In the workshop I am taking we are to define who our ideal customer is first, and then develop the product that customer would love to buy. We are to start narrow, with a single customer persona and a single product, and then expand from there.
I did a lot of brainstorming over the past couple of nights and came up with a long list of attributes, titles, styles, abilities, and interests that spoke to me.
Of course, the type of work I want to do will inform my choices here. I’m not going to define my customer as white mid-60s dude who loves golf and ships in bottles. However, neither should I take what I already do and try to twist reality to create a customer who will buy what I’m already trying to make.
Obviously I want to create products that involves one of three things: surface pattern designs, illustrations, or creating tutorials.
I love love love creating tutorials (I even have one up on Skillshare!) — but I feel that I would be in a better place to create tutorials when I have some real credentials behind me. No one wants to learn from another amateur, right?
Anyway, below is the list I have come up with. Just writing this down made me realized how scattered and wide my area of focus was! Getting this down to a really specific profile or ideal customer is going to be a real challenge for me. Surely this is really hard for everyone to do, right?
Anyway, I thought I’d put down my huge list here. To be clear, this is a complete dump of all descriptions I could come up with that actually made me think “Yes.” My next steps are to dramatically cull, edit, and choose from this list. Something where I can say that my ideal customer is a geek mom in her 30s who loves crafting and DIY, and knows her way around a computer. Actually, that’s not too bad. I just typed that all out without really thinking about it. Maybe I should listen to my subconscious. Or maybe I should print out a poster of these words and throw darts at it.
WHO
- DIYers
- Crafters / Makers
- Home decorators and designers
- Geeks / Hipsters
- Academics
- Amateur designers
ATTRIBUTES
- Disposable income
- Impulse buyer when the bar is low
- Heavy online user
- Wants to be unique
- Tastes run to the unusual, quirky or humorous
- 20-40s
- Tech savvy
STYLES
- Retro/Vintage 70s
- Mid Century Modern / Mod (50s,60s)
- Eclectic
- Whimsical
- Novelty/Kitsch/Curios
- Modern
- Minimalism
ABILITIES
- Tech savvy
- Web savvy
- Cricut
- IPAD / Apple
- Adobe
- Graphics programs
INTERESTS
- Pet lovers
- Wild animal lovers
- All animal lovers
- Science
- Astronomy
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Self improvement
- Time management
- Budgeting
- Bullet journaling
- Crafting and crafting supplies
- Stationery
- Digital creation
- Home decor
- Paper
- Office supplies
- Feminism
- Environmentalism
- Body positive
- LBGTQA+
- Self Expression
- Activism
- Bookworms
- Grammar nazis
- Word lovers
- Music lovers