A customer acquisition plan connects a defined audience with a clear offer, a realistic test budget and a measurable business outcome. For an app, an install is the start of that journey: activation, trial conversion, subscription or purchase determine whether the acquired user is valuable. For a brand, define the order or customer outcome that matters and how returns or repeat purchases affect its value.
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Before choosing channels, agree on your target customer, acceptable acquisition cost, measurement window and decision rule. If you need help planning or managing that work, our user acquisition service explains the commercial scope.
How to create a customer acquisition plan
The following are some of the best practices you can try to develop your Customer acquisition plan:
Describe your ideal customer
The first step in developing your customer acquisition plan is to understand your target audience and their demands. What kind of people will buy your product? Which feature of your product is your main selling point that people find appealing? What is your target audience’s demographic? How can your customers learn about your product? When do your customers buy your product? How much are your customers willing to pay for your product? Analyzing your customers will help you improve your marketing strategies to increase customer acquisition. It is also important to study your competitors as well. You can check your competitor’s products and see what they are offering to their audiences. What is their main selling point? What are their pros and cons? This can help you in planning a better acquisition strategy that focuses on things that your target audience prefers while avoiding the cons of your competitors.
Set your goals
Another important aspect of a customer acquisition plan is to set your end goals and objectives. With an end goal in mind, you will be able to plan out your strategy in a thorough step-by-step manner. The end goal of your customer acquisition strategy should have the following characteristics:
- Your goal should be specific and relevant. Always pick one goal with one defined outcome that is relevant to your business needs.
- Make sure that your goal can be measured and tracked. Periodic measurements will show you how well your customer acquisition strategy is performing. This will also allow you to make certain changes if something isn’t giving the desired results.
- Pick achievable goals. Many businesses struggle because their desired objectives are either completely unachievable or unachievable in the desired timeframe. Always make sure to set a timeframe for the completion of your objectives.
- You can determine how well your customer acquisition strategy is performing by evaluating stats like churn rate, monthly recurring revenue, etc.
Determine your customer acquisition channels
The next will be choosing the channels that will be used to gain customers. A channel is any place where your customer comes into contact with your brand for the first time. You should also determine the type of content that will be posted on each of these channels. We’ve written an overview of customer acquisition channels and their characteristics. Choose channels because the audience and economics fit, not simply to maximize exposure. Begin with a test your team can fund and measure well. Define the audience, creative hypothesis, conversion event and review window before spending. Add another channel when you can support its creative and measurement needs and evaluate its incremental contribution without spreading the budget too thin. Following are some of the most popular customer acquisition channels:
A. Social media
With the amount of fierce competition, any business has to face nowadays, using the power of social media to build an online presence is a no-brainer. Potential customers need to know about your business’ existence before they can look it up online. This means promoting your business through social media channels. Social media has become a big part of our daily lives. Most people spend most of their daily time on social media. Facebook alone has almost 3 billion users around the world. This means that most of your potential customers are already present on social media in some form. Use creative and well-designed posts, short stories, videos, live streams, and other entertaining content to hook in new customers.
B. SEO
Studies show that most people look up a business online before moving ahead with their purchasing decisions. Your business should have a well-developed website that enables potential customers to locate you with ease. But having a website doesn’t mean high traffic is guaranteed. This is where search engine optimization comes in. ‘SEO optimization’, as it’s often referred to (even though tho ‘O’ in SEO stands for optimization already) involves using keywords in your website articles or blog posts that help your website garner high traffic. The better SEO your website has, the more it will pop up in the top search results. When people search for something, they tend to only look at the first 10 results or so. Thus, your website must be of a higher rank in search results. This is also the reason that most businesses create a website and start promoting their services way before launch. Search engines take some time in picking up and then ranking new content.
C. Referrals
Even in this age of digital marketing, “word of mouth” can play a huge role in the success of your business. People tend to trust brands that have an established reputation, as this indicates their reliability. Similarly, people will avoid any service, product, or brand with negative reviews or ratings. Studies have shown that almost 70% of customers discover new businesses through referrals. Satisfied customers will always refer people in their circle to your company. You can also offer discounts or extra features to encourage more customer referrals. Also, record reviews, ratings, and testimonials that you can use in your marketing campaigns.
Customer engagement
One of the key aspects of a customer acquisition strategy is customer engagement. The best way to understand your audience is to involve them in your marketing strategies. Companies can use social media platforms to hold surveys and polls. You can also engage with your audience by creating forums, replying to their comments on social media accounts, through email inquiries, asking for feedback, etc. Actively involving your audience not only provides insight into their needs and demands, but also builds trust, which is necessary for a healthy customer-provider relationship.
Measure and track
The foundation of any good business is data. The data obtained from your marketing campaigns help you in optimizing your marketing strategy to the max. Therefore, it is always a good practice to measure and track all of your marketing activities and campaigns. The data obtained can be analyzed to make further improvements and introduce new tactics. Measuring and tracking also help you in improving your customer acquisition strategy. Always set goals that are measurable, attainable, and relevant. There are a variety of online tools that can help you in tracking various attributes like SEO tracking, social media activity, website analytics, etc. You can measure relevant customer acquisition metrics like customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime value, churn rate, etc.
Conclusion
The goal of a customer acquisition strategy is to generate leads and convert them into full-time customers. By understanding your audience, their demands, and the channels where they are most likely to encounter your products, positive results can be achieved. The end goal of your customer acquisition strategy should be specific, relevant, achievable, and measurable. If you would like to learn more about customer acquisition or mobile user acquisition, subscribe to our newsletter, or – if you’d like to get started – schedule a call to learn more about how Admiral Media can support your acquisition goals.
