this yet, so I’ll do so now…
Your Ideal Client Avatar can be more representational or more aspirational, or an even split.
In other words, the Avatar you create can be very descriptive of the clients you have worked with in the recent past and continue to work with today–that is, your Avatar can represent the current reality of the best clients you’re working with.
On the other hand, you may aspire to work with an even better class of clients in the future. Or maybe you’ve had one client that’s been head and shoulders above all the rest, and you’d love to work with more clients like that one.
My advice would be to create an ICA that has some elements of the best of your current clients, but also add some “stretch” details from your ideal, aspirational client into the mix. That way, you’ll be marketing simultaneously to the best you’re currently working with AND the dream clients you hope to attract in the future.
If you have questions about this, just drop a comment below and we’ll talk about it.
