Tag: avatar

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Creating a Customer Avatar: Part Two

customer avatar

Last week we learned what a customer avatar is and the data points that help create one. This week we build your customer avatar and learn a new marketing technique.

Building Your Avatar

As you know, a customer avatar represents your ideal customer. To build your customer avatar, it helps to think of an actual person. What products does she buy? What is she looking for?

After thinking of an individual, expand to your customer base. What questions come up frequently? Are you getting similar comments on your social media posts? These areas are great places to start to determine where to focus your efforts. If you still need ideas, check out our Customer Avatar Worksheet or consider sending a survey to your clientele.

Generosity Marketing

Once you know your customer the next step is to foster those relationships. There’s a lot of noise in the marketplace to cut through; how can you fulfill your customer’s hopes?

Enter generosity marketing. Generosity marketing is based on the theory if you give something away for free, it instills a sense of trust between you and your customers and lays the foundation for returning customers. The alternative (offering promos and discounts) is a more assertive sales tactic and makes customers feel like targets.

Offering things like rewards programs, giveaways, events, and charitable commitments are all pieces of generosity marketing. Being a thought leader is too. Applying these and enhancing the sense of trust between you and your customers are all excellent ways to elevate your business from the competition.

Inspiration for this post came from “Customer Avatars and Generosity Marketing” by Flossie Arend published in the October 2022 issues of American Quilt Retailer. Next week we’ll cover the second part of this post: marketing to your avatar.

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to Creative Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you. And don’t forget, you can always purchase single issues if you prefer that instead.

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Creating a Customer Avatar

customer avatar

Why do your customers chose to shop with you? If you don’t know the answer to this question, practice the below exercise to keep differentiating yourself from the pack.

What is a customer avatar?

A customer avatar represents your ideal customer. Creating a customer avatar is important because they are the type of person that purchases your products.

To design your company’s avatar, consider your customer’s demographics, characteristics, hopes, and fears.

  • Demographics: What is your customers age, location, gender, job status, education level, economic status, etc.
  • Characteristics: What are your customers habits, skills, and skill level? Are they in the market for bulk fabric at low costs, or artisanal fabrics for a range of crafts? These are two very different types of customers.
  • Hopes: Your customers hopes are the benefits they receive from your business. Are your customers experienced quilters, or wanting to learn?
  • Fears: Your customers fears intersect with your business’s solutions. How can you address your avatars pain points?

Customer data points

We already have demographic information on over 29,000 quilters thanks to the 2021 Quilter’s Survey. The average quilter is a retired female in her 60’s. She already knows how to quilt and starts nine to 11 quilts a year, working on them about 6 hours a week. She shops based off fabric choices and location (around 30 minutes away) and has increased her online shopping about 30%.

To get your business’s demographics, check out your social media analytics, or consider adding Google analytics to your website for additional data points.

Inspiration for this post came from “Customer Avatars and Generosity Marketing” by Flossie Arend published in the October 2022 issues of American Quilt Retailer. Next week we’ll cover the second part of this post: marketing to your avatar.

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to Creative Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you. And don’t forget, you can always purchase single issues if you prefer that instead.

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Using an Avatar for Customer Service

avatar and customer service

Creating an avatar can be a huge time-savings piece for your business. Not only does it allow more flexibility in who responds, but customers can do the self-service they’re looking for. Below are tips and tricks to get an avatar started on your website.

Your Avatar’s Personality

An avatar is a digital representative or persona. When creating this persona, there are a couple things to keep in mind. Will you avatar be a male or female? What is your avatar’s name? What sort of personality will they have? (Note, you don’t have to create an entire character design). Below are a few examples:

  • Suzy Q is the avatar for Suzi Q Quilting. She is polite and friendly. Suzi will validate a customer’s feelings, but hold firm to a store’s policies. She is cheerful and ends every interaction with “Best wishes on your quilting adventures!”
  • Todd is the avatar for another quilt shop. He is firm, but happy, and interacts with humor (often communicating with jokes and emojis). He doesn’t apologize for not bending policies but he does seek solutions to make the customer happy within company protocols.

Avatar Logisitics

Now that you know what sort of avatar you want for your business, there are a few other pieces to work out.

First, determine what employees you’ll dedicate to responding to customer service requests.

Next, create a standardized email that the decided-upon employees can have access to.

Finally, to streamline even further, track responses in a document and create email templates of common responses to frequently asked questions.

Inspiration for this post came from “Consistent Customer Service” by Gwen Bortner published in the October 2021 issue of American Quilt Retailer.

Wait, There’s More!

Interested in a FREE AQR Meetup? Well you’re in luck!

Next Thursday, December 16 at noon CST you can find out what’s on the radar for AQR and AQR Academy in 2022. You’ll also get tips on how to finish 2021 off strong.

Register for the Zoom event here prior to attending. All are welcome (and we’re interested in hearing what you want next year as well)!

If you’re looking for more information to guide you in owning a retail business, subscribe to American Quilt Retailer today. Already a subscriber? No worries—join our Facebook group for insights and dialogue from industry specialists like you. And don’t forget, you can always purchase single issues if you prefer that instead.