Introduction
Acquiring new customers is the core of customer success strategies of most Chief Sales Officers (CSOs). While sometimes it may appear as simple as selling a product or service to a needy, other times filling the niche may look ostensibly complicated. The customer acquisition process starts from ‘pushing the wheel rolling’ by marketing to the right people down to the satisfaction of closing the deal & pushing up the revenue. To many it may sound like a chore but for us here at WovVTech, it’s a creative, unique way to take more people on board while remaining deeply committed to the company’s mission & its customer retention program. So, it’s not the one-way process of exposing the masses to your marketing barge rather it’s about creating the value proposition for the community & gaining people’s trust in the process. While doing so, according to Gartner, you need to ensure that all the information & support provided to the buyers are complete, consistent & connected across traditional & digital channels. Here, you will also have to take help of some communication tools to get the message across.
Here are the top 10 tools used by enterprises (especially small businesses) for new customer acquisition:
| Website (Interactive websites for engagements) | 57% |
| Search Engine Optimization | 51% |
| Electronic mail (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc.) | 47% |
| Social Media Channels | 44% |
| Word of Mouth Marketing | 41% |
| Print Collaterals | 37% |
| Advertising on Internet | 33% |
| TV, Radio, & Print Ads | 28% |
| Trade Show & Conferences | 25% |
| Direct Mail | 22% |
Believe in the power of humanitarianism
A sales pitch may not always pique customer interest in your business. You need to look for ways which are beyond ‘blatant selling’. You may, for example, provide something valuable (not necessarily in monetary terms) & educational to hook customer interest. This way it has been observed they are more ready-to-engage & inward-leaning. As a thumb rule, providing something without asking for anything in return is a great way to start a new relationship. This is the formula you need to apply to win new business & also in your customer loyalty schemes.
Play a thought leader
Do you have the means to create a unique personality of being a thought leader in your industry? It’s worth it, you may try. And having that reputation would require much more than just offering product or service differentiation. You may take help from any business reputation management firm for this purpose; they are professionals & they know what they are up to. Besides, you will not have to ‘reinvent the wheel’ & you will be able to focus on your core-competency & try to configure a customer rewards program.
Look for promoters
Word of mouth marketing is a great way to turn in new customers. We have some genuine data from the in-depth research in this matter which suggests that a significant number of people look for reference from a family member or a friend before buying a new product or service. The more expensive your proposition is, the truer this philosophy becomes. To earn ‘promoters’ or ‘brand ambassadors’ you may run a ‘tell-a-friend’ campaign through customer loyalty solutions. Provide incentives or rewards which could be in cash or kind to anyone who promotes your brand to a new customer.
Go where your customers are
When customers don’t come to you & the footfall analysis shows you are missing visitors, why don’t you go to them? If the traditional methods of spreading your brand are not yielding any impressive results you might be shadow-boxing with customers. Let’s say you own a shopping mall, so where are your loyal customers? Most of them will be in the catchment area; hooking them up will require spreading word through local cable operators, banners on near-by public places, putting marketing flyers in their mailboxes & other similar means through retail loyalty solutions.
Promote yourself as problem-solver
As we said earlier, these days it’s not about selling. You need to sound more than that. You will have to go beyond the image of being a seller to a problem-solver. And whom will you do it for? Not to strangers, to them it may look like selling mangoes to someone who is looking for oranges. Be crystal-clear on what problems you are solving & for whom. Then create more trust by sharing ideas generously & by playing a well-wisher. This will give you the trust & familiarity platform from which you can look forward to engaging in commercializing the relationship by using customer loyalty applications.
Host virtual events
A great way to acquire new customers is through holding virtual events. Holding such events gives participants a chance to learn more about your company. Events might be the one inviting passive or active participation by the joiners. Either way they will be driving actions which will help spread the word about the company. In these events, your current customers will act as live testimonials while the new joiners will act as prospects. They both will get a chance to intermingle with each other, & the latter will learn more about the company. Using a customer loyalty management system, will only rev up the event.
Broadcast ideal customers
Choose people whom you think are your ideal customers & let them speak to the public, broadcast their interview believing they will be playing an evangelist for your brand. You can take help of YouTube, Podcast or even loyalty management solutions for this. Even if it’s a small beginning the initiative will drive traction soon & your channel will have too many followers. This is a great way to build relationships & acquire more customers especially in 2021 when people are finding it hard to intermingle physically due to lock down. The interview itself will consist of customers’ perspective on beautiful points about your brand & how you solve people’s pain points through your products & services.
Meet new people
Another great way to acquire more customers is through meeting new people as frequently as possible. After you have interacted with someone, he or she may take some time to reach the next milestone in the customer’s journey, any attempt to re-communicate with them before they do so can prove to be a waste of your precious resources. You can avoid this by ensuring that you are every-time targeting new customers. Continuing with our shopping mall example which we considered earlier, a mall owner may simply ask the visitors if it’s their first time, on affirmative, they can present some lucrative offer or discount for being the first-time visitor using some loyalty rewards management system. This is a great way to channelize your resources to the right people to ensure maximum effectiveness of your effort.
Conclusion
By prioritizing the ways discussed here you can better differentiate your organization from the rest by relying on customer-centricity which goes more closely with customers’ way of doing things these days. There are customer loyalty programs which can be equally effective in on-boarding new customers through enticing offers & discounts which they offer. Our company offers the OKEN- a SaaS platform that can power an android and iOS app. The mall management and loyalty app that we can custom design as per your brand can prove to be instrumental in acquiring new customers. Join the league of our esteemed clients; we are happy to on-board you.
