This blog focuses on the category “Customer Acquisition” as the first in a series of 4 blog posts: Acquire, Nurture, Grow, and Retain.
Do you currently have a resilient marketing plan in place to weather the ever-changing e-commerce climate? If the answer is no, don’t panic! Many companies have been making a larger shift towards digital marketing recently, especially after the COVID-19 lockdowns. That might sound daunting, but it doesn’t mean you have to overhaul your entire marketing strategy. Instead, start small – identify the incremental improvements and fine-tune your marketing efforts to bring about real results to acquire new customers and turn them into long-term customers.
There are many opportunities to improve your digital marketing to grow revenue and increase customer engagement with your target audience. The challenge, however, is picking the right tactics to focus on that will provide the most uplift in your digital marketing strategy with the least amount of effort and, more importantly, will not compromise the future growth of your business. And Mapp wants to help guide you through this!
Taking a step back, you can divide the most marketing tactics into 4 main categories: Acquire, Nurture, Grow, and Retain. Let’s jump right into the first category: “Customer Acquisition Strategy.”
Bringing new customers in is essential for any business; big or small, old or new. Customer acquisition is one of the primary objectives for any marketing team. The goal is to set up an acquisition strategy that will allow your company to effectively and systematically attract and convert new customers in order to maintain a healthy bottom line. To do this effectively, you need to re-evaluate your performance across your marketing channels: content marketing, social media, email marketing, cross-channel marketing, and so much more.
The customer acquisition process is an opener that takes you through to nurturing your target audience, growing your customer base, and driving customer retention. However, 61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. The average customer acquisition cost (CAC) is growing, so it’s important to see where you can strategically optimize your customer acquisition strategy at a lower cost. Here’s where our proposed customer acquisition methods can help you acquire new customers. (You can see our +100 Digital Marketing tactics in our online hub).
Kick off your email marketing to engage your potential customers. Welcome newsletter subscribers with an email or a sequence of emails specifically designed for new customers so that they can become more familiar with your company and products/services. The average open rate for a welcome email is 50%. That makes it 86% more effective than standard newsletters, according to Invesp. The best practice is to keep new subscribers in a 7-day nurture sequence focused on driving the first purchase.
Why implement this acquisition method?
As brick-and-mortar store footfall is ramping up, consider offering email receipts to customers buying in-store. According to Green America, 9 out of 10 consumers want the option of a digital receipt, with millennials driving this demand. It provides them with peace of mind in case they misplace their receipt and want to return an item in the future. This can be done directly through your POS or with a digital receipts vendor that provides a simple plug-and-play solution.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Run giveaways and contests that reward customers for interacting with your brand and products across a variety of channels. Examples include picking a favorite product, product registration, social media engagement, etc. Contests have a conversion rate of almost 34% because of their interactive nature, which is higher than other content types.
Why implement this tactic into your customer acquisition strategy?
Social media can be a key player in your customer acquisition strategy. Capture leads directly from Twitter using Twitter Cards. With Twitter Cards, you can attach rich photos, videos and media experiences to Tweets, helping to drive traffic to your website landing pages. These dynamic ads will automatically push the customer’s email address to your marketing automation platform, such as Mapp Cloud. However, this is only recommended for high-value products and goals that justify the premium cost per lead charged by Twitter.
Why implement this acquisition tactic?
Using surveys is a great way to not only acquire new customers, but also capture zero-party data through your email marketing. Send out a survey to newsletter subscribers or create a survey-based competition to learn more about newly acquired leads. The survey responses are a rich source of data that can be used to personalize the customer experience from day 1. Use images wherever possible as image-based surveys get 80% more responses.
Why implement this tactic into your acquisition strategy?
Capture anonymous web visitor data in real-time during key stages of their journey (best achieved with a CDP). 74% of companies use web forms for lead generation, with 49.7% stating their online forms are their highest converting lead generation tool. Focus on stages of the journey where the intent to complete a goal is significant, but you are unable to establish the identity of the visitor to re-engage them via email or mobile push.
Why implement this acquisition tactic?
Find ideal customers who are similar to your existing buyers, as this will increase the chance of user acquisition. Create a lookalike audience based on customers that interact with specific products in your email marketing campaigns and target them with relevant promotions. For example, if a specific product had an exceptionally high click-through rate, promote this product on social media, such as Facebook, by targeting similar people that engaged with the email promotion.
Why implement this tactic into your customer acquisition strategy?
Drive potential customers to sign up to your communications via SMS as part of your omnichannel marketing strategy. It’s a quick and effective way to capture customers on the go. This works exceptionally well when you only have the customer’s attention for a short period of time, for example, advertising in elevators, bus stops, trains, taxis, TV, etc. What’s more, 75% of consumers are OK with receiving SMS messages from brands after they’ve opted in.
Why implement this acquisition tactic?
Data capturing in-store is just as important as your digital channels in your customer acquisition strategy. Capture consumer details in-store when they interact with a sales rep, to allow them to choose between completing the transaction online or coming back at a later time. In-store tablets can capture details of new customers, as well as information about products browsed to enrich their customer data. This can be used to send personalized messages with links to the specific products they were interested in.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Analyze customer interaction with forms to optimize the goal completion rates. Form analytics provide insights into how customers use your forms and what fields may be causing significant drop off. This can also provide ideas on what options are most frequently selected in combination with other fields, allowing you optimize the form for the highest conversion rate.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Synchronize onsite behavioral data across all channels, including email and paid media, to ensure new customers are exposed to the most relevant and personalized content from your brand. As a result, the click-through-rate for a retargeted ad is 10X that of a display ad on average. Segment synchronization across all channels also allows you to re-engage customers via the most cost-effective channel and prevents wasting money on customers that already completed the transaction.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Analyze product performance on your eCommerce site to understand what role they play in the customer journey. Out-of-stock products are common online, however when your paid media campaigns are promoting those specific products, you have a problem. Products should also be analyzed on a far greater set of metrics than just conversion rates. For instance, some products may have very little conversions but drive a significant amount of organic traffic to the website.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Give your customers a reason to invite their friends and family to experience the great products and services you have to offer. According to Nielsen, people are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. Undoubtedly, several of your existing customers have already come through a word-of-mouth referral or recommendation from a previous customer. You need to be in control of the referral activities and, more importantly, reward your most loyal customers for their advocacy.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Send time-sensitive coupons that are aimed at increasing the cart value to customers that show high propensity to convert in the session. Coupons given to customers before they are ready to transact and coupons that are eligible for a lower transaction amount than the customer intends to spend do nothing but decrease your margin. Only send discounts to those who won’t buy without.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Leverage LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to encourage prospective customers to complete a desired goal, such as signing up for promotions or downloading a whitepaper, without having to leave the LinkedIn website. These forms eliminate the friction of having to manually fill out contact information, which often deters people. Instead, Lead Gen Forms automatically populate the form’s fields based on a member’s profile data.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
If you are struggling with the shift to digital marketing, start small with tactics that you can execute with the tools and resources you already have. Many small improvements will bring about real results for your company.
These are just a few tactics for your customer acquisition marketing strategy that you can implement right now that will provide the greatest uplift in the least amount of time. But with customer acquisition cost rising, it’s essential to think about nurturing these new customers post-purchase and growing customer relationships to drive customer retention. By using your customer data to personalize the customer experience, you can drive the customer lifetime value (CLV) and have a better ROI by engaging with your existing customers.
Need more inspiration to create your resilient cross-channel marketing plan, starting with your customer acquisition strategy? Mapp has put together a list of 100 straight-forward and easy-to-implement digital marketing tactics that are proven to deliver results for marketers. You just have to pick what your objectives are for the upcoming months and our Digital Marketing Playbook will guide you through the strategies you should focus on to: Acquire, Nurture, Grow, and Retain customers.
*Updated in August 2022
Remember the first time you saw your name in an email subject line? Or when you got that “back-in-stock” push notification? Times that by 100... Read More »
Few marketers fully understand how to leverage the full potential of mobile marketing. Despite its popularity, brands often struggle to execute successful strategies that can... Read More »
Do you like cookies? Well, of course, everyone does. Now imagine that you’ve got bitten by the “Cookie Monster” and get the Cookie Curse. The... Read More »
This blog focuses on the category “Customer Acquisition” as the first in a series of 4 blog posts: Acquire, Nurture, Grow, and Retain.
Do you currently have a resilient marketing plan in place to weather the ever-changing e-commerce climate? If the answer is no, don’t panic! Many companies have been making a larger shift towards digital marketing recently, especially after the COVID-19 lockdowns. That might sound daunting, but it doesn’t mean you have to overhaul your entire marketing strategy. Instead, start small – identify the incremental improvements and fine-tune your marketing efforts to bring about real results to acquire new customers and turn them into long-term customers.
There are many opportunities to improve your digital marketing to grow revenue and increase customer engagement with your target audience. The challenge, however, is picking the right tactics to focus on that will provide the most uplift in your digital marketing strategy with the least amount of effort and, more importantly, will not compromise the future growth of your business. And Mapp wants to help guide you through this!
Taking a step back, you can divide the most marketing tactics into 4 main categories: Acquire, Nurture, Grow, and Retain. Let’s jump right into the first category: “Customer Acquisition Strategy.”
Bringing new customers in is essential for any business; big or small, old or new. Customer acquisition is one of the primary objectives for any marketing team. The goal is to set up an acquisition strategy that will allow your company to effectively and systematically attract and convert new customers in order to maintain a healthy bottom line. To do this effectively, you need to re-evaluate your performance across your marketing channels: content marketing, social media, email marketing, cross-channel marketing, and so much more.
The customer acquisition process is an opener that takes you through to nurturing your target audience, growing your customer base, and driving customer retention. However, 61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. The average customer acquisition cost (CAC) is growing, so it’s important to see where you can strategically optimize your customer acquisition strategy at a lower cost. Here’s where our proposed customer acquisition methods can help you acquire new customers. (You can see our +100 Digital Marketing tactics in our online hub).
Kick off your email marketing to engage your potential customers. Welcome newsletter subscribers with an email or a sequence of emails specifically designed for new customers so that they can become more familiar with your company and products/services. The average open rate for a welcome email is 50%. That makes it 86% more effective than standard newsletters, according to Invesp. The best practice is to keep new subscribers in a 7-day nurture sequence focused on driving the first purchase.
Why implement this acquisition method?
As brick-and-mortar store footfall is ramping up, consider offering email receipts to customers buying in-store. According to Green America, 9 out of 10 consumers want the option of a digital receipt, with millennials driving this demand. It provides them with peace of mind in case they misplace their receipt and want to return an item in the future. This can be done directly through your POS or with a digital receipts vendor that provides a simple plug-and-play solution.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Run giveaways and contests that reward customers for interacting with your brand and products across a variety of channels. Examples include picking a favorite product, product registration, social media engagement, etc. Contests have a conversion rate of almost 34% because of their interactive nature, which is higher than other content types.
Why implement this tactic into your customer acquisition strategy?
Social media can be a key player in your customer acquisition strategy. Capture leads directly from Twitter using Twitter Cards. With Twitter Cards, you can attach rich photos, videos and media experiences to Tweets, helping to drive traffic to your website landing pages. These dynamic ads will automatically push the customer’s email address to your marketing automation platform, such as Mapp Cloud. However, this is only recommended for high-value products and goals that justify the premium cost per lead charged by Twitter.
Why implement this acquisition tactic?
Using surveys is a great way to not only acquire new customers, but also capture zero-party data through your email marketing. Send out a survey to newsletter subscribers or create a survey-based competition to learn more about newly acquired leads. The survey responses are a rich source of data that can be used to personalize the customer experience from day 1. Use images wherever possible as image-based surveys get 80% more responses.
Why implement this tactic into your acquisition strategy?
Capture anonymous web visitor data in real-time during key stages of their journey (best achieved with a CDP). 74% of companies use web forms for lead generation, with 49.7% stating their online forms are their highest converting lead generation tool. Focus on stages of the journey where the intent to complete a goal is significant, but you are unable to establish the identity of the visitor to re-engage them via email or mobile push.
Why implement this acquisition tactic?
Find ideal customers who are similar to your existing buyers, as this will increase the chance of user acquisition. Create a lookalike audience based on customers that interact with specific products in your email marketing campaigns and target them with relevant promotions. For example, if a specific product had an exceptionally high click-through rate, promote this product on social media, such as Facebook, by targeting similar people that engaged with the email promotion.
Why implement this tactic into your customer acquisition strategy?
Drive potential customers to sign up to your communications via SMS as part of your omnichannel marketing strategy. It’s a quick and effective way to capture customers on the go. This works exceptionally well when you only have the customer’s attention for a short period of time, for example, advertising in elevators, bus stops, trains, taxis, TV, etc. What’s more, 75% of consumers are OK with receiving SMS messages from brands after they’ve opted in.
Why implement this acquisition tactic?
Data capturing in-store is just as important as your digital channels in your customer acquisition strategy. Capture consumer details in-store when they interact with a sales rep, to allow them to choose between completing the transaction online or coming back at a later time. In-store tablets can capture details of new customers, as well as information about products browsed to enrich their customer data. This can be used to send personalized messages with links to the specific products they were interested in.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Analyze customer interaction with forms to optimize the goal completion rates. Form analytics provide insights into how customers use your forms and what fields may be causing significant drop off. This can also provide ideas on what options are most frequently selected in combination with other fields, allowing you optimize the form for the highest conversion rate.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Synchronize onsite behavioral data across all channels, including email and paid media, to ensure new customers are exposed to the most relevant and personalized content from your brand. As a result, the click-through-rate for a retargeted ad is 10X that of a display ad on average. Segment synchronization across all channels also allows you to re-engage customers via the most cost-effective channel and prevents wasting money on customers that already completed the transaction.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Analyze product performance on your eCommerce site to understand what role they play in the customer journey. Out-of-stock products are common online, however when your paid media campaigns are promoting those specific products, you have a problem. Products should also be analyzed on a far greater set of metrics than just conversion rates. For instance, some products may have very little conversions but drive a significant amount of organic traffic to the website.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Give your customers a reason to invite their friends and family to experience the great products and services you have to offer. According to Nielsen, people are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. Undoubtedly, several of your existing customers have already come through a word-of-mouth referral or recommendation from a previous customer. You need to be in control of the referral activities and, more importantly, reward your most loyal customers for their advocacy.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Send time-sensitive coupons that are aimed at increasing the cart value to customers that show high propensity to convert in the session. Coupons given to customers before they are ready to transact and coupons that are eligible for a lower transaction amount than the customer intends to spend do nothing but decrease your margin. Only send discounts to those who won’t buy without.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
Leverage LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to encourage prospective customers to complete a desired goal, such as signing up for promotions or downloading a whitepaper, without having to leave the LinkedIn website. These forms eliminate the friction of having to manually fill out contact information, which often deters people. Instead, Lead Gen Forms automatically populate the form’s fields based on a member’s profile data.
Why implement this customer acquisition tactic?
If you are struggling with the shift to digital marketing, start small with tactics that you can execute with the tools and resources you already have. Many small improvements will bring about real results for your company.
These are just a few tactics for your customer acquisition marketing strategy that you can implement right now that will provide the greatest uplift in the least amount of time. But with customer acquisition cost rising, it’s essential to think about nurturing these new customers post-purchase and growing customer relationships to drive customer retention. By using your customer data to personalize the customer experience, you can drive the customer lifetime value (CLV) and have a better ROI by engaging with your existing customers.
Need more inspiration to create your resilient cross-channel marketing plan, starting with your customer acquisition strategy? Mapp has put together a list of 100 straight-forward and easy-to-implement digital marketing tactics that are proven to deliver results for marketers. You just have to pick what your objectives are for the upcoming months and our Digital Marketing Playbook will guide you through the strategies you should focus on to: Acquire, Nurture, Grow, and Retain customers.
*Updated in August 2022
Remember the first time you saw your name in an email subject line? Or when you got that “back-in-stock” push notification? Times that by 100... Read More »
Few marketers fully understand how to leverage the full potential of mobile marketing. Despite its popularity, brands often struggle to execute successful strategies that can... Read More »
Do you like cookies? Well, of course, everyone does. Now imagine that you’ve got bitten by the “Cookie Monster” and get the Cookie Curse. The... Read More »