How do you define an avatar? Marketing people like to throw lots of new and fancy words around. When your avatar is simply your ideal client. More specifically, your ideal student for your online course.

Let’s take a look at how defining your avatar “IDEAL CLIENT” will help your business narrow the focus of your online course, define your marketing strategy, and save you time and money. Isn’t that really the end goal? More $$$ in your pocket! 

Defining Your Avatar

Creating products or content without an idea of who we are creating them for is a waste of time and money! But just how do we figure out who we are catering to? Here are some things to consider when defining your IDEAL CLIENT for your business.

IDEAL CLIENT BASICS

• Age
• Socioeconomic status
• Education level 
• Family
• Location 
• Interests
• Occupation
• Values
• Employment status
• Goals
• Challenges/problems 
• Needs/wants 

Each of these bullet points represents something different about your ideal client. This helps you know why they will want to purchase your online course and other products or services. We can group each of these points into three categories in order to better understand how your ideal client might come to use your good or service. 

3 Basic Categories of Your Ideal Client

Personal and Financial Connections 

Consider the age, family structure, socioeconomic status, location, employment status and education level of the person who would be your ideal client. A single, 50-year-old man probably wouldn’t be in the market for a stroller. A mom of 4 who works part-time and lives in a rural area probably wouldn’t even consider buying accessories for a sports car. A product that makes a subway commute easier wouldn’t appeal to a retired man in the suburbs.

So when you are looking to create an online course, you need to know what your ideal client it looking for. What problem are you solving for them? What solution are they looking for? 

Your 50-year-old man might be looking how to transition his years of experience in a certain field to a consulting gig where he now has more control over his time. While the mom of 4 might be looking for a way to earn extra income while still being present with her 4 kids. And that retired man maybe looking to pick up a hobby of wood working or fly fishing, who knows. The world is all of their oyster and you are their pearl.

So when thinking about your ideal client make sure you are also taking into consideration how much they are going to be able to spend with you to achieve the success they are looking for.

Intellectual Stimulation 

Your goal is to sell a kickass online course that creates recurring revenue. One way to do that is to know what your ideal client wants to learn about. Then actually teach it. But you need to realize a few things about them first. 

• What’s going on in your avatar’s brain?
• How do their interests, educational background, and occupation affect what they want to buy?
• Does your product appeal to someone with a particular hobby?
• How about a specific industry?
• Is this something they are purchasing for work or for personal use?

All of these concepts go into the price point you set your course at, the amount of time you are individually devoting, and how long the course materials should be. Think about the things your avatar thinks about.  Then realize once you teach them the first key steps of whatever they want to learn, there is always another layer. There is always more to learn. How can you deliver that learning? Then you make the big $$$!

Overcoming Obstacles

Finally, the biggest factors in determining your avatar are the problems and challenges they experience.

• What do they want?
• What do they need (or think they need!)?
• What values do they have?

They have a problem and you are their solution. What kinds of problems might they have? Think about the types of problems the following people might want to solve:

• A part-time female graduate student in engineering who is in her late 20’s, who works 30 hours per week, and who is getting married next year.
• A 65-year-old male sales representative who logs hundreds of miles per week in his car.
• An 18-year-old recent high school graduate who is moving 1000 miles away to attend college.  

All of these avatars face a lot of problems. They have wants AND needs. How are you going to solve the problem they think they have with the solution you know they need.

Let’s take the sales representative – he has back pain from sitting in the car all day. He needs a lot of things: a fuel-efficient car, a way to track mileage, GPS and bluetooth system, and a storage solution for his products. However, none of these address his real need – a way to take care of his back. So your online course is going to focus on making him more money with less stress and miles in the car. Throughout the course you will recommend over half the things he already knows he “needs” but also some stretches for each time he gets out of the car. You are going to recommend ways to get clients on the phone before ever even getting in the car, making sure the drive ends in an actual sale. You are going to provide him with his SOLUTION plus.

This solution plus will then show him you really know what you are doing. Now he will buy even more courses or recommended merchandise from you. Maybe that affiliate seat cushion you love and a subscription to a stretching program. And more importantly the next level course you have which teaches how to do whatever else in sales you kickass at!

Make it your mission to solve your avatar’s problem with your next online course. And promise me, you won’t just market – you will actually teach!