In part 2 we’re going to cover:
Some of the greatest movies, books or stories of all time have followed stories of ordinary people going through what is called a hero’s journey. Whether it’s Luke Skywalker going from farmer to Jedi Master, or Frodo leaving the Shire to save Middle Earth they each follow the arc of what is called the Hero’s Journey.
The basic concept is that a Hero begins their journey living an ordinary life and ripped from this ordinary life to do something extraordinary. They often refuse to start with but with the help of a mentor (Obi Wan Kenobi or Gandalf in my 2 examples above) they are able to cross over and begin their journey. They must then face many challenges having both successes and failures where they grow and achieve their reward before going back to their original life but as a changed person (or hobbit).
The value in this concept comes from two points:
We all like to think of ourselves as the Hero of our own journey. Whether noticing ourselves first in any picture, or loving to tell a story about yourself, your customer is the hero of their own journey.
In understanding this, you can now position yourself as their mentor or helper to achieve their goals.
Whether you’re a Best Buy and you’re helping your customer look great in front of their family or a restaurant that helps their customers be the hero by letting their friends know the Fastest/Best/Healthiest/Cheapest (or whatever else) restaurant in town.
Now the way to position yourself as their mentor is to show two things:
This allows you to be real enough to the person you’re trying to help that they don’t think you’re out of this world but instead you are relatable and that you’ve gone through the journey they are seeking to go on and can help them on their journey.
Action Item: Write down 3 ways you can position yourself as a helper or mentor to your ideal client from part 1.
Once you’ve determined the general demographics of your customers it’s now time to get into their heads. To really understand what it is that drives them, their fears, pains and dreams, and hopes.
While in Part 1 you determined in general who it is that you’re targeting and what their demographics are, you’ll now dive deep into the customer’s story. That step allows you to focus your marketing and sales efforts. You can now create the story that your customers tell about themselves.
One point to clarify is that you’ll often have multiple different customer types as well as different stories that they are living so as you get more advanced you’ll likely have multiple different demographics as well as stories for each demographic.
Here are the questions that you need to answer in order to understand your customer:
A great tool to use is “Answerthepublic.com”
The greater your understanding of your customer the more real your communication will be with them and the more likely you are to close a deal. Your marketing will also become more effective because you’ll know what not to say as well as what to say. If your ideal customer is a die-hard Republican, creating content that is more pro-Democrat will not only be ignored by your customers but will actively push them away.
Action Item: Draft 1 Customer Story as best as you can.
I’ll now take the 3 fictionary companies from part 1 and go even deeper into their ideal customer.
Hopefully, the above story gives you so many ideas in how to this kind of customer. There may be multiple stories that your customer is going through but the above one is one where you can now align your content creation as well as your marketing to ensuring that you generate leads and speak accurately to your ideal customer.
This gives you an example of not only understanding how to market to a customer but where they are, what their thoughts are and how you can customize your delivery and food and messaging within a physical location to tailor the experience to what the customer wants.
In each of the above examples, I painted a picture of your customer so you could better understand your customer.
Action Item: Take the Story you wrote above and flesh it out. If you feel up for it, write a second one!