Ever seen a dog whistle in action?

It’s quite extraordinary.

The owner blows on this tiny metal object and NO SOUND comes out of it.

And yet…

Within seconds, their dog comes barrelling across the field, ears pricked up, tail wagging.

The dog responds because it can hear at a much higher frequency than humans, so the sound of the whistle catches its attention.

It’s a sound designed purely for them to hear, so they come running to their owner.

You, on the other hand, are surplus to requirements.

There’s absolutely no need for you to respond to the dog owner. And so there’s no need for them to attract your attention.

By the way, I’m not telling you this because I am trying to sell you a dog whistle.

However, I am trying to sell you an important idea that’s crucial to your success in course creation…

You are NOT trying to communicate with everyone!

As marketing expert Seth Godin says, “everyone is not your customer”.

When it comes to creating and launching a digital course, you need to understand EXACTLY who you are trying to attract, and forget about everyone else.

You need to find a way to attract their attention – even if that means you ignore (and even repel) millions of other people.

You see, the temptation is to write your course as if it’s to everyone and anyone.

After all, the more people it appeals to, the more sales you can make, right?

Well no.

The opposite is true.

The more you try and make it universally appealing, the LESS attractive your course will be to your keenest and hungriest audience.

Or as Meredith Hill puts it:

“When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one”.

You see, this is not a numbers game.

To succeed you don’t need to attract thousands of people to your email list, or get loads of followers on social media.

Big lists just end up filled with people who are there just to get something for free… or who don’t really care… or who have no intention of paying for a course further down the line.

Instead, you’re looking to create a small, but relevant, list of people that love what you stand for, and who feel that you’re looking out for their interests.

Your promotions will feel like they are aimed at them… addressing their needs, their desires, their fears, their life situation, their level of experience.

These are the people who will be eager to buy your course.

These will be the people who enjoy your course when they start it, and will therefore stick with it.

Better to have 100 of them on your list than 1000 tyre-kickers, chancers or people who feel you tricked them onto your mailing list.

This is why you need to think of your course like a dog whistle…

Ask yourself, who, specifically, are you trying to reach?

What do they want?

What worries them?

What worldview do they have?

What puts them off?

What gets them fired up?

What else are they reading, subscribing to or buying?

When you understand this, all your course content will be tailored for them – and all your promotions and adverts will catch their attention.

The awesome power of creating an avatar

Ok, so I hope I’ve got my point across here!

Because it’s important that you truly know your ideal customer before you put your course together.

It affects everything… from your title and choice of content… to your delivery style… and every single piece of sales copy you create.

But how can you get to know your ideal customer if you’ve never actually met them?

That’s where an AVATAR comes in.

An avatar is a fully fleshed out character that you have in mind whenever you create content for your course.

It’s like your ideal customer manifested as a real person that you talk to directly.

If you do it right, you will know how old they are… what sex they are… what they look like… what kind of house they have… what their family situation is… what social media they use… what they want from life… what they fear…

Because of this, you will be able to communicate directly with them, as if you know them personally.

In turn, your customer will feel like you’re talking only to them, which is a very powerful thing in the world of marketing.

As the legendary Dale Carnegie once wrote: “a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Now, it could be that you already know someone who is your ideal customer – a friend, colleague or family member.

Maybe it’s even you!

But your customer avatar doesn’t have to be someone you’d choose to hang out with.

For example, at the beginning of my career I was working as a marketer for financial newsletters (recommending stocks and shares).

My target customers were 60+ retired men… and yet
I was a 24-year-old university dropout who’d never invested a penny in anything.

I had to build a composite picture of our target customer – give him an emotional life and personality – so that I could understand how to market the products to him.

You have to do the same thing before you build your first course.

If you’d like some help to do this, I have created some special (free) training that shows you how to research and construct an avatar for your course.

To access it just click here and get started =)