Is Customer Acquisition the Top Indicator That You Need to Track in Your Business

Growth is a key fundamental in the success of a business.  A growing business is an indicator of a business outshining other competitors in the market by creative solutions and unique ideas.

Achieving growth can be a challenging task for owners of small businesses. A small business can struggle being competitive and profitable. The reason why they tend to struggle is because they often lack the resources required to challenge the market and to establish a firm footing in the industry.

For a business to function successfully it is important that the operations of the business are systemized. Small businesses generally lack this quality. Owners of successful businesses and people of wisdom are of the belief that an owners personality reflects upon the operations of a business. 

An owner who is passionate about what he does displays the same passion and drive when he makes decisions for the business. Similarly an over ambitious owner may end up making decisions which can have a negative effect on a business.

A systemized business however, has its owner forming a very mature outlook on the business. We use the word mature because in a systemized business owners take up the role of strategic leaders rather than just being skilled technicians. Their energy does reflect on the actions of a business but this time it does in the form of a courageous business leader looking to take on the world.

Passion and drive are key ingredients needed when setting up a business but when you are looking to take the business forward it is the will and resilience which counts. 

An owner who has the will to grow knows how important it is to increase profitability and sales.

There are many ways that sales can be improved but we believe that tracking customer acquisition is the most important factor which needs to be kept in mind when looking to enhance your performance.

Organizing your business

As discussed earlier business systematization is necessary for a business to improve its performance. A systemized business will keep track of all indicators it feels are keys to the growth of the business. 

An organized business will keep track of its sales. It will keep under check the cost of the business and it will also look to enhance the quality of good/service it offers.

Areas such as production marketing and sales are other areas which need to be tracked constantly in order to improve performance. However one area that is the most important to a business and is an indicator that all other factors lead to is customer acquisition.

Why is Customer Acquisition important

Having a great product does not guarantee an increase in sales. Word of mouth will eventually dry down and so will the sales. Another disadvantage that plagues small businesses is the inability to obtain information and data of sale trends of their competitors. 

Usually small businesses often do not have the ability to take record of their sales trends. Small businesses also do not have the ability to qualify data on the basis of demographics and age group. This disability and lack of professional ability can handicap the business and restrict options of improving sales in the future. 

A systemized record of sales performance will help a business owner in observing the recorded data and track sales. Tracking sales and classifying data on the basis of age groups, gender, and income type can go a long way in helping business owners in taking calculated risks to acquire new customers.

Acquiring new customers determines the ability of a business to grow. It allows the business to gain a competitive edge in comparison to other competitors. 

Customer attrition is important however when at a time the sales start to face a decline and the organic growth begins to plateau it is important to look for other ways to improve sales and performance and customer acquisition is one of them.

However, customer acquisition can have a toll on your business because let’s be honest customer acquisition requires a great deal of financial resources and can put quite a financial strain on your business.  

It is important all business goals and targets set should be within the realm of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Specific). Similarly it is important for businesses to set a scalable a customer acquisition target, a target that is manageable and a responsibility that can be carried.

How to Design a Scalable Customer Acquisition Strategy

A scalable customer acquisition strategy is one which results in a steady increase in customers and the revenue earned, while requiring relatively lower operating costs. 

When you go about designing a customer acquisition strategy for your small business it is important that the strategy designed is scalable. 

Fortunately enough in this time and age it is not difficult to reach a certain segment of the audience. Although it is important that before reaching for an audience a general idea of the target market is necessary it still is necessary for the business to think of means to communicate and connect with the audience.

To make designing an acquisition strategy easier for you we have designed a step by step tutorial explaining the process in great detail.

• Identify the Target Market

Identifying the target is the first and the most basic step in designing a customer acquisition strategy. Having an idea of the age group and the demographics of the customers should be of utmost priority for all businesses.

Although, age group and demographics may be extremely basic information to know about your customers, however it is important to start off by knowing the basics. Moving on you should look to drill in the interests and preferences of the buyers. A business owner looking to acquire new customers should be aware of the interests and the buying habits of potential customers and his target market.

This information gives you a clear picture of what your target market looks like. Once you are aware of the basic information of your potential customers it is easier then to tailor products base on the needs and requirements highlighted.  

A well researched target market allows a fledgling to provide a much more customized service. You can now craft a much more personalized service suitable for the target audience.

• Identify the Source of Communication

The second step should be to identify the best means to communicate with your target audience. Social media is the easiest, the least expensive and the most common platform for businesses to market with their target audience. 

Emailing and calling potential customers may also be a good strategy but it is important that the message forwarded in the mails drafted is clear and precise. An email that does not attract attention renders pointless and is a waste of effort.

The target audience goes a long way in helping us identify the source of communication. Once we are aware completely aware of the target audience it is easier for us to identify the medium of communication to market the product.

A snappy and flashy video may be useful in attracting a younger audience whereas a well written content can help in gaining the attention of a much older audience. 

• A Personalized service

All businesses have loyal customers who spread a good word for the business and help in bringing new customers. These customers are a source of getting new customers on board

All customers who are a source of spreading positive feedback regarding your products are invaluable. A personalized service should be given to such customers.  A message of the product or a special discount depending on the financial ability of the business should be provided to such customers.

The reason why this should be part of your customer acquiring strategy is because in the process of acquiring new customers businesses can lose existing customers. 

The process of acquiring customers should be designed carefully keeping each fine detail in mind, a poorly designed customer acquiring process can result in existing customers ending their relationship with the business.

Designing your customer acquisition program is the key to success. The plan however needs backup from a well thought of core theme. A core theme constitutes the methods planned in order to obtain new customers. A poorly thought of method leads to the failure of the whole plan.

Methods of Customer Acquisition

If you are looking to start your own business or have just started off it is vital to realize that it is not easy to find customers. A significant amount of businesses fail because of their inability to attract new customers. 

To make people familiar with your products it is important to employ good strategies. A good strategy is in tune with the design of your plan. 

We have compiled for you a list of what we consider are the best acquisition strategies. 

• Quality

There is no alternate to quality, quality should never be compromised. Producing quality goods or content is the best method to acquire new customers. Quality leads to a good word of mouth which fits in well with the plans designed to acquire new customers

Customer acquisition has a direct relationship with the quality of content produce. The better quality your products are the easier it will be for you to acquire new customers.

• Referral Strategy

We have already discussed how important loyal customers are for young businesses. A referral program may not be a bad idea in using the loyalty of the existing customers for customer acquisition. 

A referral program will encourage existing customers to bring in new customers; in return these customers could be rewarded through discounts and gifts. 

This strategy will help you in customer acquisition and will also ensure that you do not lose existing customers to the incentive of getting new customers. 

It is also important to ensure that the referral strategy is well thought of. Offering discounts which lead to a great influx of existing customers availing them may lead to increased but will also be very costly.

• Search Engine Optimization

For any young business to prosper it is important to have an online presence. Having an online presence however, is not the sole guarantee of success. It is necessary that people know of your existence online. For that to happen it is necessary to have valuable content published regularly online and to ensure that the content is read by the audience it is published for. 

Search Engine Optimization helps in boosting the ranking of your published blog. SEO is a process that is usually carried out by skilled professionals however the skill can be mastered through online courses. 

Keyword optimization and back linking are one of the few tactics that are used for Search Engine Optimization

• Spreading the word

This is not easy as it seems. This strategy for customer acquisition is often overlooked. This is a good strategy because it is not as costly as some of the other strategies mentioned. 

Using tools to track the word of mouth your brand is receiving will help you in assessing the amount of referrals that you are receiving. Using these tools will also help in determining whether the word of mouth is positive or negative. 

This information will help you in keeping track of the referrals and then making changes according to the word of mouth referrals received. 

Designing a good plan and strategy does go a long way in affirming the status and success of your business. Apart from these however, it is necessary to have a positive will and resolve. Having a positive will and resolve will make you strive for making each customer experience the best. 

The customer is king priority should always hold true with regard to the service offered. Using technology is a good option in optimizing customer experience. This means that the introduction of a digital platform or the betterment of the existing one would go a long way in providing customer satisfaction. 

Growth of business is vital to the success of any business and the prerequisite to the growth of business is the acquisition of new customers. The competitive market can be quite intimidating and acquiring new customers can be a challenging task. However, as we said before it is courage that separates the great from the good and the ordinary.