Elphill Technology Blog
Do you want to grow your business but are stuck at a customer base that just would not grow? It seems like you are in dire need of a solid customer acquisition strategy that can increase your customer base effectively. The measurement of how successful a business is depends on many things, and one such thing is its developing customer base. Businesses need a steady stream of new customers who can keep their door open, and increase revenue. However, due to the increased competition in the marketplace, it is difficult to generate leads and traffic. This is why creating an effective customer acquisition strategy is essential for gaining success.
So let's dive deeper into developing a customer acquisition strategy for your business, but from scratch. By doing so, you will learn how to identify, engage, and then transform your target customers into paying customers. For this, you would need some target, yet cost-effective tactics. Now let's move on and figure out how.
According to the textbook, customer acquisition is the process by which businesses attract leads and turn them into paying customers. This process involves identifying who is most likely to be interested in the services or products your business offers and introducing them to your business. Then by using strategic tactics, the process persuades this target audience to make a purchase. This process often requires the collaboration between marketing, sales, and customer service teams that creates a seamless customer experience for the business.
How effective the customer acquisition strategy is depends on a handful of metrics, namely Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). This represents the average cost of earning a new customer for the business, including content creation, advertising, and any other related expenses, and whether it is greater than their purchase. If CAC is less than the purchasing cost of the customer, the business earns profit.
Now that you understand what customer acquisition is, and how it is measured, let’s get into developing one for your company that actually brings you success.
The first step is all about identifying who your real customer is among the audience your message is reaching. If your company already has customers, you can start by analyzing their psychographic and demographic characteristics. You can analyze their age, gender, location, interests, job titles, values, etc. This data is easily available on Google Analytics, and other marketing channels like social media accounts. Once you have the basics down, focus on what makes your customers unique and why they have chosen your business over others in the market. At the same time, try to understand the market, customer behavior, and most importantly the recent trends. Now create customer profiles for further analysis, where you can include questions like who do we serve? Where do they spend time? What are their goals? What pain points do they have? What role do we play in their lives? Etc.
After you have jotted down your customer profile, it is time to find out and understand what your USP is. Every business has its own Unique Selling Proposition which refers to a significant characteristic, benefit, or feature that makes it stand out, and sets it apart from its competitors in the market. You can start finding yours by analyzing your competition. Look at other businesses that serve in the same niche as you and find out how they are offering themselves in the market. Look at their social media accounts to find customer feedback and reviews. Then it is time to ask yourself what your strength is. Figure out why your product or service is better than others and this could be anything. Starting from your expertise, quality standard, and production processes, to top-tier customer service, anything can be your USP. Whatever you choose, make sure your competitors cannot touch you there. And now it is time to distill your message. After you have found that one thing from the list of your strengths, make sure your USP stands out and is specific and benefit-focused.
One thing that makes a marketing strategy successful is data. Without measuring the success of your efforts, you would not know how to adjust the customer acquisition strategy to push further development. To your fortune, now there are multiple analytics tools available in the market, helping businesses along the way. For starters, Facebook advertisers can take advantage of the native Facebook pixel. On the other hand, merchants on Shopify can use Google Analytics. If you have SEO campaigns, you can look for Google Search Console and tools like Ahrefs or Moz help you to track rankings. However, simply gathering data is not enough, you might also want to track total website visits, conversion rates, generated leads, Return on ad spend (ROAS), and channel-specific CAC. Remember to set performance benchmarks before investing heavily in sales and marketing.
The current world is in a favorable position for business because it offers multiple marketing channels and ways. To test out which marketing channels are appropriate for you, you must first test out all these marketing channels. This includes Search engine optimization (SEO) which calls for optimization of your business website performance and content so that your visibility in the search engines is improved. There is also paid advertising using targeted ads to reach a specific audience and drive website visits, and email marketing as well. You can also invest in content and social media marketing where you create valuable content for your business and post them on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, introducing the audience to your brand.
Customer service plays a crucial role in your customer acquisition strategy as it reflects how well you treat your customers and how deeply you value them. When customers are happy with the service from your business, they are more likely to return. That is not it, they might recommend your business to others, gaining your exposure to new target audiences. To make sure that your customer service is up to the notch, study figures like CSAT, NPS, first reply time, and average resolution time and make improvements if needed. As you continue to improve these metrics, you will notice the blended CAC decrease and referral rates increase.
Customer acquisition is an essential step for any sustainable business growth. You would need a clear and impactful customer acquisition strategy to maximize success for your business.
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