Customer Acquisition Strategy: 10 Tips to Acquire New Customers

Whether you have a small or large business 🏢, you need to acquire more customers to grow. Likewise, there are many things that can be done to acquire customers.

Acquiring customers using a strategic plan on a targeted 🎯 customer sums up your customer base and helps grow your business revenue by generating leads. That is done using a proper plan for acquisition, which helps to attract, interact, and make customers buy products.

So, what exactly is that and how can it be done? Well, it’s ‘customer acquisition strategy!’

With this article, we will cover everything about it and present you with different strategies for the customer acquisition process. We will also discuss its importance and purpose, what channels to use for it, and also talk about how to calculate it. 🧮

What Is Customer Acquisition?

Customer Acquisition is the strategic plan to attract, engage, and convert new potential customers to your business. It is not a one-time process but a sustainable process whose goal is to increase the size of the customer base and grow the business using different customer acquisition channels to acquire new customers.

This strategy helps businesses reach their target audiences using strategies and engagement tools like SEO campaigns, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, CRM Tools, Referrals, Emails, etc., convincing them and ultimately converting them into paying customers.

The customer acquisition stages can be explained as ‘Stranger’ becoming ‘Visitors’. With a proper strategic plan, ‘Lead’ is generated, and boom ‘New Customer’ is added. A customer acquisition plan is generally performed on a customer who has brief knowledge about our company but isn’t our customer yet.

Why Is Customer Acquisition Important?

Customer acquisition helps to maintain the company’s sustainability, which is why it is important. Relying solely on existing customers can be risky as they may switch to new competitors for different needs. It brings growth in business as it generates more revenue. More customers mean more sales, which leads to more revenue for a company.

It also helps to acquire new customers from different demographics or geographic locations, which helps diversify a company’s customer base so that we can rely on various market segments or regions for our growth.

What Is The Purpose of An Acquisition Strategy?

Acquisition strategy provides a structured approach that helps to identify, evaluate, and execute the potential customer acquisition. Some key purposes of acquisition strategy are:

• Target Identification: It helps to find a suitable acquisition that helps to target certain markets, competitive landscapes, and potential targets for both financial and operational.
  
• Strategic Alignment: It ensures that acquisition fits with the company’s goals and objectives. It also provides knowledge of how it fits the company’s growth and how it helps in entering new markets.

Customer Acquisition Channels

Customer acquisition channels are the tools or strategic methods to promote our products and services to the new customer. Using different channels, we can market our products to our potential customers to generate leads.

This method can be performed according to the customer of the company. Also, the method can be a traditional or newly opted method for marketing. It is a marketing method to create awareness about products or services and acquire them.

Some of the common customer acquisition channels are:

Email

Email can be used as a tool for customer acquisition. The purpose of email may vary. We can send emails to customers with different offers and discounts to attract them to our products or services.

For new customers, we can simply create a Thank-You message to delight them as they use our products for the first time. We can engage with our customers using email. The list of emails we own can be used for a sales-driven campaign.

Referral

Sometimes, your loyal customer can be your good promoter. Investing in existing customers can be a good marketing tactic. It might help to acquire some customers.

We can reward some incentives to our existing customers who refer to the product or services. We can run a campaign referral campaign where customers will get certain incentives or bonuses if they refer our services to another new customer.

Traditional Advertisement

This means of advertisement can be a great fit for your business if you manage your ad according to the audience. This cost-effective acquisition channel not only saves your time but also provides some potential customers.

Traditional Advertisements such as TV, radio, newspaper, and banners can help to acquire customers. This type of ad can play a significant role if performed for local businesses and also helps large businesses.

Events

Launching events helps you expand your customer base. It helps to connect with new people. We can perform events like conferences, webinars, and shows. 

Some free online events can help to engage with customers and acquire new potential customers. It can be organized using free login through email for free webinars.

Customer Acquisition vs Marketing

In a nutshell, customer acquisition focuses on acquiring and retaining customers for revenue, while marketing focuses on promoting products or services to enhance brand visibility. The marketing goal is to make a brand recognizable, while the acquisition goal is to generate revenue.

The customer acquisition funnel, also known as the sales funnel, is a conceptual framework that describes what potential customers go through before making a complete product purchase. It involves the steps of the potential customer’s purchase.

It can be further divided into:

• Awareness: Customers will be aware of the product. This can be done through marketing. They will gain awareness about the brand or their service.

• Consideration: They show interest in products. They may compare products with other competitors. They consider it buying.

• Decision: They make a strong intent to purchase by removing any barriers to conversion. They decide to become a paying customer by purchasing products.

10 Customer Acquisition Strategies

Customer acquisition strategies are a planning approach used by businesses to attract, engage, and make purchases from potential customers. Here are 10 customer acquisition strategy examples mentioned below:

1. Content Marketing

You can create your content in blog, video, or podcast form. Content creation is part of content marketing, which involves strategically promoting your content.

Providing offers, discounts, and notices, as well as boosting your content, helps to recognize your brand, which helps to acquire new customers. Offering discounts and rewards can drive sales of your products or services.

2. SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps to improve your business growth by ranking better in search engines like Google and Bing. It helps to generate organic traffic to your site. SEO can be used as a cost-effective method to acquire new customers by organic traffic.

3. Create A Great Website 

Having a digital presence helps in acquiring clients. Creating a good website with better UI/UX helps to engage people on our website. 

People can access websites from anywhere at no time which removes time barriers for acquisition clients. It also helps to promote your new products or services, offers, or discounts for customer retention.

4. Mobile Friendly Experience

As of April 2024, google’s data, over 60% of a website comes from mobile devices. 92.3% of people surf the Internet’s content through mobile. The chances of ranking your website on the Google SERP page are high if you focus on mobile-responsive content.

So, always focus on mobile-friendly content that can be accessed through mobile devices for better ranking and help acquire new customers.

5. Blogging

Creating a blog on your website helps engage customers. You can choose any related topic for a blog, or you can hire a blogger who blogs on your website. Guest blogging can be used as a customer acquisition strategy.

Writing a quality blog with better graphics on a sophisticated hosted plan is one example of a customer acquisition strategy.

6. Email Marketing

Email can be used as a marketing tool. Email provider provides a lot of enhanced features for email marketing. Targeting new customers who visit our website for the first time. We can offer our services at a discounted price or send them a newsletter if they are interested in our site content.

Sending a ‘Welcome Message’ and ‘Thank you Message’ to the first customer can help build a sustainable business and engage them with the service you provide.

7. Social Media Marketing

As of the January 2024 global overview, more than 62% of the world uses social media, Social Media Marketing can be the best way to acquire customers. We can use both Organic social media and Paid social media to boost our content.

Choosing the right social media platform helps to increase our customer base. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest can be used as social media platforms. Social media marketing is one of the best examples of customer acquisition strategy.

8. CRM Software

Customer Relationship Management software is the strategic plan that companies use to manage interaction with their existing customer or potential customers. It helps to understand what your customer wants and their behavior towards your services.

Using CRM software like, you can monitor the customer performance, and their acquisition funnel, track the sales of a company, and record all details of customers and their existing behavior. Visibility of those data and performance helps to retent the purchase of products and acquire new customers through customer acquisition marketing.

9. Customer Feedback

Listening to the customer can be an effective way to acquire new customers and maintain sustainable growth in the company. Always remember to create products or services that meet customers’ needs.

Customer feedback helps to maintain our services at their optimum level. Feedback can be acquired using different ways. Start a discussion on a forum to get new feedback and create a Facebook poll to know whether the upcoming product will fulfill their needs and requirements. Furthermore, implementing best practices for feedback management ensures that this information is effectively utilized to enhance customer services.

10. Product Pricing

Set the price of your product or services considering the cost of production, as well as what your customers are willing to pay. Selling your product at different prices like discounted prices, and freemium. You can offer them a free trial of your services, or a “Buy One Get One” scheme and provide certain incentives to the referral of your products. 

How do we calculate customer acquisition costs?

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can be defined as the total cost an organization spends to acquire new customers. It is one of the important metrics in business.

What is a good customer acquisition cost?

A good customer acquisition cost follows a general rule which says: If the customer acquisition cost is lower than the customer lifetime value, then we can consider that CAC as good. Meanwhile, however, good customer acquisition costs depend on various factors, such as industry, business models, and target market.

Good CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) should be less than LTV (Customer Lifetime Value). From a business perspective, it’s pretty good if your CAC is 3 times less than LTV.

How Do We Minimize Customer Acquisition Costs?

To minimize your customer acquisition costs, you have to plan marketing strategically. 

You have to focus on minimizing the cost of your marketing, referral program, and content marketing costs. Some ways to reduce customer acquisition costs are:

• Target Audience: Identify your audience and create different marketing efforts using different marketing channels. Targeting the right audiences helps to minimize the cost of acquisition.

• Referral Program: During your marketing campaign, add a referral program and provide certain incentives and bonuses to the referrer, which will generate some more sales. 

• Focus On Website Performance: Creating good UI/UX and monitoring their action like CTA can be an effective way to engage towards our products. Make your landing pages stand out, update your copywriting, and implement specific email marketing techniques.

Best practices to improve your customer acquisition strategy

Customer acquisition strategy involves convincing your potential customer to buy your products. This strategy helps to acquire and retain qualified leads for your business.

We will explain how knowing our audience and monitoring their lifetime helps to improve customer acquisition strategy. Some of the best practices are:

1. Know Your Audience

It’s important to target your audience strategically. Not all consumers are your best consumers. You should plan your marketing strategy before targeting any customer.

The goal is to target potential customers, which can lead to sales. Good research, implementation of SEO tools and techniques, and marketing to the right audience can lead to successful customer acquisition.

2. Diversify and Update Your Approach

Diversify your customer’s reach by using marketing approaches based on different demographics or geolocations. It helps to build a customer base on different region segments. 

Updating your acquisition approach has a chance of reaching new audiences. If one approach fails to acquire, the other helps to maintain.

3. Focused on Existing Customer

Sometimes, your customer can be your good promoter. Create referral campaigns to acquire new customers.

Provide incentives or bonuses to customers who refer others for your service. Referral programs not only help increase your customer base but also increase trust in new customers. 

4. Monitor Customer Lifetime

Tracking customer lifetime value helps acquire new customers efficiently. It also has some business value. A certain formula can be used to obtain it. However, high-value customers can be difficult and expensive to acquire.

Focus on acquiring customers in the long run. Adding those customers can help to build your customer base sustainably.

Skillful Customer Acquisition: A Key to Better Business Growth

Acquiring customers is one part of your company’s growth funnel. Once you acquire your customers, spotlight them by providing top-level service to them. Your strategic approach to customer acquisition helps retention of customers.

Provide top-notch service, update and scale your service, and focus on their experience and feedback. Acquiring good customers but failing to meet their requirements may lead to a bad reputation towards your other customers.

Your loyal customer can be your promoter. Provide loyalty to your high-value and loyal customers. Creating referral campaigns, focusing on ROI, enhancing brand reputation by scaling, and increasing customer lifetime value can be the smart customer acquisition that helps in better business growth.

Final Thoughts

Customer acquisition helps us acquire potential customers for our business. To maintain customer lifetime value, we can implement customer retention strategies, such as a referral program for loyalty, providing customer service, and enhancement of the brand.

For this, we can use different acquisition channels to acquire customers as these channels are ways to attract new customers and help them acquire our products.

In the same tone, customer acquisition strategies also help generate business leads, which must be retained for the growth of our company. Additionally, a strategic customer acquisition plan helps to keep the customer in our business, and a customer retention strategy is utilized to maximize the lifetime value of existing customers.

FAQs

What is a customer acquisition model?

The customer acquisition model can be described as the methodology or framework for acquiring new customers or clients for a business. It involves attracting, converting, and retaining new customers to purchase products.

What’s the difference between a customer acquisition strategy and a customer retention strategy?

The customer acquisition strategy focuses on attracting new potential customers to generate leads and grow the customer base. It can be performed using different marketing campaigns and SEO techniques, as well as promoting business through paid and unpaid campaigns.

The customer retention strategy focuses on the existing customers to increase their lifetime value. It includes strategies like a referral program for loyalty, ongoing support to the customer, enhancing the brand, and scaling the brand to reduce customer churn and increase customer lifetime.

Arun Chaudhary

Arun is SEO Analyst at KrispCall. He has written in extensively in the field of cloud telephony and call center solutions.