Welcome to the Media Mastery mini-series, where we look at the five most common challenges business owners face while trying to build a leading brand.
If you want your brand to have an impact, you need to get it in front of new customers. There’s no sugarcoating it: the best brand in the world can’t do a thing without an audience. So, how do you start building that base? How do you put yourself out there in a practical way?
Once you know your “why” and your “how,” you can start using that foundation to build an audience.
You may already be familiar with the term “customer avatar.” A customer avatar is a character you make up who represents your ideal customer. You describe them as thoroughly and entirely as you can by answering many questions like:
- What’s their name? Where do they live? How old are they?
- What’s their industry? What’s their job title? What are their goals?
- What are their most significant pain points? What causes them the most frustration?
- What are their aspirations? What do they want that you can help them achieve?
It’s a creative exercise that helps you get inside your customer’s heads and understand their motivations, desires, and fears more intimately. It’s an essential part of the process, and I highly recommend trying it. The main reason it’s relevant to us is that the avatar will reveal our “where.”
What’s Your Where?
Where do your customers hang out? What media outlets do they watch? Where do they get their news? Do they use social media? Do they read blogs? When they need to find a new company or product, how do they decide whom to choose?
We want to know where they are so we can go to them instead of expecting them to seek us out.
Thank goodness for technology because this has never been easier. Social media, email lists, and blogs make any audience accessible. Social media is probably the best way to find out who your customers are and where they reside.
The key here is finding out who the influencers are in your space. You can find them on Twitter or Facebook, in the newspaper, and anywhere. Once you scout these folks out, don’t be afraid to reach out to them to ask questions. You never know until you ask.
Once you’re in touch with these influencers, learn from them. What kind of content do they produce? What problems do they solve? Why are they in that space? If you can answer these questions when talking to an influencer in your area, you’ll have the essential ingredients to build your audience.
Speaking with and asking questions of an influencer to get a deeper understanding of your space and audience is priceless. So build your avatar and start doing some digging.
