In event planning one of the keys to being successful is knowing who your clients are and how you can serve them. As an event planner, it is crucial to know your potential clients and understand their pain points. If you understand what the challenges are that your clients are facing, it becomes easier to position your business and services to solve them.
To understand your client’s issues, you also need to understand them as a person. Who are they? What are their interests? What social activities do they enjoy? The best way to capture this information is by creating a client avatar that outlines exactly what your ideal client is like.
A client avatar is a combination of data based on your ideal client, often crafted into a story with a character who has needs, wants and desires. For example, my client avatar is Eve, she is 27 years old, married and an event planner.
A client avatar will help you to answer three key questions for your business:
What are the challenges facing your ideal customer?
What type of advertisements should you use to maximize exposure to your ideal customer?
Are there words and content should you use in your ads that will speak to your ideal customer?
These questions can be answered by conducting thorough research and developing a well-defined client avatar. To help you with this process I’ve created a client avatar worksheet that can be downloaded below.
The following are three steps to completing your client avatar worksheet:
1. Conduct your research
One of the cheapest and easiest ways of conducting research to develop your client avatar is by visiting websites, forums, and groups where they are members. If you’re a wedding planner, for example, you can visit websites such as weddingwire.com, theknot.com and have a look at the questions that brides are posting. You can use this information to gather data on what brides are looking for in an event planner and the most commons concerns they might have.
Potential research sites:
2. Create a story around your ideal client
Once you have all your research in hand your next step is to craft a story around your client avatar. Something that speaks to who that person is and the reason why they would connect with you. A story is important because it allows you to visualize your client avatar as an actual person, which makes your marketing strategies more relatable to potential clients.
Use my example with Eve above. By understanding Eve’s marital status, age, career and challenges, I can better speak to a potential client like Eve about my services and also understand how family commitments and other factors in her life impacts her purchasing decisions.
3. Problems equal Opportunity
If you understand your client avatar and the story behind them, it becomes easier for you to identify the problems they face and show how your business can be the solution.
Here’s an example:
Client Avatar #1: My ideal customer is looking to start an event planning business, so my services would be useful to help them get started.
Client Avatar #2: Eve is an Event Planner, she is 27 married and struggling to grow her event planning business. She tries on her own to implement a lot of the strategies within her business with little success. She knows what her goals are but is looking for guidance on how to achieve them.
As you can see from Avatar #1, the idea of my client avatar is more abstract and general. It lacks depth and insight into the true struggles of my ideal client.
In Avatar #2 however, you can imagine Eve as a person with a real problem, not a general statistic. This makes her more relatable and will allow me to focus my marketing efforts in a way that speaks directly to her concerns.
Go ahead and download the worksheet to get started on your client avatar.
Takeaways
Your client avatar summary should outline the demographic and personal traits of your ideal customers
Give your avatar a name and face to improve your visualization
Use the worksheet to develop your client avatar
Craft a story around your client avatar that captures the essence of who they are
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