Business needs a constantly growing stream of customers in order to survive and thrive. Acquiring new customers is not an easy task in a crowded marketplace. You have to think beyond conventional boundaries to improve customer acquisition.
Define target customers
You have existing customers but you need to acquire new customers as well. If you know the segment you can fine hone marketing strategies for better engagement. Tools such as Google Analytics, Kissmetrics and Alexa as well as social media give you pointers on current visitors to your site and their location. Find out what the potential customers need and address their needs by gleaning data from social media followers.
Choose platforms that target audiences prefer
Your target audience may be busy on WhatsApp and Facebook. If that is so then you will find it worthwhile to target Facebook by creating an outstanding presence in the form of content, video and do not forget paid promotions on Facebook. Similarly know about the visitor data to various sites such as Pinterest and Snapchat. Just focusing on Facebook could be rewarding because majority of people do use this social media channel with its power of viral spread.
Go viral
Social media is a great channel to create viral loops. Integrate social media in your webpages and create pre-written tweets in links. Incentivize followers by offering rewards for referrals that should lead to creation of viral loops and directing potential targets to your landing page.
Landing page
The landing page could be a make or break thing. If it is too complex and overwhelming visitors may leave. Just include an image, a compelling headline, list out the benefit in a single line and include a demo video. Use minimum keywords and direct them to the next step in the simplest possible way so that they follow your call to action.
Call to action
This is at the core of the landing page. It pays to be precise about what you offer and what you wish them to do. Keep scrolling to a minimum on the page. Just ask for minimum information and blend in time limitation so that visitors feel compelled to act immediately. Be precise about what their action will result in such as free trial or free voucher. Keep in mind that when traffic arrives via social media sites you need to know the type of user and their expectations.
Social media channels to leverage
In this age of digital social interaction it goes without saying that social integration is a must for customer acquisition and traffic to your site. Social channels where you must have a strong presence and links to your site are Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you go the video route them Vimeo and Youtube are indispensable. Use the right content and visitors will feel encouraged to visit your site.
Content
Content is the differentiator and engages attention. Create content on social media as well as blogs and you will start to generate interest that leads to traffic. Use ancillaries like creating webinars and ebooks that can be shared for free in addition to video and intertwine them all with the social media thread. You build relationships and create followers for which PR is indispensable.
Press Release
PR is mostly free and you can write PRs on an ongoing basis. Share interesting tidbits of news and they are likely to result in a better image for you. At the same time consider paid ads.
PPCs
Organic SEO and traffic take time to show results. For the short term go in for pay per click and search engine marketing on Google and Facebook at the very least.
There is still plenty to do by designing and implementing affiliate and referral programs, launching email campaigns, offering opt-ins, contests and free apps. The main thing to keep in mind is to tailor campaign to product you offer and the target user.
You could become so engaged in implementation of all these campaigns that you are likely to overlook analysis of returns which is necessary if you desire to fine tune strategies for even more focus on targets and acquisition. Stop a while, analyze and optimize.
