Do YOU know exactly who your ideal customer is?
As an artist it’s vital to really understand who is going to buy your work or workshops etc. Profiling your Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA) is going to be one of the most important tasks you’ll ever do. Then once you’ve identified who they are exactly, you’ll want to answer this second question: How are you going to get your art business in front of them?
When you have worked on discovering Your Ideal Customer, I can promise you a light-bulb moment. That happened to me over 15 years ago, when I first set out as a professional artist back in the UK. I had absolutely no idea who my ideal customers were and so consequently I wasted a lot of time, effort and money marketing to the WRONG PEOPLE…
But this is not going to happen to YOU.
Top Tip: Close your eyes and imagine that perfect customer, then give them a name, and get to work…
Here is my simple formula to getting this right.
Artists: How To Discover Your Ideal Customer.
Want some help to get this done? DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE IDEAL CUSTOMER WORKSHEET here to work along-side this blog.
Part One: The Basics:
You want to understand some of the basics first. Choose a typical age (you can do some segmenting into different ages with a different broader exercise within my other blog: ‘Identifying Your Target Audience Segments’). Think about a typical age-range you want to deal with and start there. Then carry on down the list of questions.
- Age: What age range are they?
- Sex: How do they identify?
- Relationship status: Describe…
- Children: Do they have children, if so, how many and what ages?
- Employment Status: Describe…
Here’s something I get asked all the time: How do I know any of this? Do I just make it up?
Your answer is YES. If you haven’t made a lot of art sales, are just starting your art business, or perhaps you’ve had sales, but not fond your ideal customer yet – just make it up.
Part Two: Location:
Are you planning on building a local, national or global business? What countries will you reach and sell in? Or do you want to have a physical art business in your nearby vicinity. If you are looking at doing online globally as well as local for perhaps a different product, then just choose one for now, as you can always come back and profile for a different segment.
- Local: What area specifically?
- National: Any sub-areas, or cities?
- Global: Describe…
Part Three: Lifestyle:
This is the big section, so really take the time to fully get into the process. Step inside their head and imagine this person from the inside, out. Get creative and really have some fun in this section. The more you dive deeper, the better results you’ll get and EASIER your marketing will become.
Here are the areas in this section to work through. You will find that one thing leads nicely to another at this point and once you get into your character you can do this fairly quickly too.
- Income or Turnover: What’s their salary or business turnover?
- Disposable Income: What do they have left to spend/invest on wants and desires?
- Homeowner or Rental: Describe…
- Cars: Describe…
- Hobbies: List out…
- Interests: List out…
- Shopping habits: Describe…
- Eating Out: Where do they eat out?
- Holidays: What sort of holidays do they take?
- Memberships: List…
- Dress: How do they dress?
- Reading: Do they read books or blog? If so, which?
- Who do they admire: List/Describe…
- What Social Media Accounts do they follow: List…
- Anything else…
Part Four: Mind-set:
By now you should have a really good idea how this person looks, thinks, does things. This is where you are going to dive even deeper and get into their mindset. This will give you so many amazing clues as to their wants, needs, desires, challenges, thoughts, feeling etc.
- Values: What’s important to them?
- Beliefs: What beliefs do they hold?
- Needs: What are their needs?
- Wants: Describe what they really want…
- Desires: Describe their dreams and desires…
Lastly, I like to write a full description of their ideal day. From here you can see to whom you are speaking when you write that marketing email, post on Instagram, put out a Facebook Ad, etc. I hope you have enjoyed discovering Your Ideal Customer and really fully filled out each section.
Don’t forget to get your FREE DOWNLOAD: Your Ideal Customer Avatar Worksheet.
