Global marketing spending was anticipated to exceed $1.3 trillion in 2020, according to Statista. The amount spent on online media in the US climbed by 8%, reaching 168.4 billion. At first glance, it could appear that companies are merely throwing money at the wall to win new customers, but there is a purpose behind this expenditure (or there should be).
You can’t run a business if there are no customers. Given this reality, acquiring customers is among the essential components of every business plan. What, then, is your method for reaching customers? You don’t have one? Then you are not alone. Many companies don’t, which is why we have created this ultimate guide for customer acquisition in 2022.
What Is Customer Acquisition?
Customer acquisition is the process of persuading potential customers to buy your products. Using customer acquisition and marketing interchangeably is not altogether incorrect because they are related concepts. Customer acquisition is a type of marketing.
However, customer acquisition is used in business circles when addressing the complete picture of generating leads, which encompasses a sales funnel and metrics for evaluating client responsiveness. Simply put, marketing is raising awareness through advertisements and social media.
Along with that, customer acquisition also encompasses the subsequent customer nurturing process. It entails constant customer contact and persuading people to take on specific activities, such as liking your post, signing up for your newsletter, and following the link on your call-to-action.
Why Is Customer Acquisition Important?
Customer acquisition is crucial for your organization to continue operating smoothly and grow over time. A customer acquisition plan is essential if you want your firm to succeed and turn a profit.
What Is the Purpose of Customer Acquisition?
Finding a repeatable, systematic strategy to draw customers to your firm is the goal of customer acquisition. You can wait for clients to find you spontaneously, but doing so won’t ensure your profits will grow or even stay the same over time.
Specialists in customer acquisition utilize particular strategies to persuade potential customers to act. This procedure aims to develop a systematic, long-term plan for bringing in new clients and increasing sales for the company.
This method resembles marketing because you’re searching for opportunities to promote your brand and build customer relationships. However, there is a distinction between the two.
Customer Acquisition vs. Marketing
Customer acquisition seeks to inspire action. Let’s take the scenario where you advertise on Facebook to your target audience. Metrics can measure how many people have shared your advertisement, commented on it, etc., to see if your effort is successful. That’s marketing but it’s not customer acquisition.
On the other hand, customer acquisition occurs after prospective customers click through to your website or open your emails. It happens when someone decides to take action by paying for your goods or services. Marketing increases brand awareness; acquisition increases revenue.
What Are Customer Acquisition Strategies?
Often, a single plan or campaign is insufficient to bring enough clients to support and expand your firm. To draw in more potential customers, customer acquisition tactics employ a variety of platforms and campaigns.
Creating and maintaining relationships with prospective customers, attending to their interests and requirements, and disseminating unique and insightful information can all be part of customer acquisition methods.
Steps for Creating a Customer Acquisition Strategy
Customers can be acquired in various methods, and the most effective strategy will depend on your business, target market, and available resources. However, there are some universal guidelines or steps that all companies can adhere to when looking to create a customer acquisition strategy.
- Create a Buyer Persona
Creating a buyer persona or customer avatar should be the first step for every business—even those that aren’t yet businesses. This person represents your ideal client:
- Who they are.
- What they like.
- What troubles do they have?
- What their demographics are.
An excellent marketing tactic for a company is to identify its target market as soon as possible. For instance, if you sell anti-aging cream, you can quickly recognize the customers who might be interested in it. Women over 40 who have established skincare routines but need a little more assistance may make up your target market. Despite being middle-class or upper-middle-class, they can still afford your cream even though they cannot afford surgery or aesthetic operations.
Your ad copy, text, graphics, and products will speak to your target audience in their native tongue if you are clear about who they are, making it much simpler to attract them.
- Know Your Competitors
You must know your competition’s identity and marketing strategies before you can attract customers. You can create tactics to set your company apart and draw in your target market with the aid of this analysis.
- Determine Goals
After creating your customer persona and identifying your main competitors, list your aims and objectives. What do you hope to accomplish with your marketing initiatives? Here are a few examples:
Awareness: Are you attempting to draw attention to a situation, bring something to light, or introduce yourself to a specific group of people?
In-Person: Does your company require customers to visit a physical site (brick and mortar)?
Call: It’s possible that you need to turn the web traffic into a phone call.
Form: Are new visitors to your site still learning about you? If so, you may only need them to fill out a form.
Conversion: If the target audience is already familiar with you, your only goal may be to persuade them to make a purchase.
It would help if you had a goal, no matter what it may be. If your strategy is more clearly defined, it will be simpler to deliver the right message and persuade your audience to act as you want them to.
- Identify Acquisition Channels
Customers can be acquired through various channels, including direct sales, expos, events, social media, paid ads, press releases, and content marketing. The target market and available resources will determine the optimal strategy for your company.
- Set a Budget
To succeed, you must have a budget and a formula for calculating customer acquisition costs. If you don’t have a predetermined budget ahead of time, marketing might quickly become more expensive than you anticipated. Begin with a modest budget and gradually increase it as you begin to succeed.
- Have a Monitoring and Measurement Process In Place
Getting clients is pointless if you can’t track and evaluate your performance. Because of this, creating a monitoring and measurement plan is essential before you begin acquiring customers.
You can optimize and make required adjustments once you’ve had an opportunity to gather data on how people respond to your advertisements, content pieces, etc. For instance, if you discover that a particular group responds to a social media advertisement the best, you might want to allocate more ad spend to those individuals and deduct some from others who aren’t as responsive.
ClicData can help you. ClicData is an end-to-end BI tool designed to help you break data siloes, compare channels’ performance and ROI and automate the reporting process from start to end.
Final Word
The key to successful client acquisition is finding the appropriate customers who will remain around and encourage you to find more. Consider your customer acquisition and retention strategies as a flywheel rather than a one-way funnel starting today: Always try to win over new clients, but once they’re on board, don’t lose sight of them. Give them the tools they need to succeed, and they’ll start working for you.
To learn more about how you can create a successful customer acquisition strategy, tune into ClicData for all the latest information on the topic.
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