These days, working in marketing takes work. With a higher budget, smaller teams, and every penny invested, we must prove that it can produce a return on investment. We can no longer afford to let even the slightest prospect slip through the cracks. That’s why it’s essential to understand accurate customer acquisition strategy.

Indeed, the time is no longer for wait-and-see tactics. We need a proven customer acquisition strategy. A strategy that attracts and converts new customers keeps your business on track and satisfies your investors.

Here, we discuss customer acquisition strategies and explain how to create them specific to each company. 

By customer acquisition, we must understand companies’ means of attracting and retaining consumers. In other words, the customer acquisition strategy encompasses the different stages that successfully transform a prospect into a lead and then a customer. 

The customer acquisition funnel

Traditionally, when discovering a brand, prospects go through different decision-making stages. These various stages represent the customer acquisition funnel. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanism to create a good customer acquisition strategy.

The way people shop is still the subject of much debate today. However, most specialists agree on five distinct stages:

Attention: this is generally the first time a prospect comes into contact with your brand,

Consideration: at this stage, your brand has aroused the interest of the prospect,

Interest: the prospect knows more about your company and understands that your product or service could benefit them. Now he wants to see if he can trust you,

Desire: Once you have demonstrated your expertise and are trustworthy, the prospect will be more interested in your brand and products. He wants one of your products or services, but that doesn’t mean he’s already ready to purchase.

Action: All steps above have been completed, and the prospect is ready to buy.

The eight best customer acquisition strategies to get traffic

There are numerous strategies for customer acquisition. Depending on the size and resources of the company, specific means may be favoured over others.

Here, we will mainly focus on the channels and techniques that help increase the visibility, attractiveness and trust a customer can bring to a product or brand. Natural (SEO) and paid (SEA) referencing.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

First, we can look at the importance of natural referencing (SEO). For those who still don’t know, SEO refers to all the processes used to strengthen a site’s organic traffic. Organic traffic means traffic that comes from natural results, that is, not sponsored and therefore with almost non-existent costs!

To maximise its chances of appearing in the first line of SERP results (page displayed by a search engine following validation of a query ), a company must master the three fundamental principles of SEO, which are:

Technique: how is your site designed? Is it well structured, fluid, etc?

Semantics: the root of SEO, namely using the most relevant expressions and keywords to secure the top positions in the SERP.

Popularity: The more popular and reliable a site is, the more naturally promoted it is on search engines.

Example: Let’s imagine the case of a company specialising in making XYZ wool sweaters (and why not? ). To make you known and attract new customers, it must be placed on targeted queries to appear on search engines. This involves producing and distributing digital content (blog articles, infographics, etc.).

Thus, an Internet user curious to learn more about the specificities of xyz wool may, for example, come across the company’s website after typing the following query: “advantages of xyz wool”.

However, it should be noted that SEO requires a lot of time and investment! It is not a sprint but rather a long-distance race. You must regularly offer quality digital content to boost your SEO and attract new customers.

SEA (Search Engine Advertising)

SEA is distinguished from SEO by its keyword bidding system. Indeed, what we sometimes awkwardly call paid referencing is based on an advertising system. To put it more simply, it is a question of paying the search engine to appear among the first results of the SERP. Unsurprisingly, Google Ads is the best-known tool in this area.

SEA has many advantages. It is, in particular, its targeting options that make it of great interest. It is possible to have your ad appear as a priority to Internet users depending on:

• Their age 
• Their gender 
• Their place of residence 
• The device used (computer, tablet or smartphone) Etc.

Paid SEO is, therefore, beneficial during one-off digital promotional campaigns. However, the success of these campaigns depends on the allocated budget and the competitiveness of the targeted keywords. The more competitive a market is, the higher the price to pay to appear in the first results 

Here again, various criteria must be taken into account in addition to the amount allocated to the auction:

• The expected click-through rate on the ad,
• The overall quality of the ad (in this case, its relevance to the search established by the Internet user),
• The quality of the landing page (loading time, relevance, etc.).

SEA is, therefore, a perfect way to promote customer acquisition through specific and excellently targeted campaigns.

Email marketing

Although some may consider email marketing obsolete, it remains an effective lever for customer acquisition. However, it is not easy to use it wisely to send the right message to the right person at the right time. Easier said than done, right? 

Deploying an effective email marketing strategy must be revised. A hand-picked database materialises its base. This tedious work is, however, imperative.

Knowing where in the sales funnel each prospect is makes sending content likely to interest them much easier. A potential customer who has been abandoned for several weeks still hasn’t transformed a shopping cart? Send them a reminder with a discount to grab within a limited time to make them want to take action!

Email marketing offers multiple possibilities. There are also many tools to automate your marketing processes that can save you considerable time while increasing your acquisition rate. So why deprive yourself of it? 

Social networks

When it comes to customer acquisition on social networks, it goes without saying that a company must first target the platforms that are most suited to it. It’s hard to imagine a manufacturer of medical scanners making its way alongside the latest fashionable challenges on TikTok…

The main interest of social networks on the consumer’s side is proximity, which links them to a brand or a product in addition to its reduced cost. Therefore, the company must produce content that promotes exchange and sharing with its community.

This can go through:

• competitions;
• requesting an opinion on a new product;
• sharing news on the sector of activity concerned;
• Revealing the scenes of the company, Etc.

In addition, it is not uncommon for prospects to come directly to find out about a product or service on a brand’s networks. It’s up to you to take this opportunity to target their expectations and respond favourably! 

Beyond enabling the acquisition of new customers, social networks mainly contribute to retaining them. On average, they give you almost 2 hours of attention daily, so it would be a shame to miss out.

Whether you aim for acquisition or loyalty on social networks, having the right tools to achieve your goals is imperative. How to Miss Tiktok for Business? If your target is on TikTok, you must be there too! This dynamic and innovative platform, suitable for businesses of all sizes, helps develop your customer acquisition thanks to:

• Precise targeting of your potential customers,
• Viral potential that allows you to reach a large international audience,
• Short, interactive content that arouses customer interest,
• Analysis of your performance in real-time.
• In short, increased visibility and unique opportunities to connect with new potential customers!

Content marketing

Better known as content marketing, this control is particularly effective in attracting new prospects and gaining their trust. For those who don’t know, it refers to all the content distributed and shared about your brand.

Content marketing includes, among other things:

publications and interactions on social networks ;

• newsletters 
• webinars 
• interviews 
• podcasts 
• Blog posts etc.

In short, the consumer must be able to perceive the identity and values ​​of your company behind your content marketing policy. Some of this content is likely to persist. Many also serve as a gateway to your website and your commercial proposals.

How do you create a step-by-step customer acquisition strategy?

Step-by-step guidance on the customer acquisition plan is given below:

Define Target audience:

First, identify your target audience based on demographics, psychographics, and behaviour. Understand their needs, pain points, and preferences.

Set clear goals:

Set your goals by determining what you want to achieve with your acquisition efforts, such as market reach, launching new products, increasing sales, or measurable goals. 

The ultimate objective of the acquisition strategy is to generate sales. However, depending on your business model and your product, there is a risk that the sale is only a final step after a series of other steps.

Concretely, an acquisition strategy can have different objectives, and its role can notably be to generate:

• Revenues,
• web traffic,
• Customer reviews,
• Likes or subscribers,
• Sales,
• Qualified contacts, etc.

Each acquisition channel can be more or less effective and adapted. For example, creating a newsletter is the best channel for generating sales, but Facebook advertising is the best channel for finding new subscribers.

How to make a customer acquisition plan:

Choose channels for acquisition.

Select the most effective channels to find your target audience. Social media, search engine marketing, content marketing, and email marketing are acquisition channels. With a better vision of your target, you will be able to identify the acquisition channels to target: the media and the solutions to attract prospects to you.

Establish your budget

Any acquisition strategy requires a specific budget. However, your initial budget will necessarily impact the choice of your acquisition channels and your plan.

A starting company will often benefit from focusing on a single acquisition channel to avoid dispersing its budget and efforts. To gradually develop the company’s reach, touching on new acquisition channels will be necessary.

Measure the results of your acquisition channels.

Every element of your acquisition strategy must be measurable and measured.

It is essential to review the results of each acquisition channel regularly:

Results obtained: each acquisition campaign will have its objectives. Are you successful in generating leads? What about Interactions, sales and revenues?

Evolution: are your results evolving in the right direction? Are you generating more web traffic? What about more Instagram followers? A better conversion rate on your sales?

Possible Improvements: Do you see ways to optimize the conversion channel? Do you identify any weaknesses or flaws that could be corrected?

Return on investment: what are the profits generated by the company? What is the cost/benefit ratio of each acquisition channel? Which channel seems most compelling?

Define your customer acquisition strategy regularly:

You need to measure your efforts regularly. Put an eye on what efforts are working and what are not. Different tools can assist you in measuring the customer acquisition process. Use them and increase your business strength.