7 Successful Customer Acquisition Strategies for Growth

The perfect buyer acquisition methods embody paid search, tailor-made remarketing, nice content material, referrals, and search engine optimisation. Find out how the consultants do it on this information.

Right here, you’ll discover 7 buyer acquisition methods for development:

1. Paid search marketing
2. Search engine optimization (SEO)
3. Social media marketing (organic & paid)
4. Remarketing
5. Content marketing
6. Email marketing
7. Referral marketing

New clients herald over a third of a brand’s total revenue. That’s a fairly large slice of the pie.

Whereas there’s no magic formulation for securing conversion-ready leads, there are digital advertising and marketing methods with buyer acquisition at their core.

We tapped into HawkSEM’s VP of Progress and Technique, Steve Dang’s experience, to map out seven of our favourite buyer acquisition strategies. Every is backed by real-world success and sensible insights that can assist you grasp the artwork of buyer acquisition.

What’s a buyer acquisition technique?

A buyer acquisition technique is your model’s blueprint to draw, have interaction, and convert potential clients into paying ones at each stage of the gross sales funnel. The purpose is to increase your buyer base, enhance earnings, and take your online business to the subsequent stage.

Sounds quite a bit like lead era, proper? 

“Concerning how basic leads are totally different from advertising and marketing certified leads (MQLs), basic leads are larger within the funnel and symbolize anybody or motivated sufficient to fill out a lead kind. This can be a higher-level step within the conversion funnel,” explains Dang. “As soon as these leads are certified or scored by the advertising and marketing staff, they’re thought to be a MQL.”

That means? There’s a stronger chance that the lead will convert right into a sale or, higher but, a loyal buyer. 

An efficient buyer acquisition technique considers each step of the buyer journey—from lead era and fostering loyal clients to conversion fee optimization.

Remember the fact that the acquisition begins on the very first contact with a prospect. Then, it naturally rolls into your buyer retention technique. Collectively, these methods work synergistically to make sure your advertising and marketing efforts keep worthwhile.

Is buyer acquisition the identical as advertising and marketing?

The most important distinction between your advertising and marketing efforts and buyer acquisition technique is that the advertising and marketing falls beneath buyer acquisition. The identical applies to lead era and gross sales, too.

Put merely, your advertising and marketing prices account for a portion of your buyer acquisition efforts. 

As an illustration, say you make investments $9,000 into a targeted display ad campaign. Each click on and conversion this advert generates contributes to buying new clients. Subsequently, it feeds into your buyer acquisition technique.

Whether or not it’s a selected advertising and marketing marketing campaign, a show advert, or a bit of content material, if it’s geared toward attracting new clients and evoking curiosity, then it’s all a part of the broader buyer acquisition course of. 

Image the normal gross sales funnel. Advertising and marketing often sits close to the highest, specializing in the preliminary phases, like model consciousness and consideration. Buyer acquisition, however, is the overarching technique that shapes all the buyer journey, from first consciousness all over to conversion.

Buyer acquisition 101? Examine. Time to speak technique.

7 strategies for a profitable buyer acquisition technique

Able to make each new buyer your greatest buyer? As a top 3% SEM agency, we’ve obtained the within scoop on learn how to craft an efficient buyer acquisition technique that actually delivers.

1. Paid search advertising and marketing

Paid search, also called pay-per-click (PPC), is among the only digital advertising and marketing methods with regards to buyer acquisition. That’s as a result of it permits firms to focus on their preferrred buyer with the suitable key phrases on the proper time.

Paid search advertisements seem on the high of the search engine outcomes web page (SERP) on websites like Google and Bing. If somebody’s looking for “ladies’s black biking sneakers,” for instance, and also you’re an ecommerce model promoting biking merchandise (together with ladies’s black biking sneakers), you need your focused advert to be the one they see.

The identical goes for manufacturers promoting different services and products.

The businesses that use paid seek for profitable buyer acquisition understand it’s not nearly churning out a good Fb advert or two. It’s simply as essential to pair eye-catching, interesting advert copy with an optimized landing page that boasts constant verbiage, clear design, and a transparent name to motion (CTA).

At HawkSEM, we go the additional mile for our shoppers. 

We supercharged ThriftBooks’ paid search efforts, partnering carefully with Google for beta alternatives and zeroing in on key viewers segments. The end result? A 35% bounce in clickthrough charges (CTR) and a 50% enhance in common order worth (AOV).

2. Search engine marketing (search engine optimisation)

Together with a strategic paid search plan, you want a solid SEO strategy for search engines like google and yahoo to acknowledge your web site simply. This important facet of inbound advertising and marketing helps enhance your rankings and, ideally, develop your attain for higher buyer acquisition.

Excessive-impact web site search engine optimisation means having parts equivalent to:

• Distinctive, related title tags and meta descriptions for every web page
• A stream of constant, high-high quality content material 
• Inside and exterior hyperlinks to authoritative websites
• A complete sitemap (organized record of all of your internet pages)
• Photos with descriptive alt tags

These are a few of the ways we leveraged, together with conversion fee optimization (CRO) audits and content material technique, to steer our consumer DILO again to its industry-leading place. 

The proof is within the knowledge: a rise of 36% in natural clicks, 24% in Google clicks for high-value key phrases, and 46% in Google impressions—all inside just a few brief months.

However bear in mind, optimizing your website for search engines like google and yahoo doesn’t assure you’ll snag the highest spot of search engine outcomes pages (SERPs) and even land on the primary web page, for that matter. Search engine algorithms are continuously altering. And people shifts? They’re not all the time clear.

Nevertheless, by preserving your website up-to-date, straightforward to navigate, and academic for prospects and present clients, you’ll place your model as a thought chief and your website as a reliable info supply.

3. Social media advertising and marketing (natural & paid)

In relation to social media, you’ve obtained the choice to leverage each natural and paid advertising and marketing channels. However don’t make the error of assuming you’ll be able to leverage every path in the identical method or obtain the identical outcomes.

Natural

Let’s begin with natural social media. The observe of often creating social media posts will help unfold the phrase about new enterprise choices or updates, improve your publicity, and even enable you to go viral (in a good method, ideally).

Whereas natural social posts gained’t all the time instantly end in buyer acquisition, they will help in model consciousness, content material sharing, and highlighting your distinctive model persona.

Paid

Paid social, however, could be a highly effective instrument if wielded correctly. When selecting which social media platforms to advertise on, you must first think about your audience and the platforms they use most.

For instance, in case your preferrred buyer base consists of execs and enterprise decision-makers within the SaaS area, LinkedIn is a first-rate selection. 

Branded and influencer-generated content material, PPC advertisements, and show advertisements are all types of paid social media. Every of those can attract audiences that encounter your model for the first time, probably turning them into paying clients.

When you’ve honed in in your preferrred platforms, you should use the viewers focusing on instruments most have in place to get your content material delivered straight to those that must see it most. 

4. Remarketing

Remarketing makes use of show advertisements to attach your online business with individuals who have already visited your website or cell app. When carried out proper, it’s one of many best and most cost-effective ways to get prior guests again to your website. 

Not solely does it hold you high of thoughts when somebody takes an motion like visiting your website or requesting a session or demo, nevertheless it additionally lets you hyper-focus your advertisements and improve your probabilities of turning a lead right into a conversion.

Is remarketing the identical as retargeting? Not fairly. 

Search Engine Journal says the most important distinction is that retargeting focuses on steering potential clients down the acquisition path, whereas remarketing re-engages present clients by different channels (like electronic mail or paid advertisements).

After all, probably the most profitable remarketing campaigns aren’t one-size-fits-all. A brand new website customer shouldn’t be remarketed the identical method as a returning customer. Why? As a result of they’re at totally different phases of the shopper journey—a brand new buyer is within the ‘consciousness’ stage, whereas an present buyer is probably going nearer to creating a purchase order.

Take our consumer Timbuk2. We helped them ditch the cookie-cutter strategy and tailor-made their remarketing to each new and returning guests. This garnered a 56% enhance in internet income and a 21% uptick in AOV—a transparent win for custom-fit methods.

Together with knowledge and online privacy changes, the eventual demise of third-party cookies will drive modifications in digital advertising and marketing, notably for remarketing advertisements. However there’s no must panic.

Whereas extra options will turn into obvious as the method unfolds (equivalent to alternative instruments like FLEDGE and Topics), concentrate on attracting new clients to maintain your lead pipeline flowing. 

On the lookout for extra methods to extend your buyer acquisition? Let’s talk.

5. Content material advertising and marketing

Running a blog is a superb medium for companies with regards to buyer acquisition, however really invaluable content marketing encompasses a lot extra.

Some examples of high-caliber content material embody:

• Weblog articles
• Movies
• Webinars
• Guides
• ebooks
• Infographics
• Checklists
• Podcasts
• Downloadable templates
• Product descriptions
• Case research

Regardless of the content material you create, you wish to be sure that it’s correct, useful, and keyword-targeted. The extra deliverables you publish and promote, the extra {industry} matters you’ll be able to cowl. This makes your website extra more likely to floor in natural search outcomes for folks searching for what it’s important to provide.

Professional tip: You may take issues a step additional by partnering with one other model (that’s not a competitor however shares an identical viewers) on one thing like a podcast or visitor weblog. Strikes like these can develop your variety of clients, construct your skilled community, and additional solidify your model’s credibility.

However don’t bow out of the content material advertising and marketing recreation earlier than seeing the fruits of your labor. Like search engine optimisation, it takes time and sustained effort. 

One technique to take your content material from once-in-a-while to 24/7 automation? Depart it within the palms of a dedicated content marketing team dedicated to rising buyer lifetime worth (CLV) and your return on funding (ROI).

6. E mail advertising and marketing

E mail newsletters are one other highly effective acquisition channel should you comply with just a few greatest practices. 

As Campaign Monitor reports, you’re six instances extra more likely to get a click-through from an electronic mail marketing campaign than a tweet. That’s a fairly candy incentive to get a e-newsletter going, wouldn’t you say?

In our expertise, probably the most profitable newsletters:

• Embody a single, clear CTA
• Supply actionable worth (like a professional tip, low cost, or statistic)
• Seize consideration with compelling topic traces
• Use well-planned, simple templates
• Are easy-to-read
• Are optimized for for cell 
• Conduct A/B testing to slim down the very best codecs

To construct your non-client subscriber record, get inventive! You may add exit-intent pop-ups to your website or embody a subscription field in your website’s footer navigation. 

So long as it doesn’t damper the buyer expertise or get too pushy, you’ll find distinctive methods to increase your buyer base.

Professional tip: Let your readers enable you to unfold the phrase! Encourage forwarding in your electronic mail e-newsletter to make sharing a breeze. Because of the psychology of social proof, peer-recommended content material is often thought-about extra reliable..

7. Referral advertising and marketing

Have you ever ever tried a new product you liked and instantly shared your enthusiasm with a good friend? Referral applications reward you for this, providing incentives for recommending their choices to different potential clients.

Not like word-of-mouth marketing, which depends on folks spontaneously sharing info (often verbally), referral advertising and marketing supplies tangible perks and rewards to encourage referrals. 

As an illustration, Uber’s rideshare service rewards credit to each the brand new rider and the one who referred them.

Not solely does referral advertising and marketing have a decrease price per lead (as a result of it makes use of your present clients to unfold the phrase vs. paid advertisements or high-budget advertising and marketing campaigns), nevertheless it’s additionally extremely efficient. 

Actually, referral applications generate a median of 3 to 5 times higher conversion rates than different methods.

Dang believes referrals are invaluable as a result of it means they’ve been vetted and vouched for by somebody acquainted.

“Oftentimes, they’re additionally likelier to transform than a chilly lead as a result of there’s a component of belief and familiarity already embedded within the relationship,” highlights Dang.

Referral applications can embody:

• Unique reductions
• Free items
• Money-back rebates
• Complimentary upgrades
• Charitable donations of their identify
• Early entry to gross sales or occasions
• Branded merch or swag gadgets

These perks can tip the scales for a potential buyer towards your online business over a competitor.

What’s buyer acquisition price?

Buyer acquisition prices, or CAC, is how a lot a model invests to amass new clients. Your CAC covers advert spend, advertising and marketing, gross sales personnel, and extra, divided by the variety of clients acquired.

CACs are one of many main key efficiency indicators (KPIs) you’ll wish to regulate. In accordance with Dang, different related metrics embody the common:

• CPL (price per lead)
• Price per MQL
• Price per SQL (gross sales certified lead)
• Lifetime worth of a buyer (LVC)
• Click on to steer conversion fee
• Result in MQL conversion fee, result in SQL conversion fee & result in sale conversion fee

Nevertheless, he says the actual KPIs will rely in your firm and enterprise mannequin.

So, why is your CAC such a giant deal? Progress is nice, however development at any price can damage your online business in the long term. Give it some thought: should you spend an excessive amount of to amass every buyer, you would possibly win battles however lose the monetary conflict.

Sustainable development is vital, and that’s the place a balanced CAC comes into play. It boosts your profitability slightly than draining your sources.

That’s why it’s important to know how to lower CAC. Your first step is to trace all bills and ROI. Our proprietary tech ConversionIQ makes preserving a finger on the heart beat of your knowledge a breeze. 

“ConversionIQ can completely assist enhance common acquisition prices and quite a lot of conversion charges by letting us see all of the elements that may affect the standard of the lead,” Dang says. “It could possibly additionally give us insights into what to regulate with a purpose to craft and optimize for a more practical conversion funnel, whether or not that has to do with the originating key phrase, match sort, time of day/day of week, machine sort, and so forth.”

However he warns in opposition to falling into widespread traps.

Pitfalls to keep away from in CAC evaluation

It’s all about seeing the massive image.

“The most important problem shouldn’t be having a full view of the conversion funnel and seeing in and round all of the potential weak factors alongside that funnel,” says Dang.

He explains how this might sign points on the first interplay or someplace in the midst of the conversion funnel. The catch? 

“All of this knowledge must be collected and offered in an simply digestible method with a purpose to be helpful. Moreover, having a full image of the conversion funnel isn’t adequate,” Dang explains. “It’s equally essential to have the ability to flip these insights into an actionable plan or technique.”

The answer? That oh-so-exclusive proprietary tech we talked about earlier. (cough, cough, ConversionIQ).

The takeaway

It’s no secret that clients are the bread and butter of any enterprise. And digital advertising and marketing is among the most direct methods to attach along with your desired prospects.

By figuring out your viewers, assembly them the place they’re, and analyzing the information behind your advertising and marketing campaigns, you’ll have the instruments it is advisable not solely appeal to extra clients however hold them loyal and completely satisfied as nicely.

HawkSEM’s mission is to make your buyer acquisition technique your biggest triumph. With knowledge and experience, we attain your audience and make your model stand out in even probably the most crowded markets.

Don’t take our phrase for it, although—simply peep our collab with actual property crowdfunding market, Patch of Land.

“We observed they promote closely on the Greater Pockets podcast and determined to purchase show advertisements on the Greater Pockets web site/area to piggyback off of, and reinforce their audio advertisements on the podcast,” shares Dang. 

The end result? 

“Excessive-quality leads for them at a fraction of the fee that we have been seeing even on the search aspect. This perception was solely potential by having a whole 360-picture of their advertising and marketing technique,” says Dang.

If you wish to do a full 180 in your acquisition technique to tug in and captivate the very best clients for your online business, we’re here to make it happen.

This put up has been up to date and was initially printed in December 2019 and up to date in January 2024.