5 Customer Acquisition Strategies To Swell Your Bottom Line In 2021

B2B customer acquisition is never a straight road to travel. There are several decision-makers involved, prolonged discovery calls, and even intricate requirements that elongate customer acquisition longer than in B2C space.

In addition to these inherent challenges, b2B customer acquisition is further riddled with several tougher challenges. For example, bringing website traffic for lead-gen, something which B2C websites do with ease, is a Herculean task for B2B companies. To complicate things on the cost front, the cost of customer acquisition has increased by at least 50% in the past. A study by ProfitWell found that both organic and paid customer acquisition costs (CAC) are rising steeply for the B2B segment.

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Similarly, the strategies and channels used to acquire customers have also increased in recent years. There are 5 such strategies that are in vogue right now.

5 Customer Acquisition Strategies for 2021

There are 5 great customer acquisition strategies you can try in 2021 and beyond:

• Account-Based Marketing
• Multi-Touch Multi-Channel Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Customer Retention

1. Account-Based Marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) aims to bring together the synergies of sales and marketing as a collective force. It empowers marketing teams to target specific audiences with the surgical precision of a sales team.

In Account-Based Marketing, the marketing team is equipped with data from the sales team that helps them craft campaigns that have the potential to bring in more revenue and RoI. ABM helps eliminate the extra effort that marketing has otherwise had to exert to identify the target audience, reach them with campaigns, run multiple versions of campaigns, etc.

The image below depicts how traditional marketing and ABM are different from each other:

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Also, in traditional marketing, the metrics used to measure the success of a campaign are conversions, Return on Ad Spend, etc. Whereas in ABM, the most commonly used metric track ABM is revenue won (HubSpot). So, ABM is a worthy strategy to consider if you want to push your sales needle further up directly without wasting efforts.

2. Multi-touch marketing

Multi-touch attribution, also known as multi-channel attribution, is how digital marketing works. It refers to the marketing mechanism where the prospect is targeted or communicated through multiple touchpoints.

The communication is not restricted to a single offline or online channel. And, the marketing message that is sent across all these channels remains consistent. In other words, a billboard placed on the subway, the digital banner ad on a third-party website, the messaging used in the website as well as the communication that you do over chatbot — everything converges to the central marketing theme.

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Why is multi-touch marketing beneficial? Modern customers make quick voice searches on mobile devices, research deep using a desktop, and often (although not always) resort to an online store or an in-store purchase to complete the transaction.

That explains why multi-touch marketing is critical. Chatbots, which have been largely used for customer support, have now become the staple technology for small, medium, and big businesses to run their businesses. They are effective in communicating and engaging with customers at scale. Also, they can carry forward the same marketing message that has prominent across all channels.

But Chatbots aren’t the only types of products that can benefit from Multi-Touch marketing. Generally speaking, the more expensive a product is, the more touchpoints are required for conversion. For instance, when brands create online courses with high price points, it’s not uncommon for them to use content, email, social media, and even chatbots to eventually drive the conversion.

This premise goes across products and industries and is a general rule for all consumer spending. Think about how many touchpoints it requires for a realtor to sell a home. It may take 10-20 hours of working with a client and over 50 touchpoints to see success.

3. Email Marketing

Billions of emails are sent and received every day. Email continues to be the primary form of communication for businesses. These two facts prove why email marketing is still a dominant marketing channel. Also, it delivers a whopping $42 dollar return for every $1 spent.

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Here are some reasons that exhibit why email marketing is a great customer acquisition strategy:

• You can reach a specific segment of the audience with a personalized marketing message
• You can split campaigns and handpick the ones that deliver the maximum RoI
• You can measure performance in terms of revenue earned in addition to several other vanity metrics
• It is cost-effective in the long run and continues to yield RoI

4. Content Marketing

Content marketing is used for lead generation by 83% of B2B marketers (Source). In fact, it has soared in popularity amidst the modern breed of marketers. Content marketing refers to the extensive use of content – for generating website traffic and leads. Of course, it ultimately leads to customer acquisition as well.

Content refers to text, images, video, or any other multimedia content that informs, educates, and engages the audience. If served right, the content can turn interested prospects into paying customers.

Content marketing takes the form of several formats. There are several formats that you can choose from.

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Why should you try content marketing for customer acquisition?

• Evergreen content can yield RoI for years to come
• It establishes credibility for your brand
• It maximizes your social media and PR presence
• It costs 62% less than other marketing channels

Also, the possibilities are literally endless and are only restricted by imagination.

5. Customer Retention

Did you know that it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer? Customer acquisition costs are higher for new customers.

That is what has led to the popular slogan — Customer Retention is the new acquisition. To keep an existing customer from churning — that is curtailing the business engagement, a lot of levers will have to be pulled. It is not restricted to customer service, but also to several other aspects like customer experience.

Today, customer experience is the primary differentiator that most customers look for. In fact, it outranks price and quality when it comes to customer buying decisions.

Also, if a business manages to retain its existing customers, the chances are that they will refer new customers who can add more volume to the bottom line.

Rounding it up

Customer acquisition is never easy. Every business, since time immemorial, has been struggling to acquire new customers. There are market forces and competition that need to be outwitted. That calls for a focused strategy.

There are five strategies that you can deploy to acquire more customers. ABM. Multi-touch marketing. Email marketing. Content marketing. And customer retention. Of course, each of these strategies has its own unique strengths. The success of your business is dependent on how well you execute these strategies.

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