How to improve your customer acquisition strategy. Every business needs new customers to grow and succeed, so whether you’re a company of five or 5,000, having a roadmap for customer acquisition is a smart move.

A solid customer acquisition strategy should be four things: sustainable, flexible, targeted, and diversified.

1. Sustainable

A sustainable customer acquisition strategy is one that works in the long run. This means that the investments you make (whether money, time, or human) can be upheld for the foreseeable future.

For example, if you plan to acquire new customers through a blog, you should have the tools and resources in place to ensure content production lives past one or two posts – effectively bringing in organic traffic for months or years to come. This is why inbound marketing is effective — it creates sustainable traffic and, therefore, a sustainable source of new customers. Consider this in comparison to ads, which can be an effective way to acquire customers … as long as the ads are live.

2. Flexible

Your customer acquisition strategy should also be flexible because marketing and sales, and the way people respond to them are always changing. While salespeople were once the gatekeepers of information about a product, that’s no longer the case.

Consumers are increasingly skeptical of brand claims and anything said about a product by the company or its reps. In a HubSpot study, it was found that 81% of consumers trust the advice of family and friends over businesses. Creating a customer acquisition strategy that only relies on salespeople would put your company in a tough spot. Keep your strategy pliable, and you’ll always be ready to respond to market trends.

3. Targeted

All consumers aren’t your best consumers, and customer acquisition efforts can result in a waste of resources if they’re not targeting the right people. Before you invest in any customer acquisition methods, you must define who you’re targeting with said methods.

The process alone of defining your buyer persona can help weed out any unnecessary or wasted acquisition efforts as well as alert you to specific needs or desires that some channels may meet. For example, businesses targeting Gen Z might consider creating videos as part of their content marketing strategy, given that 77% of teens and young adults ages 15-25 use YouTube.

A targeted customer acquisition strategy requires taking a step back and figuring out what’s best for your business, resources, and audience. Then, you can expect to see real responses to your customer acquisition efforts.

4. Diversified

Ever heard of cross-pollination? It’s when bees spread pollen between a variety of plants, bringing about variations of species that better withstand time and nature. In this case, marketers can be compared to these well-traveled bees.

When you diversify your acquisition strategy and use various acquisition methods, you have a greater chance of reaching new audiences and generating new leads. 

Also, diversifying your customer acquisition strategy creates a balance between risk and reward, meaning if one channel begins to fail (see: salespeople example above or the declining effectiveness of organic Facebook reach), it’s easier to reallocate funds for a new, better-performing method.

Now that you know what makes an amazing customer acquisition strategy, let’s talk about some companies that are doing it well.

Smart Customer Acquisition Helps You Grow Better

Surely you’ve heard, “Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver, and the other, gold.” The same applies to customers.

Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of any company, small or large. That means you can’t quite afford — no matter the cost — to give up on marketing to new customers. But research has shown that the key to growth lies not with your marketing or sales team but your customer service team, and your customers themselves.

That’s right — companies that succeed put their customers in the spotlight, for both acquisition and retention. Set up your acquisition strategy correctly, and you can expect to not only lower your customer acquisition cost but also increase your customer lifetime value.

Customer acquisition is all about acquiring the right customers that stick around — and help you acquire more. Instead of visualising customer acquisition as a one-way funnel, start picturing your customer acquisition and retention methods as a flywheel: Always work to bring new customers on-board, but don’t forget about them once they’re onboard. Equip them to succeed, and they’ll go to perpetuate value for you.