How To Build Your Ideal Customer Profile

Are you struggling to connect with your people? It could be down to your ideal customer profile. Do you really know what your customers need and how to connect with them online through content. In today’s episode, I’ll be helping you build your own customer profile so you can start attracting and publishing content that your ideal customers and clients are drawn to like a moth to a flame. Get clear on whom your brand is talking to you today. Welcome to the BrandMade show notes. If you’re like me and would rather be walking the dog whilst learning you can now listen to – episode 007 on >>Apple Podcast<< or >>Spotify<<

The advantages to having a clear ideal customer profile.

Time:00:33

It’s no secret that in a small business, we use content to attract sales clients and traffic really, if we aren’t being clear about who is we’re talking to within our content, then it’s most likely that our audience will keep scrolling past. So this means it’s harder for us to build a strong relationship or even attract our ideal audience. Therefore we may be experiencing less traffic and engagement. So creating a customer profile will give you that much needed clarity Every time you sit down to write an Instagram description or a blog post, you have that clear understanding and know exactly who it is that you’re aiming this towards. There are a few different ways to build your customer profile, what you should include, what you prefer, probably will be down to what the type of business you have, I would the main goal is we want to figure out who your ideal audience what your ideal audience needs, once issues and desires are out of life. So we must dig deeper than that basic background information such as age, gender, and postcode, I would suggest probably a maximum of two customer profiles, and ideally, you’d have a primary and a secondary one. So without further ado, let’s get started building your ideal customer profile. Whether you’re a product or service based business, I’ve got you covered.

Who is it that you want to actually work with and attract?

Time: 01:54

Remember that when creating an ideal customer profile, the product or service you’re offering needs to be suitable and something that they will actually want or need. You should also be mindful of popular trends and not fall into the trap of creating an ideal audience profile based on what’s popular at that given time, because trends will come and go. But your ideal customer profile should stay solid, say consistent. So make sure you’re staying true to who it is that you want to work with and the people you want to help serve because at the end of the day, you will be the one working with them. So let’s start off with the basics. This basic foundation of information will include things like name, gender, address, family and education. So first of all, you need to decide whether your profile is going to be a female or male. I already mentioned earlier you have to so if your brand is targeting both genders Feel free to great to now have your brand may be leaning towards one more than the other. And that should be your primary profile. However, here is where you need to start thinking as a wider context, because nowadays, more people aren’t comfortable being labelled as a specific gender. So you want to take this into consideration because you may realise that actually your ideal client is gender neutral, and therefore you should show this within your copy and description on your website by not engaging in any gender pronouns within text. So making a conscious effort to not isolate anyone out.

Building the basic background information

The Domino Effect

Time: 03:26

Moving on to age. Now I suggest picking actually a specific age rather than the age range. For example, if you wanted to pick an age range from 18 to 25, everyone within that group will be at a slightly different life stage and development an 18 year old will have different decisions, there probably will be more in tuned with future education, whereas a 25 year old might have already graduated and come out in university and is more looking at decisions to make in a career and living situation. So it’s best to select a specific age to know exactly what their thoughts, previous experiences and specific topics that they will be having.

Then we have address and this will include two elements. So one is where they live the physical location and the other one is, what type of place do they live in? starts to create an image in your head of where your ideal customer lives? Do they live somewhere noisy, busy, so more city vibes? Or are they living in a more quiet and peaceful area full of green spaces, like the countryside or maybe they live close to the seaside There are so so many different places, these are things to sit down and start considering with cat because you may realise that your ideal customer doesn’t have a permanent address and actually prefers to travel the world. And when they come back, they stay with parents or either with friends. Depending on the location you’ve chosen. This will help determine what type of home they would more likely be living in because if they live in London and are 23 is less likely they’re going to be living in a big house and probably more likely they’re going to be living in an apartment or renting with a group of friends.

You now may also need to consider who they are living with as well. And that all the time and their relationship status a bit like are they married, engaged, single living with friends or possibly still living at home or parents or with one single parent. We also need to think about education and career. Obviously the age of your ideal customer will determine whether or not they have a career or just a part time job. education and career has this domino effect because if you if your ideal client is a therapist, then it’s likely that they’ve had to gain certain qualifications and gone to higher education. However, maybe your ideal client did an apprentice programme or self taught. There are so many options. So do think about this with care. Remember to think further than selecting an old any old job. Because there will be a certain pay grade for that job as well. So certainly to be mindful about how you see your ideal client and how much you see them earning, create a clear backstory on their education and career, and income.

Top Tip:

It can be hard trying to choose your ideal customer, therefore, you’re finding it difficult to make decisions within the last exercise. Maybe take a moment to think about the people you don’t want to attract and make a clear list on the qualities personalities, traits, etc. This exercise should help you kickstart on then who it is that you do really want to attract.

Getting clear on your ideal customer personal interests.

Time: 06:41

Moving on to thinking about your ideal clients personal interest and that can include thing like what TV programs do they watch, hobbies are they involved in, books and music do they like to read and listen to. This will provide you with a better understanding around their personality and their daily routines. It’s good to think about what brands are your ideal clients purchasing from and interacting with? Within clothing to groceries, what type of phone to they have and even down to what apps are they familiar with.

You might be wondering why do we need to know our customer in this much detail. It’s because there are a few ways we can connect with our ideal audience online. The most popular one is obviously sharing information and content on our topic, helping them through a situation or an issue. Showing our ideal audience how to transform, achieve successes or even save time. This obviously helps us show our expert knowledge in this topic. But content also can just be pure entertainment and be a great way to be seen as relatable on a personal level. Through things like habits, memes, quotes, books and TV Shows! It’s actually far easier to connect with someone through these mutual topics than factual information.

Top Tip

If your brand has been established for a year plus it’s likely you already have already gained an audience. If this is the case create two profiles one of your current audience and another with your ideal customer. You can compare and contrast the two profiles beside one another and work out if your happy with who you’re currently working with. And or make the decisions and future plans to either pivot or complete change who it is you want to attract.

Identifying your Ideal customers motives, fears and drivers through personality types.

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Your ideal customer now needs to be associated with a specific personality type. I use two systems in conjunction with each other – the >>Enneagram<< and >>16 personalities<<. You may have heard the term Enneagram before in it’s more simplistic form, it describes human personality, and includes 9 personality types these are known as The Reformer, helper, Achiever, Individualist, investigator, loyalist, Enthusiast, challenger and peacemaker. The Enneagram personality system helps us business owners to identify and understand what our ideal customers deeper motivators, fears and even drivers, these are things we won’t be able to understand from interests and things, that deeper level of understand in who your ideal customers are.

I also like to look at the 16 Personalities, another personality test that is based on Myer Briggs model. This model includes four distinct traits that represent differences in the way your people think and behave. This system helps you gain a better understanding on your ideal customers behaviours rather than their internal personality traits or struggles. This personality system includes 4 main categories and each include 4 sub-types, the main categories are Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels and Explorers.

You might be wondering why do we need to look at both? Good question, I do this because, personalities are so complex. I don’t believe that people are just be one personality type. Because in reality we will have had different life experiences, that will have moulded us to be the people we are today. So by using two I think it gives us not only more information but even more of a slightly more realistic overview of your ideal customer. And helps us identity our ideal customers primary universal struggles, internal traits and be able to empathise and possible more likely to predict their behaviours and actions. By gather this we can communicate with our ideal audience in a better way that make them feel understood and noticed.

Aligning Your Brand’s offer with your Ideal Customers Problems

Reference: Building A Story Brand By Donald Miller

Time: 10:58

Building a story brand by Donald Miller has inspired this next section of information. So now you’ve gather lots of information the last stage is about using the information you’ve gather and being about to link it back to what your service and or product that your small business offers. The first question you should think about is. What’s the main thing stopping your ideal customers to get where they want to go? There is always something in your client ways whether that’s there imposter syndrome, marketing skills or money! What you need to do right now is figure out what is the biggest and baddest problem your ideal customers are struggling with right now? Like in every movie there is a villain you just gotta find out what it looks like for your ideal customers. The next question is what do they need externally in order to concur or solve this issue or problem their being face with? This will hopefully be your product or service!

But then we go one step further, a lot of people sell to our external issues with a service or product, but usually we are struggling with something much deeper, an internal problem as well. You must identify and address what your customers might be feeling as it relates to your brand! Brainstorm what is your ideal customers internal desires or aspiration? How do they want to be seen by others in the future? If someone came up to you and said that they could help you feel better tomorrow, you wouldn’t ever pass that opportunity up! This will help you understand how your product or service helps solve or improve their internal struggles.

Last but not least, lets take a step back and look at the boarder picture. Think about what is the philosophical reason behind it? This could be seen as your why, a deeper meaning that your ideal customer wants to be a part of. For example if you’re a Candle Maker, your philosophical reason for you ideal customer could be. When I buy candles they ought to be made with 100% organic ingredients. Because they care about their heath the environment and use there purchasing decisions to be a part something bigger. To provide their purchase with even more meaning.

Goodbye from me and start saying hello to your ideal customers

Time: 13:12

By now you should have hefty stack of information about your ideal customer. That is far more compressive than something look like facebook page profile because that will on scrap the surface of what you need to know about ideal customer. You should have a list of their basic background, what personality type they are and a clear understand on their habits and hobbies. Most importantly you’re now leaving with a blueprint of on how your service and product can attract them through external issues, internal desires and the bigger reasoning behind it all! What are you waiting for get attract your ideal clients now you have the blueprint start creating content that ticks all these four area of your ideal customers wants and issues.