Customer acquisition is a process to bring in new customers to the sales funnel and enhance the business by converting them into customers. The main target of every business is to create proper planning that brings new customers in a simple and systematized way. An important part of the planning is the ability to measure its customer acquisition cost. In the digital term, it is referred to as ‘CPA’ or ‘cost-per-acquisition. So customer acquisition strategy is an ongoing effort that should e refined and updated regularly in response to market changes and trends.
The Importance Of Customer Acquisition Strategy
To stand in the competitive market, companies need to upgrade their strategies continuously in two ways. First, they need to attract new customers and convert them into customers. Another important part is to persuade existing customers to spend more in a unique way. A well-planned strategy can preserve the resources. This strategy maximizes the ROI by targeting the right prospects and delivering the right message at the right time.
Core Elements Of A Customer Acquisition Strategy
There is no ready template for developing the why, where, and how a customer acquisition strategy works. The strategy should be customized according to the nature, requirements, and target audience of the business.
Integrating Business Goals
The metrics, that will measure the success of the organization should be established at the outset. It is important to follow the background story or the history of growth as well as industry benchmarks when setting the strategy and business goal.
Finding The Right Acquisition Channels
A customer acquisition strategy can be positioned on a variety of fronts. Some examples are SEO, content marketing, affiliate marketing, digital advertising, and traditional methods of advertisements, trade shows, direct mail, email, and social media campaigns. Testing the different channel performances is the only way to know the highest value of these mediums.
Stages Of The Customer Acquisition Funnel
The customer acquisition funnel should not be confused with the lead generation funnel. In the digital world, we actually visualize the customer journey in the form of a funnel. In this journey, customers gain awareness and interest in the brand and the offerings. Then in the next step, they add the products or show interest in taking the services or offerings. In the final step, they decide to be the paying customers of the business. In the case of lead generation, it makes up the top part of the sales funnel, the lead acquisition is the middle section, and lead conversion stays at the bottom. Customer acquisition is the end-to-end process that involves all of these stages. It is wide at the top and narrow in the lower part.
The stages of Client acquisition strategies are-
1. Awareness- In the brand awareness stage, new prospects and audiences are exposed to the brand or the offerings for the first time by the marketing strategies of the organization or the individual research.
2. Interest- The brand educates the customers about the offerings through quality content or guidelines. Customers’ interaction or engagement with those guidelines or contents helps the marketers to know about the customer’s interest.
3. Consideration – After knowing about the brand or the services, prospects visit the brand website, download content, and might register for a free demonstration. This time they become more familiar with the brand and its offerings.
4. Intent – Prospects make their way further down towards the purchase decision or conversion. They do this by watching the product demos or consultation.
5. Evaluation – The brand or the organization engages them further in response to the recent activities of the customers. Then prospects take the final decision of purchasing the product or take the services.
6. Purchase – Prospects become customers when they purchase or take the services offered by the brand. Beyond selling, companies can look for opportunities, cross-sell, upsell, and reward customer loyalty.
Digital Marketing Manager at Cloudvandana Solutions