Five Thousand Dollars A Month - For Real! - Customer Avatar

byDValentine

1.8K followers

3 years ago

One of the major things you can create to help you produce content is to create your ideal website visitor, in other words your Customer Avatar. If you know who you are writing for then it makes keyword research also easier. So let's get into mine.

One of the best ways to find the demographic your site is aimed at is to see if there are any magazines published in and around your niche. Having a magazine can show you 2 criteria.

• There is money in your niche - the cost of writing, producing, printing and publishing a magazine must be paid for by both the advertisers in the magazine and the buyers of the magazine and, if they don't then the magazine will fail.
• Your audience demographic - most magazine publishers create something called a 'media pack'. They create this to entice advertisers to pay for an ad in the magazine. Within this media pack they can break down their audience into age and sex ranges, ages, income brackets, education, what holidays they take and how much they spend in the niche.
• To find your magazine's media pack simply type in the title of your magazine then + media pack and it should come up.

So, I decided to try and find out the demographic of a popular US magazine called Sky & Telescope - couldn't be a tighter title to my niche.

However, I discovered that the magazine had recently been bought by the American Astronomical Society. So, I tried to discover the demographic of the AAS.

Now, they do publish a demographic of their members but, oh wow! These members are all post-grads or emeritus professors holding numerous chairs - so not my market!

So, I then tried to find the demographic of another magazine called Astronomy - however, they required me to fill out a contact form on their site before they would release any advertisng information and I thought, as I don't have a 'business' yet; I wouldn't bother.

Eventually I found a media pack of a British magazine called "Sky At Night". Unfortunately the information in it was from 2016, a full 5 years old but then I thought I doubt the demographic has changed enough in 5 years to render this information useless. So, here it is.

The average hobbyist astronomer is

• Sex - 82% male
• Age - average of 53
• Education - 50% + have a degree
• Average houshold income - $65,000
• Astronomy level - Around 50% are intermediate level
• The SaN website gets approximately 50,000 unique visitors a month (back in 2016)
• The website has 21,000 newsletter subscribers
• 45% of the magazine readership have bought an advertised product
• 70% of the readership actively pursue astronomy as a hobby
• 67% of them are interested in solar astronomy
• 55% of them view the sky at least once a week
• 26% of them view dark skies on anational basis
• 53% view them on a local basis
• 71% have been on an astronomy-based holiday or short break
• 44% own a DSLR camera
• 58% take astrophotographs
• 35% use binoculars
• 35% use a small 'scope
• 30% use a large 'scope
• Approx spend on astronomy next year $800
• 50% say they will buy an astronomy-based equipement this year
• Average cost of astronomical kit $1800

That's all the information this media pack from 5 years ago has in it. Let's build my own Customer Avatar using that information.

OK, we know my avatar is 53 years old, on average, so, looking up popular names for children back in the late 60s I find that James is around the 3rd most common name - so James it is. I'm going to call him James "Call me Jim" Peabody - for absolutely no reason apart from I like the sound of it.

Jim lives in the town of Bluff, Utah - why there? Simply because 6 of the 7 gold level 'dark sky' areas in the US are scattered across southern Utah and northern Arizona, New Mexico and Texas - destinations that Jim can travel to as a short break - which we know he likes to do.

Jim has an income of approx $65K a year - I'm going to give him the job of a research scientist at Utah State University, Montezuma Creek, UT. as I think this gives him enough time to get away to do his hobby during holidays and weekends.

OK, those are the facts about Jim but what else can Jim divulge to me? Well, these 'dark sky' areas are, by definition, far from sources of light pollution, which means they are hard to reach. So, to my mind, Jim is an accomplished outdoorsman, a camper and even, perhaps, a little bit of a survivalist. I also think Jim drives an old but fully serviced Ford F-150 truck

Alrighty then, helloo Jim! So, now I've created my avatar, has that had an effect on my keyword research? Oh heavens, yes! Let's see.

• Apps - would Jim use an app on a phone? Well, there may not be a signal out in these Dark Sky places and Jim already owns a DSLR camera so, Apps can be consigned to the back burner.
• Study - Nope, Jim's done that and wouldn't need to know about it any more - Study is retired.
• Jobs - Jim has one and for him, astronomy is a pure hobby, a way to relax - so I can retire 'jobs'
• Camera - I'll keep this one - there are new cameras coming to market the whole time so Jim may be in the mood for an update.
• Start,Begin, Guide - Yeah, Jim's past these so I can retire these as well
• Phone - as with the App, there may not be a signal for the phones to work when Jim is way out in the boondocks - retire!
• History - Nah, retire, Jim doesn't need this info.
• Purchasing - Keep
• Oculars - Keep
• Books - Possibly keep, there may be fresh new books coming out.
• Telescope - keep
• Astrophotography - definite keep
• Astronomy - keep
• Stargazing - keep

So, I've managed to reduce my 'buckets' to: Camera, Purchasing, Oculars, Telescopes, Astrophotography, Astronomy, Stargazing and possibly Books

Plus we could add a Camping Accessories - Outdoors - Survivalist section to the site.

So, Sheet 5 on the spreadsheet will show the altered buckets plus a bucket for the camping/outdoors/survival stream.