5 Customer Acquisition Strategies to Drive High Sales in 2021

by Kinga Odziemek

The term “customer acquisition” arises from an underlying insecurity you have of the product. If the product is spectacular, you wouldn’t have to “acquire” your customers. Your customers would be naturally drawn towards it. They must feel privileged to have your product. The five strategies that I am going to discuss here are the manifestation of this thought.

#1 Start with the core

Before you even start marketing your product, you have to be sure of its capability. Join the firm where the product you will be marketing is the best. Only then your authentic actions would arise and you would feel empowered to market the right product.

Hence, customer acquisition is not just marketing team’s s responsibility. The Chief Product Officer is also the prime person responsible for this. Customer acquisition strategy starts from the product itself.

If your company has an average or below average product and they expect you to do false marketing, I suggest you leave it and join another firm whose product is the best. And if you are sure about the quality of the product, make sure that you understand it completely so that you can articulate its features in the most understandable manner for a customer.

#2 Study the market and customer

Customer acquisition is nothing but connecting two points - product to customer. Once you have understood the product, your next job is to understand the customer.

Study your market thoroughly. Ask yourself these questions:

● What are the customer challenges.

● What is the size of your target audience.

● How long does it usually take for a customer to travel from awareness to becoming a lead.

Having a clear understanding of the customers is what it would take for you to find the right customers. Conduct a thorough marketing analysis to gather data you need to gain a holistic understanding of your market, you may also consider using a customer feedback tool to get to know even more.

Until you know the ground where you are going to play, you could not make proper strategies. Think of this step as a pitch report before the game is about to begin.

#3 Run multiple campaigns

Each of your product features can be translated into multiple marketing campaigns. I am assuming your product has multiple dimensions from where it can be understood. The amount of time a Chief Product Officer has spent in envisioning and building the product, you cannot expect the same from a customer to give it to your product to understand it thoroughly.

Your product is the sun and marketing campaigns are the different rays spreading in different directions. Each campaign brings a unique message to the customer. The farther they are from the product, the least they would understand the product. The closer they start coming, the more they would get aware of other “rays” that contain different messages about the product.

Also, each campaign must be targeted to their relevant customer segment. What strikes to one customer may not do to another. Your product is a multi-dimensional entity but your customer can see only one dimension at a time. If you go about telling the whole product in just one campaign, you would have to summarize the whole product at an abstract level. It would make your message shallow and thus, won't hit the nail right on its head.

Make a sun diagram, where you keep the product at the core and define each of its rays with its features. Convert each of these rays to a powerful message which would hit the customer right on spot.

#4 Analyze your campaigns

A marketing automation tool must show you the efficacy of your marketing campaigns in the simplest form. Not just in numbers but in simple diagrams, like a health score picture you get on a customer success platform. If your marketing tool does not have this feature, ask their customer success manager to convey your need to their core product team.

Through this diagram, you would know which campaigns are running at their best and which ones need to be optimized. The campaigns with the least performance might have one of the following drawbacks:

  1. You are not able to reach out to the right target audience.
  2. Your message is not clear.
  3. The problem it is addressing is not that much of a need in your market.
  4. The solution it is offering is not unique.

The first point shows your market study was not done properly. Hence, you must recheck your market study and make it more detailed and precise.

The second point shows that there's a gap between your understanding of the product and the customer. You are not able to articulate your solution precisely. Hence, rework on your messaging. Hire a better copywriterif needed.

The third problem shows the redundancy of your product. Maybe the feature for which this campaign is running is outdated. In that case, discuss the product feature with your product owner and re-evaluate if that feature is worth keeping or not.

The fourth problem suggests that there are already many solutions available in the market which you are trying to convey. In this case, you have to think of evolving this feature. Discuss with your product owner what more can be done on this feature which would take this to a next level. Once you get that, putting that refined feature into words would be more effective.

#5 Optimize Sales

Once you have fine-tuned all aspects of your marketing, you need to work on sales for the customer acquisition.

Out of all the marketing campaigns targeted at different features, one of them must have clicked to your customer because of which they became your lead. Now is the time for you to show more features about your product.

To show them more features, there are two ways:

  1. Ask the customer what their needs are.
  2. Use your intuition

Asking the customer about their needs and mapping them to the specific features of your product is pretty straightforward. Few tips you can use:

  1. Don’t make it too complex. Just work with 3 to 5 needs and features instead of all of it.
  2. Finish your sales meet within 10 minutes. Give them a powerful dose and leave.
  3. Keep them wanting more instead of waiting for them to say yes.
  4. Give them time to think and come back to you for a deeper inquiry.
  5. Avoid distracting your customer for the features they don’t need or prefer.

Using your intuition would need a proper usage experience of your product. If a customer has come due to a certain campaign which points to a certain feature, ask yourself, what other features could they be wanting more. You might not know it initially but as you gain experience in sales, you must get aware of the relationship between different features. The feature they liked most in your marketing campaign should belong to a set of features you have already identified in your product, for example inventory management software. Hence, serve them with these features even before they share their need. They might not know what other powers your product has and this would be the right way to showcase it.

Wrapping Up

Customer acquisition strategy needs a proper collaboration between marketing, sales and product. And all of them have to be illumined by the customer success strategy to ensure a long, fruitful and customer-centric relation with your customer.

Your product is a piece of art and so are your marketing and sales. Simplify as much as possible and put all the technicalities in the backend. With a simple, user-friendly product, message and discussion, your customer acquisition would be a smooth ride for a customer.

Author Bio

Jyothi Tulasi is tech-savvy and interested in increasing ROI in customer success area for various SaaS products. She has profound expertise in outreach. She loves connecting to people and singing in her free time.