Everything you need to know about term customer acquisition

Why India is gaining attention of all the big shot companies?

It is because India is a huge market with large customer base. But, who will win the race?

Well, it all depends on customer acquisition.

Customer Acquisition is the process of bringing in new customers for the business. Organizations thrive when more and more customers buy their products or services. In other words, customer acquisition is the backbone of any business. It helps businesses to achieve two important goals. Firstly it helps organizations to earn money and keep the finances flowing through the processes. Secondly, the customer acquisition process works as an image-building tool for the companies. It helps to attract new prospects, get an edge over the competitors and prove their strategies in front of investors. A well-thought-of strategy for acquiring customers contributes a great deal to a company’s growth and prosperity.

However, many of you might think that customer acquisition and lead generation as the same. They may seem alike on the surface, however, both are quite different. As Hubspot says, Lead Generation is the beginning of the sales funnel and Customer Acquisition is the middle of the funnel. Lead generation is the identification of the prospects and reaching out to them, whereas Customer acquisition goes a step beyond. It involves all the strategies that involve convincing prospective clients into actually buying the products or services.  Some of these strategies involve customer loyalty programs or referral schemes.

However, there are many other strategies as well. Naturally, there is also a certain amount of cost involved in acquiring the customers.  These costs pass through the entire process of customer acquisition.

Customer Acquisition is also known as Acquisition marketing. It is a very unique form of marketing wherein the customers who are aware of your brand contemplate buying the product.

There are various strategies of customer acquisition depending on the scale of the business, product line and its objective. Let us take a look at some of the impactful ones:

(1) Content Marketing

Content Marketing is a crucial customer acquisition strategy that is versatile. Fresh, engaging and informative content is one of the most effective ways to draw the customers towards your website or blog. Content can be static or dynamic. Most of the times it is the dynamic content that yields results. Dynamic content refers to the one that changes with time, situation and trends. These can be a frequently updated blog or a YouTube channel. Static content, on the other hand, refers to website content, guide or an eBook.

The main objective of the content is to educate, enrich and entice the customer and not fuel false hopes. In recent times, Video content is gaining immense popularity. Moving images and influencers connecting with audiences create a lasting impact. According to Blue Corona, 70% of consumers prefer to learn through content than conventional ads. The agency also revealed that content marketing costs 62% lower than outbound marketing.

(2) Social Media

For using Social Media, the companies have to be very specific about the channel they use, else the strategy can waste a lot of time and money. The marketers have to first identify as to which social media platform has the maximum traffic of likely buyers. Then the company has to target that particular platform only. Sometimes it can be a combination of multiple platforms. For example, if the product is for Millenials, the company should target them through Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. Whereas, if the product or service has an evergreen appeal, the company can also leverage YouTube or LinkedIn for the same. Nowadays there are also many social media management tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite and Sprout Social which makes it easier for marketers to manage it.  Companies can either aim at organic search or promote their company through paid search.

(3) Search Marketing

This is a form of customer acquisition through which websites gain traffic as well as online presence by ranking high on search engines.  This method can be paid or unpaid. When a company’s website or e-commerce portal ranks high on the search engines, customers find it easier to find it. For using Search Marketing for customer acquisition, the company has to tailor the content in such a way as to show on the search engine page. The content has to be optimized in a way so that customers are able to locate it easily. The content has to be indexable for easy search. Before acquiring the customer, a company has to ensure that it is easily found on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

(4) Email Marketing

It may sound like a cliché but email marketing is probably the most effective way of customer acquisition. By analyzing the click-through rates, the time of their response and the internal links they click, a company can understand the prospective customer better. It is one of the most personalized and non-persuasive forms of the customer acquisition strategy. Not only does it increase engagement, but it also helps the customer to make informed purchase decisions.

(5) Giveaways and Referrals

Sometimes customers are at the end of a sales funnel, however, they still would want a first-hand experience before buying it. More than convincing them with mere words, companies can plan to do some giveaways. Offering interesting giveaways through contests or other participative events will give that extra push to the customer to give the final nod. Social Media is the best place to launch such campaigns. Once they get a taste of these products, they wouldn’t need any more convincing. In fact, they are more likely to sign up for it.

Similarly, companies can use a referral program for acquiring more customers. However, this is only possible when the company has a steady base of clients. Added features, discounts, freebies, etc. can be offered to loyal customers who prefer the services to their friends or acquaintances. These freebies can also be given to the new customers who sign up based on referrals.

When we talk about Customer Acquisition, a critical element to be considered is the Customer Acquisition Cost or CAC. We can arrive at the CAC by dividing the expenses spent on acquiring customers by the total number of customers acquired. Earlier, it was difficult to track customers. However, now with the majority of the acquisition marketing happening over the internet, it has become easier to quantify things. CAC is an important metric and is widely analyzed by investors and companies, both. The cost of acquisition should commensurate with the number of customers on board. Moreover, the CAC also varies across the channels. The lesser CAC a particular channel demands, the more should be the focus of the company’s marketing spend.

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