In short, YES! You absolutely do need to know your ideal client! But who the heck is this? How do you even begin to work this out? What if you offer multiple services or products that are for all ages and genders?
I get it, it’s not always that straight forward and it might take you a while to figure this out, hell I’m still adapting mine now and keep doing so because as my business grows my ideal client changes too!
So what is an ideal client?
Your ideal client (or customer) is that one person who would be that perfect/dream client. They can be real or made up, it doesn’t matter. You just need to create this avatar so you can visualise who they are as a person and get to know what they’re about.
You may sell multiple products or offer different services for different ages or genders but who is that dream customer that will make the purchase? This isn’t necessarily the person who the product is for.
As an example, think of a toy store. The products are for babies or children, but that’s not who the ideal client would be! The ideal client is the person a brand targets, so in this case it’s likely to be mums and/or dads.
They target their ideal client with the types of products they offer, the service, pricing, colour palette, logo design, messaging, imagery, store layout, packaging, website design. Each of these are created to target that ideal client and every business will have a different ideal client.
Knowing your ideal client makes it so much easier to make business decisions and to build a brand that resonates with them.
So if you could imagine your absolute dream customer, who would they be?
Would they be male or female? Are they a parent? How old are they? Where do they live? What do they do for work? Where do they travel on holiday? What do they do for fun? What are their hobbies? How do they spend their weekends? What is their home like? Do they have any pets? What kind of personality do they have?
I get it, you’re probably reading this thinking ‘well how on earth do I know this?’
I want you to think about your business…what do you do? What do you make or sell?
If you could help one person in the world with your product or service, who would that be? I want you to imagine one person because this is who you’re going to connect with the most and who will get you excited about this order more than any other you’ve had.
Write down who this person is. Then just evolve it from there to work out more about them so you can start to create a profile or avatar for them.
But I don’t want to narrow it down because I’ll lose out on all these other orders if I’m only targeting this one type of person…
WRONG!
Simply by creating this ideal client, it just gives you the clarity you need to know what products are going to work best. It gives you the guidance you need to create a strong brand identity to target that client. It gives you the essential information you need to build a successful brand!
Every successful big brand out there will have an ideal client profile. Whether it’s Prada or Gucci, TopShop or Zara, or even Aldi or Lidl. Does this mean they get one type of person in their shops? No! People of all ages, genders and profiles will shop from each of these brands.
But they are targeting one type of person so that they can create a strong brand that you recognise, whether that’s through the shop layout, the brand identity, window display etc.
Put it this way…
If you were/are a bespoke cake designer and I approached you asking you to create a cake for me with no guidance on who it was for, how would you even begin to design something? How would you know what style to design, what colours to use, what finishes would work well?
You wouldn’t!
This is why as a brand designer and photographer I NEED to know who your ideal client is before I can even begin to start to create a brand or imagery for you that is going to work for your business.
If you’re a cake designer (or bespoke product maker/designer), I bet you have cakes/products that you absolutely love to create. I also bet there are styles you really don’t want to do but you do it to get the bookings.
This is where knowing your ideal client massively helps your business.
By only showing the designs you WANT to and love to create and having a brand identity that speaks to your ideal client and gets you excited about your business, this will make you look like a specialist in that type of product. So when your ideal client is looking for something like that, you will stand out instantly because you are speaking to them through all of your messaging!
You want to make yourself irresistible to your ideal client!
In order to create a beautiful brand that’s perfect for your business you need to know who you are targeting.
Do you need help with this? I offer a 1-2-1 where I can help you go through this in detail to build your ideal client profile so if you need help,
book your session here!
Jacquie x
