The Target Customer

You should have a target customer. In fact, I fully believe you should pretend your target customer is an actual person. This is called a customer avatar, which is basically an imaginary friend for your business. Like an imaginary friend, you should understand what your avatar likes, dislikes, what motivates them, and what they need. Every time you draft a marketing message you should be able to pretend you’re talking directly to your avatar. This will allow your dialogue with your actual customers to feel authentic and human.

You are doing it wrong if you draft a piece of communication that makes your customer feel like you are performing target practice on them. It is incredibly off-putting and your conversion rate will suffer. This is particularly insulting if the potential customer can tell you are inflating your status or even catch you in an outright lie. At worst, it can actively insult their intelligence and at best if they choose to become your customer they doing so without feeling all that connected to you or your business.

All of this goes double if you are just launching and looking for your first customers. You want your first customers to be your first raving fans, or “hill dancers.” This isn’t the time to automate, it’s the time to get personal and make them feel paid attention to and important, because they are. Without them, you have only an idea and no business.

— Amy