As a blogger, it's important to try to find your avatar so you know exactly who your audience is and especially what type of content to write that they would be interested in. In this article I wrote, I share tips with you on how you can go about finding your avatar.

1. 5 Questions You Must Ask
When Trying To Find Your
Avatar. All Are Important,
Especially #1.
By: Andrew M. Warner
www.shadeofinfo.com
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2. Did you find your avatar yet?
For the past few months, I've been hearing alot of talk about Avatar this
and Avatar that – and I had no idea what everybody was referring to.
(I'll be the first to admit that I'm seriously late to the party on alot of things
and I'm always finding that I'm running to catch up only to find out that
everybody's onto something else as soon as I caught up.
Nonetheless, I'm slowly catching up.)
Anyway, I first came across this “find your avatar” talk by listening to a
podcast on Leslie Samuel's Become A Blogger podcast episode, where he
goes into detail about trying to cater to your ideal person.
Otherwise known as an avatar.
Really good episode and worth listening to. However, when I listened to
this, I didn't fully take it in because I was still doing my own thing. Such as
trying to write blog posts and record podcast episodes and other things in
my busy day to day life.
Then just like magic, I didn't hear about it again.
Probably because I didn't bother to look it up and was too stubborn to do
so, so I just ignored it and continued on my way.
Creating content that I believe that my audience liked.
And things were fine for me until I came across a post written by Kate
Erickson from Entrepreneur On Fire wrote about "Who is your avatar?" that
really made me stop in my tracks and second guess what I was doing.
The content I was creating.
My whole blog in general.
www.shadeofinfo.com
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3. And that post is really something worth checking out ... especially if you
don't know who your avatar is. And it was especially inspirational to me
because that's exactly what prompted me to write this blog post.
Not because I needed it to help me re-evaluate the type of content I create
on this blog.
Which is true.
Or even because you, as an entrepreneur/blogger, need to understand and
find your avatar to truly succeed in business.
Which is true as well.
No, the reason I wrote this blog post is because of both of those things and
much more. So hopefully it'll be able to help those of you that truly need to
understand how to find your avatar. Because without it, you're just another
blogger in a sea of bloggers.
How To Find Your Avatar?
There are quite a few ways to find your avatar, and if you've taken the time
to check out the links I suggested, then you'll have most of your answers.
But in my search to find an avatar, I found that there are some questions
that need to be asked for you to be as accurate as possible.
Let's get right into it.
1. Who Is Your Avatar?
This is probably the most important question
you need to ask yourself, because if you
don't know who your avatar is, then you'll be
completely lost in the online world. Some
side questions you could ask to help you
figure out who your avatar is, are:
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4. •
What age bracket are they in? (are they 18 – 30?, 30 – 60?, 18
– 65? Figuring out what age bracket your avatar falls under will help
to determine what they ultimately want.)
•
What do they do? (Are they unemployed and looking for work?
Are they employed and just not satisfied with their current job? Are
they just looking for part time income? Or are they business people
and entrepreneurs?)
•
Where do they hang out online? (Are they on Google Plus?
Twitter? Facebook? LinkedIn? Specific niche forums? You need to
figure out the answer to this to help determine what your avatar
ultimately wants.)
•
What's their lingo? (Casual? Professional? Many people don't
understand the true importance of using the same lingo that your
avatar uses. It can help them identify with you much more because it
seems, to them, that you both speak the same language.)
2. What Problems Are They Having?
After you've identified who your avatar is, you need to figure out exactly
what problems, questions, concerns they're having. And you can easily find
some questions your avatar has by searching in forums based on your
niche, asking questions in various Google Plus Communities, or even
when you have a specific auto-responder email that asks them what are
they having problems with.
When you start to get some questions and more of an idea of the problems
your avatar is having, then you need to ask yourself these side questions:
•
How bad is the pain they're feeling? (Knowing this can help you
determine if the problems that they're having is causing financial or
emotional impact on their life. It can also help you determine what
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5. products/services you could possibly come out with to help aide them.
•
Why are they experiencing this pain? (For example, your avatar
could be a person working in a 9 – 5 job and is experiencing both
financial and emotional pain because their job isn't secured, they
have a family to take care of and bills to pay. They want to do their
own business but they're (1) scared and (2) don't know the steps
needed to get started and eventually build a business. Not all
situations will be like that but you get the idea. And probably your
avatar may not tell you but you can put the pieces together to come
up with a solid conclusion and answer to this question.)
3. What Can You Create To Minimize Their Pain?
Obviously great content, but you need
to think beyond that. You need to think
down the road if you eventually plan on
selling any products to your
subscribers/customers list.
Because think of it this way, once you
create content on top of content that
they love, then they'll be forever loyal
to you. A great example of this is John
Lee Dumas' Podcasters Paradise.
John, who's been podcasting for a little over a year now, was getting
hundreds of thousands of downloads of episodes each month and he had
people, like myself, wanting to create great podcasts like the one he has.
He also knew that a lot of people were having specific trouble with their
podcasts, so he thought about it for a while and then created Podcasters
Paradise – a place for podcasters to interact with each other, share helpful
tips and network.
He understood the paid that his subscribers were having (not knowing how
to start, create and grow a podcast) and he created something to ease
their pain.
www.shadeofinfo.com
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6. What is it that you can do, or possibly offer, to ease the paid of your avatar?
Ask yourself these types of questions to help figure it out:
•
How will it solve their pain? (You have to make sure that
whatever you create as a solution, is capable of solving all of the pain
and worries that your avatar has.)
•
How long will the relief from the pain last? (Is it only a temporary
fix, meaning they'll have to continuously purchase more than one of
the same thing from you? By this I mean for example, part 1 of 5, 2 of
5, etc. Or do they only need that solution once and never need
anything else?)
•
Does it give them hope? (Is it something that's going to inspire
them to go out and do something and take initiative?
•
Exactly how will it help them? (Is it something that will help them
make more money? Live a better life? Keep their job? Discover new
career opportunities? Or has some benefit to them depending on your
niche?)
4. What Will Make You Different In Their Eyes?
Not too long ago, I wrote a post on How To Make Your Business Stand Out
From the Crowd Almost Immediately and also recorded a podcast called 7
Proven Tips To Help You Stand Out From The Crowd In Your Business and
in both of those, I stress the importance of how being different is. There are
hundreds of millions of bloggers in the world right now and probably less
that 5% of them may be in your niche – but that number is still alot. And if
you just do the same type of content that everybody else does, you're sure
to get lost in the crowd.
The only question you need to ask is:
•
How is my product or service different? (This is an obvious
question to ask because if you don't know what different with your
product or service compared to everyone else, then you're in serious
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7. trouble. And it's not even limited to a person buying something from
you. If you're a blogger, what makes you so different that your avatar
will want to go onto your site instead of the millions of others.
5. What would their reason be for listening to you?
This is a tricky question, but it is a legitimate
one that you need to ask. People listen to
people that sounds like they know what
they're talking about. So whether you're an
experienced blogger or not, when you figure
out who your avatar is and what their
problems are, you need to know what to talk
about when you're truly trying to solve their
problems. And this means to actually
research and put out high quality content that they're after.
But besides that, you should ask yourself what the reasons are that they
SHOULD listen to you. Here are a few questions:
•
Do they want to be a part of something bigger? (Your avatar
may be trying to network with as many people as they possibly can to
help them achieve their goal. You can be an instrumental part in their
pursuit.)
•
Do you inspire them to take action? (A lot of people have great
blogs and podcasts, but they don't necessarily inspire people to take
action and do something. In your specific niche, your avatar will listen
to everything you have to say or suggest, if you're capable of inspiring
them. And you can do that by telling stories, creating creative content,
communicating with them through different media outlets, and share
inspiring information)
•
Are you as personable as you could be? (We live in a world now
where it's harder to trust people – especially if you're trying to sell
something to them. That's why it's important to be as open and
honest with people as possible. Let them into your life; talk about
www.shadeofinfo.com
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8. personal things. Pat Flynn does a great job of this on his site where
he shares his monthly Income Reports and goes into detail about
everything. He's being as personable as possible and it's working for
him.
To Finish Up ...
Obviously when you find you avatar, it should make things a lot easier for
you in terms of creating content and coming out with products. By
answering, or getting the answers to all of those questions, you
immediately are able to leverage that information to create and build your
success.
Looking back at all of the blog posts I wrote and podcasts that I've
recorded, I can see that there are times where I'm extremely scattered and
coming out with content that's not even helping my intended avatar. Well
thankfully, I now know who my avatar is and the content I plan on putting
out from here on out, is going to cater to the needs of this specific avatar.
"My avatar is Andy. A 30 year old guy that' s working in a 9 – 5 office
job that he doesn't like and he's experiencing both financial and
emotional pain and stress because his job isn't secure and he knows
it. He has a family that he loves and sticks with his job because he
has a family to take care of and bills to pay.
He has various talents, but doesn't know how to transfer them online.
He's always had dreams of doing his own business but he never took
that step because (1) he's scared and (2) he don't know the actual
steps needed to get started and eventually build a business.
When he's not spending time with his family, he spends whatever free
time he has looking up information on starting an online business,
how to make money online and various methods on how to succeed
in an online business.
He's looking for this information because he wants to work for
himself and be able to take vacations with his family when he wants,
and finally be his own boss. That's where his heart truly is."
www.shadeofinfo.com
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9. That's the avatar I decided to create after reading Kate Erickson's post,
which I linked to earlier, and I hope that if you don't have one already, that
you'll take initiative and find your avatar.
And if you have any additional questions that you think is important, don't
be afraid to leave a comment and share it with everybody.
Lastly, if you found value in this post, please click come to
www.shadeofinfo.com for more great posts like this one. And make sure to
share it with others who are struggling to find their own avatars.
Thanks so much, and here’s to your success!
www.shadeofinfo.com
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