So what can they do but start making things up? Almost invariably, the result reads like a much-too-long online dating profile, so overloaded with information that it’s hard to tell the relevant details from the red herrings.

So for a customer avatar to be useful, we have to keep it firmly in the realm of caricature, where the mental picture of your ideal customer is simple enough to give you a clear gut sense about what they will like and how they will behave.

It’s best to start with a single ideal customer, as having more than one will double or triple the amount of work to do as you build your business, and create a lot of potential complications.

obvious, resonant, and intuitive are like beauty in that they exist only in the eye of the beholder.

if your friend told you Tina’s entire life story, you still wouldn’t really know Tina. But you might have the illusion of knowing Tina, and that would all but guarantee that the date won’t go well!

In this example, the red bull’s-eye is your ideal customer avatar. You won’t always hit it, and you can still celebrate the other customers who find their way to you. But you still need that precisely defined bull’s-eye to aim for, because you can’t hit a fuzzy target.

They contain just the key details that allow you to call a clear stereotype of your customer to mind, and nothing more.

Female Mid-fifties Married with kids Living in a big city Upper-middle-class professional Well-educated, probably holding an advanced degree Politically liberal-leaning Spiritually inclined, regardless of religious affiliation

answer to the question of what you want in your new sedan will be very different if it is being asked by a genie as opposed to a car dealer!