Est Read Time: 6.5 Minutes
Are you struggling with your marketing?
Do you create beautiful, well-thought-out ads and content but find that it hardly converts?
Well, maybe you need to take a deeper look at your ICA!
I’m sure you have heard myself and other marketers talk about knowing who your ICA is, eh?
But unless someone stopped to explain what it is and why it’s crucial to your marketing, it’s probably just something that you’ve heard floating around with no real understanding of its importance.
And that’s exactly what I am doing here with you today. I’m going to explain to you what an ICA is and why you need to have it clearly defined so that your marketing is more effective! At the end of the day, we want to know that the money we’ve invested in growing our business is going to bring us a return, right?
So let’s dig in! 😁
Let’s Define ICA
An ICA is an Ideal Client Avatar.
It’s a profile that dives much deeper than just defining your audience. The point of an ICA is to define one specific person, not a whole group.
Sounds scary, I know! You’re probably thinking:
“But if I narrow my audience down to one person I’ll lose out on a bunch of potentials!”
“How can I grow if I’m focused on one person?”
“ONE PERSON?! I serve so many people!”
These are all valid feelings, I thought all of these same things myself!
It felt limiting and very, very scary.
It took me a long time to really get clear on my ICA. Like for real, only in the last few months have I swapped up my strategy and really got clear on who my ICA is. And guess what –it’s been working!!! 🥳
So let me tell you this golden rule of marketing that might help ease your stess: When you speak to everyone you speak to no one.
This is because when you’re talking about a group of people versus talking to one person, it feels impersonal. People want to feel seen and heard, and what better way than to talk to that one specific person?
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Using one person ensures you’re able to make your marketing personable. And that is the ticket, my friend.
To clearly define your ICA you need to think about who they are beyond their age, gender, location, occupation, and education.
What do they look like? What do they struggle with? Where do they like to spend their time and doing what? Who do they spend their time with? What brings them joy and what takes it away?
You want to be so clear on who they are so clear that you know them better than they know themselves! You want them to read your post or listen to your podcast or video and think, “HOLY! That’s me to a ‘t’! It’s like they’re talking directly to me!”
Oh, and you can definitely have more than one ICA. Just make sure you create a profile and ICA story for each of them.
For instance, a realtor works with new homeowners as well as retirees. I can assure you that the way this agent speaks to new homeowners is going to be vastly different than the way they talk to retirees. So you’d want to create an ICA profile and story for both people.
Over time, I’d highly encourage that you make notes on what your ICA is saying too. (Like exact wording.)
How do they talk about their problems? Because you want to take their words and use them!
That’s how they’re going to react with, “WOW! That’s me! They know me!” (And it’s because you’ve taken the time to get to know them!)
I know I’ve mentioned it a few times, but let’s talk about what an ICA Story is.
The ICA story is done after the hard work of getting all the information on your ICA collected –you know, who they are, what they do, where they spend their time, who they spend their time with, what their struggles are, and what their desires are.
You’re going to take all of this information and turn it into a story. What I like to do is print off my ICA story and post it in where I work so that whatever I created is made with my ICA (YOU!) in mind!
In the story, you’ll talk about a few things from their past that brought them to where they are now and then talk about what they do with their time currently before you go into what they’re struggling with and where they hope to be.
Being crystal clear on this is going to be an asset to your marketing! Let’s dive into why.
Why a Defined ICA Will Help Your Marketing
Hopefully, you understand what an ICA is because it’ll make understanding the why much easier.
[If you’re still confused I’d love some feedback! I’ll dive deeper and really get this clarified for you. So please email me and give me some notes on how I can help you better!]
So you’ve gotten very clear on who you are serving. You know exactly what they are struggling with, the words they are using to describe it, and you know how they want to feel and what results they would like to see.
With this information, you can create content that speaks directly to them, calling out their pain points in their own exact wording.
Once you have their attention you can ‘sell’ them on the benefits they will feel/receive when they choose to work with you! –Again, benefits that they’ve said they want to feel/receive.
Do you see just how this will level up your marketing?!
You’ll create content and ads that are going to resonate with your ICA and are more likely to convert. It’s going to make it so much easier and it will be less like throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks and more like selecting the pieces you know will stick to the wall.
This wastes less time and fewer resources!
What a beautiful epiphany, eh?!
Is it a lot of work to clearly define your ICA?
YES. Definitely.
But is it worth it?
A million times, YES!
Defining your ICA is an ongoing process. It really takes time to become clear on your ICA and really know how they talk. You need to be paying attention and be open to refining, refining, and refining until you feel you have NAILED IT.
I’m telling you, I am still making adjustments to my ICA as I learn more and more from them. I’m open to hearing from them and am actively seeking their feedback so I can become as specific as possible.
I have been running Razzle for two years now, and I’m still refining my ICA and then refining it some more! I know I’ve finally gotten close because I signed on two new clients within a few weeks of each other! And I know that wouldn’t have been possible without knowing who I am serving and how I am serving them. When I reached out to them I was using exact words they used and then they resonated with how I want them to feel when they work with me.
All that hard work I put into getting clear was what set me up for success. 🎉
(This is why I’m talking so deeply and so passionately about this!)
Do the hard work NOW so that you can reap the rewards later. Just like a garden, it won’t grow big and bountiful if you don’t sow the seeds and tend to it.
Just like your clients and business. Sow those seeds and get to growing your business more effectively!
Alright, so now I want you to apply this knowledge now.
Grab a sheet of paper and get to writing! Who do you serve? Get as specific as possible!
If you have any questions or would like some extra guidance then don’t hesitate to reach out to me. 😄
I hope you have gained some clarity on what an ICA is and you’re feeling supercharged in getting clear who that is! I wish you the best of luck in your journey to becoming clear on your ICA.
Until next week, I wish you nothing but success, prosperity, and happiness.
-Jordan
Looking for help when it comes to content creation? Well, I have fantastic news! I am here and ready to help you. If you’d like to know how I can help you with your content, send me an email by CLICKING HERE 😁
If you loved this blog post, here are a few more you may also want to read!
The Power of Planning Part 2: Planning Your Content
Content Planning Part 1: Getting Started
