If you get your internet services from a traditional cable provider (and no, we will not name names here), chances are, every year you make THE phone call.
You know, when you get your monthly bill and it’s higher than normal. And so you call the company and hear the same spiel about how the price you paid thus far was a “new customer promotion.” And now that you’re no longer new you have to pay the higher price. You act all surprised and say something about not being able to afford the higher price and possibly switching to a competitor. The representative acts worried and gets off the phone “to speak to the manager.” She comes back with the “great news” that she can switch you back to your previous price, or maybe one just a few dollars more. You thank her, vowing to stay loyal to the company that plays this game with you every year, and go on with your life. What a giant waste of time!
This is nothing new. Companies do this all the time and frankly, it sucks. Everyone can relate to this story. In fact, the cell phone service provider, AT&T made a whole series of commercials that address the “new customer/existing customer” deals.
You guessed it—everyone can get our best deals on the latest smartphones, because you deserve it. Learn how new & existing customers get the latest smartphone on us with eligible trade-in.
— AT&T (@ATT) September 17, 2021
Here is the thing. “New customer deals” are annoying to your existing customers.
Yes, growing a business depends on whether or not your company can keep a steady flow of customers coming in. But acquiring new customers while maintaining old ones can be tricky. While legacy customers might continue buying your products or services, they can just as quickly get annoyed with being treated like the cable customers in the example above. And then they can just leave. And you definitely don’t want that.
To this end, we’ll take a look at how you can strike a balance to acquire new customers without turning away loyal buyers.
Innovative Customer Acquisition Tactics
Customer acquisition tactics is one of the most talked-about concepts in eCommerce, as every organization wants their business to grow. In practice, however, some customer acquisition strategies may be unsustainable or expensive. This relates to deep discounting strategies and aggressive advertising budgets.
Customer acquisition is also the first step to retaining customers and turning them into brand advocates. You can’t build long-term relationships without prioritizing customer experience, but this can be easier said than done.
Acquiring and maintaining customer relationships is all about providing a positive user experience at every stage of the buying journey. All while strategically motivating your customers to stick around after their first purchase. For instance, leveraging high-quality invoicing software that comes with crucial features like automatic billing for repeat customers can create a seamless experience for one-time purchases and help motivate buyers to come back.
Similarly, acquiring new customers with promotions and advertisements can get their attention. But, once again, doing so at the expense of annoying your current customers can result in losses that are challenging to make up for.
Here are some customer acquisition tactics that will not upset your current customers.
Offer Concurrent Incentives And Rewards
Your company can offer various rewards and incentives for your new customers who have recently bought from your company. This can be a viable strategy to increase sales and convince more people to try out your products or services and engage with your businesses. However, it might not be effective for your loyal customers who have been with you for a long time.
A sound way to address this issue is to offer incentives and benefits that apply to both your existing and new customers. For instance, you can provide your new customers with a one-time discount, reward, or bonus. Then, offer a similar advantage to valuable customers who have been with you at certain business milestones.
Leverage email marketing
Leveraging email marketing is still one of the leading digital marketing mediums with over 4,000% return on investment. Using your email list to generate leads, nurture prospects, and eventually convert them into customers is critical to a well-rounded email marketing strategy.
Although this may sound like an outdated acquisition method, it is still a practical and effective way of staying connected with your customer base. You can do so by promoting and advertising your content via a newsletter as well as in the signature with the help of an email signature generator. Through them, you can inform them about new product releases, events, discounts, and so on.
The secret to email marketing as a customer acquisition tactic is automation and personalization.You can leverage multiple channels to garner more customer data and use that data to develop more tailored messages – sending the right message to the appropriate people at precisely the right time.
Connect And Engage With Brand Advocates
Brand advocates are different from influencers in meaningful ways. The goal of an influencer is to promote a specific brand’s product or service to increase their followers or to make money. This is a transactional relationship: when you stop paying them, they’ll stop promoting your offerings.
But if your customers see their family or friends posting about a particular service or product, they are more likely to find the review authentic and credible. And it won’t even seem like “advertising” but merely a genuine product appreciation. This genuineness gives customer brand supporters credibility that money can’t buy.
One way to earn positive testimonials is through great customer service. Customers will remember when you address their concerns, and you can spin this to your advantage when they tell others about their positive experiences.
By using brand advocates, your new clients can see that you are a competent business partner. Your current customers will be reminded that you are dedicated to their satisfaction. You will also have more up-sell and cross-sell opportunities with your current customers, and you’ll be able to foster a sense of community, valuable to them and to you.
Also, make sure your connection is two-way with your brand advocates, not merely about promoting your brand. Start by developing a meaningful relationship with your brand advocates. Treat them as an inner circle that you can refer to for input and feedback on your business. For example, if you are considering launching a new product, asking your brand advocates to participate in a focus group can be a great way to connect with your intended audience.
Create Different offers For New And Existing Customers
You can segment your existing and new customers via automated processes. Then, you can provide new customers entirely different experiences and content than your current customers via content strategy, programmatic ads, social CRM shopping, and website landing page experiences and visually attractive and catchy pages, designed by different landing page builders.
Make sure you engage your prospective customers in the consideration and awareness stage. Content marketing is one of the ideal strategies for customer acquisition. People are becoming increasingly resistant to conventional promotion and advertisement. If the content is helpful and relevant, your prospects will perceive the brand as valuable and trustworthy.
But, there are places where you want the new and old customer experience to be the same, too. One of these places is on your website. There everyone should have a seamless user experience, regardless of whether they have purchased anything yet. According to Toronto-based online marketer and web developer Gary Stevens from Hosting Canada, several web-building tools make it easy to build user-friendly websites that attract customers:
“A website builder interface is a what you see is what you get experience,” Stevens argues. “That means that as you drag-and-drop elements around on the screen, you see a representation of your website. This visual aesthetic makes us feel happy and in control of our environment.”
Offer Content Upgrades To Engaged Visitors
Savvy content marketers understand that they should not give all their resources up for “free.” One of the best ways to generate leads and acquire customers without annoying them is to make things interactive. Provide them with engaging content and follow up periodically via email or another outlet.
For instance, we just offered tips about how to capture more email leads effectively. You can offer an email list signup via pop-ups so subscribers can get more in-depth info.
Upgrades might include:
- Webinars
- eBooks
- Free tools
- Online courses
To be clear, this doesn’t have to be in a pop-up form. You can put it like an inline link in your content. The important thing is how engaging your content is for the website visitors and how much value they will gain by signing up for more.
Customer Acquisition Tactics
Customer acquisition isn’t just about acquiring more customers. It’s also about gaining the most valuable customers. The ones who can stick around with your brand and eventually act
as a brand advocate to convert more leads. This, in turn, also helps you reduce your customer acquisition costs significantly.
However, it is imperative to ensure that your tactics are practical and helpful to customers instead of being boring and annoying. Any new tactics you adopt should integrate seamlessly with existing customer management strategies. After all, gaining new customers is essential for any business to generate and increase revenue. Happy one-time buyers are more likely to convert into loyal brand advocates.
So try out some of these strategies. And whatever you do, do not make customers call you and play the cable company game.
