To create messaging that connects with your audience, it’s important to have a clear understanding of exactly who they are.
The following checklist will help you hone in on what makes your ideal target customer tick.
✓ Create a customer persona (but go beyond age & income).
Often referred to as an AVATAR, it’s critical to know the persona you’re
trying to attract.
Don’t stop at “35–55-year-old professionals with $80k+ income.”
Dig into:
- Their goals and aspirations
- Daily struggles and frustrations
- What
keeps them up at night
- What they secretly want but might not say out loud
Think about actually giving your avatar a name. Then, every time you write sales copy, write it with a total focus on how your "named"
avatar would react.
✓ Talk to your customers directly.
The best insights don’t come from guessing. Sure, you might get SOME of them. But the real gold comes from conversations.
Try:
- Short interviews with existing or potential customers
- Surveys (even simple ones on email or social media)
- Reviewing customer service interactions
for recurring themes.
✓ Study where they hang out.
Pay attention to:
- Online communities, forums, and Facebook/Reddit groups
- What they comment on, complain about, or celebrate
- The language and phrases they
use (these are gold for copywriting!)
✓ Analyze buying behavior, not just opinions.
People say one thing but buy another.
Track:
- What offers get the most clicks
- Which products/services sell fastest
- How they found you (referrals, ads, organic search, etc.)
✓ Look at your BEST customers, not just all customers.
Sometimes clarity comes from focusing on
your top 20%—the ones who buy more often, spend more, and refer others.
Ask yourself:
- What do they have in common?
- Why did they choose you over a competitor?
Editor’s note: Many of my clients share this characteristic: they have strong sales and marketing skills - on-on-one. They need help transferring those skills over to their online messaging that allows them to leverage the selling power of marketing “system” so they can scale.
✓ Keep refining.
Audience clarity isn’t “set it and forget it.” Markets evolve. Customer needs change. Review your insights regularly and adjust your positioning and messaging.
Here are some insight questions you can ask that will help you define your ideal target
customer:
About Their Goals & Aspirations
- If our product/service worked perfectly for you, what would your life/business look like six months from now?
- What’s the “dream outcome” you’re hoping for when you look for a solution like ours?
About Their Challenges
3. What’s the most frustrating part of [problem your product/service solves]?
4. If you could wave a magic wand and remove one struggle in your daily routine, what would it be? (this one can be very revealing!)
About Their Decision-Making
5. What was happening in your life/business when you realized you needed something like this? (I usually ask someone who calls me about my services what it was that made them call me at this time)
6. What almost stopped you
from buying/working with us?
7. When choosing between options, what’s most important to you—price, speed, trust, ease, or something else?
About Their Emotions
8. How did you feel before you found us?
9. How do you feel
now (or how would you want to feel) after solving this problem?
About Alternatives & Competition
10. What other solutions have you tried? What did you like or dislike about them?
11. If you didn’t use us, what would you do
instead?
About Communication & Messaging
12. What words or phrases would you use to describe your problem?
13. When you first saw our product/service, what stood out most? What confused you?
Ask these questions in a casual, conversational way. People reveal more when they don’t feel like they’re being “interviewed.”
Also, record their exact words—they often use phrases that are far more powerful
than anything a marketer could invent.
If all this seems "ideal customer" stuff seems like a lot of heavy lifting, consider the role it plays in the success of your business.
When you KNOW who
your ideal target customer is, you avoid wasting tons of time, money and energy pursuing prospects who will likely never invest in your product or service.
It may FEEL like you’re making progress at the time but, targeting the wrong audience is like pushing water uphill with your
nose.
