Ugh, I know you’ve heard this before, but creating client persona profiles (aka a detailed description of the type of client you want to serve) is the key to attracting the clients you want to work with—clients who value your expertise, your time, and your services and pay you on time.
But where do you start? How do you find this information? And what does a client persona profile look like? Keep reading to find the answers using a guide to create your stellar client persona profiles that result in you attracting better clients and making more money.
What is a Client Persona Profile?
A client persona profile is a detailed description of the kind of clients you want to attract and work with. When you create detailed buyer persona profiles for your business, you make better marketing decisions and design service offerings that resonate with the people you want to serve. The result? You’ll attract and engage clients who value you and are happy to pay you for your services.
What to Avoid When Creating Client Persona Profiles
Most marketers advise creating client personas using fictional characters or avatars. But this doesn’t work. Because this “person” doesn’t actually exist. This fictitious rendering may not be valid or pinpoint the language your audience uses to describe their problems, needs or aspirations.
The best way to create stellar client persona profiles is to use real people so you can find the words your ideal clients use when they talk about their problems, needs, aspirations, and the reasons they do and don’t buy. Why does this matter? Because when you use their words in your marketing, you make a real connection by showing you understand and can solve your ideal clients’ problem—and this is what great marketing (and sales) is all about.
6 Creative Ways to Identify Ideal Clients for Your Business
This task of creating client persona profiles feels daunting for most business owners. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, by using these six creative ways to identify who you want to work with, you can create stellar client personas that make attracting and engaging them a lot easier:
- Make a list of clients you’ve enjoyed working with
- Note trends in industry or field of work, age, gender, stage of life, lifestyle, pain points, needs, or aspirations.
- Use a client follow-up questionnaire to get great testimonials and more details about the clients, their problems, and why they chose you to solve them.
- Review testimonials or feedback from clients to see if they say the same thing repeatedly about you, the results you’ve helped them achieve or how you work.
- Describe the client you want to work with in detail using someone you know as if you were writing a personal ad to attract them.
- Explore social media profiles of your competitors to see who’s following and buying from them.
Guide to Creating Stellar Client Persona Profiles
Using the information you’ve gathered from above, you can create stellar client persona profiles with ease. Here’s what to include in each buyer persona profile:
- Short bio: Include age, gender, occupation, income, and where they live.
- Personality Traits: What do they believe? What do they value? What breaks their heart? How has their past experience influenced how they act today?
- Goals & Aspirations: What do they want to achieve in relation to what you offer? If this problem is solved, what might they be able to do, be or have that they couldn’t before?
- Desires: How does achieving this goal fulfill their deepest desire? Think of emotive desires like feeling seen and/or valued, feeling worthy, feeling loved, etc.
- Pain Points & Needs: What’s keeping them from getting what they want? Where are they getting stuck? What do they need related to what you offer to solve this problem?
- Motivations: What motivates them to find a solution to their problem or pain point? Do they have a bigger reason to invest in a solution right now instead of waiting?
- Decision-Making Influences: Who or what influences their decision-making? Where do they go, or who do they rely on to help solve their problems?
Example of a Detailed Client Persona Profile
Julie is a highly creative and talented graphic designer who owns a successful business. She serves women event owners by delivering high-quality visuals for their websites, marketing materials and social media ads. She wants to expand her business and market her services more effectively. After reviewing her list of clients, she creates a client persona profile using Samantha, one of her best clients.
Client Persona Profile
Short bio: Samantha, a 53-year-old woman who lives in Tempe, Arizona, runs an event company that hosts luxury retreats for high-performing female real estate agents. Samantha built her empire as the top-performing real estate agent in California. Now retired, she shares her unique methods with driven female real estate agents in a high-ticket retreat event.
- Samantha believes we can have the wealth and abundance we want with the right mindset and work ethic. She grew up in poverty and worked hard to create the financial stability and wealth she has today. She is irritated by people who don’t rise to her high expectations.
- Her primary goal is to sell out her bi-annual retreats sooner and with more ease.
- Her desire is to feel valued and make an impact. She wants to be seen as the leading authority in her industry.
- Her biggest pain point is finding high-quality visuals for her marketing materials. She hasn’t found a creative graphic designer who delivers the kind of unique visuals she needs to show the value of her high-ticket events.
- She needs high-quality visuals that are as unique as her events.
- She is motivated to solve this problem because she’s tired of “reinventing the wheel” when it comes to designing visuals for her marketing materials.
- She is influenced mostly by previous attendees’ feedback and her closest friends. She often asks for referrals from the people she trusts.
Now Julie has a detailed client persona profile including the language she can use in her marketing efforts to attract the kind of clients she enjoys working with.
How to Use AI as Your Co-Creative Partner
Just starting out or feeling stuck? Use AI as your co-creative partner! Dave Birss, the Sensible AI Guy, teaches you how to use AI prompts in ChatGPT in his LinkedIn Learning course, How to Research and Write Using Generative AI. His detailed prompts help you expand on audiences and create client persona profiles. While these prompts are highly valuable, they are intended to spark creativity and ideas to get you started. You’ll still need to refine by incorporating the language your clients use.
If you are looking for a more personalized and targeted approach to creating stellar client persona profiles that result in attracting better clients and making more money, we should talk. Schedule a free consultation so we can work together to engage the clients you want to serve.