Customer ac­quis­i­tion

Re­gard­less of whether self-employed, freel­an­cer, SME or a large company – all have the same problem: No matter how good the offer is, how in­nov­at­ive the product is, or how user-friendly the service was designed to be – you must find customers who are ready to pay in order to establish yourself on the market. Customer ac­quis­i­tion is the deciding factor in a project’s success or failure. And because it is so important in business, some promising methods have emerged over the course of time. Yet there are also some mis­un­der­stand­ings about this topic. We’ll clarify them for you.

Customer ac­quis­i­tion is a component of sales. It is not only about defining the target group. Rather, it is the specific goal of getting a pro­spect­ive customer to become a paying customer. In this matter, the type of customer you are dealing with or what you are selling generally doesn’t matter. For this reason, the trans­itions from customer ac­quis­i­tion to marketing are fluid. Re­gard­less of whether it is B2G, B2B or B2C, it is still referred to as customer ac­quis­i­tion when freel­an­cers, the self-employed, or large busi­nesses attempt to find customers for their products or services.

There are various methods of customer ac­quis­i­tion. These depend on the re­la­tion­ship between supplier and the customer.

The dis­tin­guish­ing feature of cold calling is that the company has had no prior contact with the in­di­vidu­al, company, or gov­ern­ment authority. You pro­act­ively establish com­mu­nic­a­tion with the potential customer, make them aware of your own offering, attempt to persuade them to purchase something and/or establish a business re­la­tion­ship. The resources used for this purpose are diverse: letters, emails, flyers, and even telephone calls are con­ceiv­able when cold calling.

However, there are currently many re­stric­tions on cold calling. Cold calling is still legal in the UK so there is nothing stopping companies calling potential customers and trying to sell them their products and services. If the company has been told that the recipient doesn’t want to be contacted by them again, then they must adhere to this otherwise it would be against the law to bother this person again.

In the case of warm calling, the company has already had prior contact with the in­di­vidu­al or company. In most cases you are dealing with former customers who haven’t made a purchase in a long time and now should be contacted again. This step is often simpler than cold calling, as you only have to remind the customer base about what you have to offer. The customers being solicited have after all already been in­ter­ested in the company in the past – and if they didn’t have a bad ex­per­i­ence, the odds are just as great that they’ll opt for their products or services again.

However, warm calling also refers to when you have pre­vi­ously made contact with an in­di­vidu­al in a pro­fes­sion­al setting without them im­me­di­ately becoming a customer. If you meet someone at a trade fair, for example, and write this person an email a few days later with further in­form­a­tion on your products or services that could be of interest to them, this can also be con­sidered warm calling.

Anyone who randomly speaks to people and then attempts to convince them of the quality of their product will only very rarely reach a deal. You should heed certain guidelines when warm calling so you don’t only have to rely on luck.

It should be noted in par­tic­u­lar that it’s best to avoid random in­ter­ac­tions as much as possible. For this reason, it’s important to have an exact un­der­stand­ing of your target group. The target group should ideally confirm how the ac­quis­i­tion is supposed to proceed and which tools you should utilise for this purpose. The dif­fer­ence between business customers and end consumers is an important factor, as is the age demo­graph­ic of the target group. This means that you will not reach an older audience online as well as you would a younger target group.

By de­lib­er­ately focusing on a target group, it will be easier to determine the type of marketing appeal. Without a well-thought-out system, however, your efforts won’t proceed smoothly or be very efficient. With an ac­quis­i­tion system, in contrast, you can manage who completes the ac­quis­i­tion, when it is completed as well as the number of ac­quis­i­tions. In doing so, con­tinu­ity is the most crucial component. People who invest effort in customer ac­quis­i­tion unevenly and proceed without a real plan will in­ev­it­ably be dis­ap­poin­ted. If instead you consider how many resources you can free up for customer ac­quis­i­tion in advance and also create a working plan, the odds of steady customer growth are good.

Re­gard­less of the target group you are appealing to, you should always keep in mind the so-called KISS principle: Keep it short & simple. You have little time and this also applies for your coun­ter­part. It is therefore important to convey your message quickly and simply. Ad­mit­tedly, the medium, target group and situation do always have an influence on the scope of the appeal, yet the credo nev­er­the­less remains the same in every case: be as brief as possible. Anyone who can summarise the ad­vant­ages of their own offer in a few, sig­ni­fic­ant catch­words will be the most per­suas­ive, whereas if the potential customer has to first listen to a lengthy statement, the initial interest will quickly wane. However, if you win over the other person with a brief appeal, you can provide ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion­al material as things proceed.

The so-called AIDA model can also be helpful with customer ac­quis­i­tion. Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action – your appeal should prompt this action sequence. You should therefore begin with a good hook that generates attention, then pique their interest and desire, and finalise with a clear call-to-action (in this case, make a purchase). This structure can also be quickly un­der­stood by potential customers and is a more direct path to success than redundant ex­plan­a­tions.

With customer ac­quis­i­tion, you should not only consider the hard facts, but also the potential customer’s emotional side. Decisions are often based on intuition and therefore also as­so­ci­ated with feelings toward the product, supplier or seller. This is why you should always emphasise making a per­son­able im­pres­sion. Au­then­ti­city and honesty are important: If the person you are appealing to doesn’t trust you, they won’t invest any money in you.

In order to suc­cess­fully acquire customers, busi­nesses have recourse to various methods that have been proven es­pe­cially useful. Other methods, however, have meanwhile more or less dis­ap­peared from everyday business: Though cold call ac­quis­i­tions may still be common practice in some sectors (es­pe­cially in the B2B sector), the legal reg­u­la­tions for cold calling have nev­er­the­less caused this method to disappear from the rep­er­toire of most salespeople.

One of the oldest methods – perhaps aside from old-school door-to-door sales – is sending letters. In the internet era, mailing letters has in a sense gained in sig­ni­fic­ance. Because most people no longer receive as many letters as they did a couple of decades ago, printed documents get more attention on a daily basis. In addition to letters, postcards are another suitable example for this type of ac­quis­i­tion. This method, however, also has postage costs as­so­ci­ated with it.

With internet mailing campaigns, you can save money on postage. An email is quick and cost-effective. However, there is also a sig­ni­fic­ant risk that the contact person will mark un­so­li­cited emails as spam so you’ve already lost. Also, we do not advise you just randomly write to people whose email addresses you have received from ques­tion­able sources. In­di­vidu­als should first give their consent before you in­cor­por­ate them into your mailing list. In doing so, your emails will be accepted more fre­quently – this increases your chances of success when acquiring customers.

If the person has already consented to receiving emails from you (for example, by signing up for your news­let­ter), then they are also more willing to look at your offer more closely. Consumers and business partners who opt to receive your emails are already in­ter­ested in the company or the products being offered. And, in the case of a strong appeal, this interest quickly leads to a specific purchase decision.

Online marketing provides all sorts of tools for customer ac­quis­i­tion – far beyond simply sending emails. While you make use of a so-called push method (because you are actively sending the message to the recipient – thus prac­tic­ally “pushing” it into the market), many other aspects of online marketing involve so-called pull methods. Here, potential customers decide more or less on their own whether they want to accept further in­form­a­tion about what you’re offering.

When it comes to ad­vert­ising on search engines, for example, the users them­selves have an influence – through their selection of specific search terms – on which in­form­a­tion they want to receive. With an SEA campaign you ensure that your ad is displayed after specific searches are made. The user probably has a specific interest in the par­tic­u­lar topic and can find further in­form­a­tion via your ad. SEO efforts and landing pages function in a similar fashion. The latter are for potential customers who conduct searches according to specific terms. They are also an in­form­a­tion source – as a business person you can use such landing pages for well-placed sales com­mu­nic­a­tions.

If executed well, you can have a third party take on a large portion of your customer ac­quis­i­tion. Referral marketing is based on the idea that business partners will refer you to others and thus prac­tic­ally take over appeal efforts to customers on your behalf. This has two immediate ad­vant­ages. First of all, you’ll of course save time and money that you can invest in other activ­it­ies. Fur­ther­more, most consumers view re­com­mend­a­tions by others as more credible than the “self-praise” featured in direct marketing. This is because a company only praises its own product out of economic necessity.

However, if others have also had a good ex­per­i­ence with your offering and are willing to pro­act­ively promote it, it makes customer ac­quis­i­tion sig­ni­fic­antly easier. In­ter­ested parties then come to you instead of the other way around. In order to be re­com­men­ded, however, you must, of course, persuade others through your quality services and products – and more so than the com­pet­i­tion. A per­son­able and helpful demeanour toward the customer also increases your chances.

You can, however, by all means also offer monetary in­cent­ives so that customers will recommend you. In addition to prizes involving “customers promote customers” programs, affiliate marketing in par­tic­u­lar has proven itself effective in recent years. With this method, content providers dis­trib­ute links to their products on the internet and in return share in the revenue that’s generated via these links. If you choose your partners well and make sure that their content is them­at­ic­ally suitable for the offered product, then you will often achieve as­ton­ish­ing results.

Es­pe­cially in the case of long-standing business re­la­tion­ships in the B2B sector, personal customer ac­quis­i­tion is very important. In order for a business partner to invest large amounts in your product or service, they must be convinced by both the offer as well as the business as a whole. Nowadays it is hardly still customary for a rep­res­ent­at­ive to make an un­an­nounced visit. Door-to-door sales (in other words, un­so­li­cited visits by salespeople) often puts potential customers in an un­com­fort­able situation (i.e. they don’t want to be rude, but the same time would like to get rid of the unwanted visitor) and fur­ther­more costs a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of time and money.

Being present at trade fairs and con­fer­ences is, in contrast, still just as important as ever. There you meet business pro­fes­sion­als and buyers who visit the trade fair with a specific interest. So instead of having to randomly approach people, potential customers in a sense come to you. During events like these, you also have the op­por­tun­ity to in­tens­ively grapple with potential customers’ desires by having personal con­ver­sa­tions. Hardly any other method of customer ac­quis­i­tion enables you to have such positive personal in­ter­ac­tions.

Even in the era of online marketing, tra­di­tion­al print, radio, and TV promotion has not become com­pletely ir­rel­ev­ant. For many sectors, it is ad­mit­tedly more worth­while to invest in tra­di­tion­al media and to run tra­di­tion­al ad­vert­ising campaigns. The target group has an important role here as well. In some cir­cum­stances, you are more likely to reach an older audience offline. If you work in the B2B sector, trade journals are also very suitable for a targeted customer appeal. With this method, sometimes a well-placed ad can clearly reach your specific pro­fes­sion­al audience better than a wide­spread online campaign.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article.