Before embarking on a customer acquisition campaign, you have to define who exactly your customers are. This is the only way to be able to devise strong and effective customer acquisition measures. First answer the following questions:
- Who are your customers?
- Where is your target group located?
- Which acquisition measures can you reach your target group with?
- How do you approach potential customers?
Once your clientele has been defined, you can start working on acquiring customers. We will show you how to build up a customer base in 9 steps.
Acquire New Customers On A Daily Basis
Day for day companies are vying for new customers. You should do the same: Integrate customer recruitment into your everyday business activities. Set aside time each day to prepare and engage in customer acquisition. When orders start falling off, it is often too late.
Preparation Is The Name Of The Game
Winning customers begins long before the first sales pitch. Find out what you can in advance about your potential customer to be able to make them the best possible offer. Remember, a successful sales pitch never consists of just a presentation or a monologue. Find answers beforehand to possible questions and prepare yourself for critical counterarguments. First impressions count.
Structured Customer Acquisition With Documentation
If you adopt an unsystematic approach and fail to document communication with the customers, chaos is inevitable sooner or later. Every employee should be familiar with the exact sequence of the customer acquisition process and know how to document telephone calls, e-mail exchanges or meetings with the customer and where they are uniformly filed.
Quantify Customer Acquisition
Do you plan for acquiring new customers to be part of your day-to-day routine? That’s great. Now define how many telephone calls you intend to make each day. This target is key to the success of customer acquisition. Acquisition should not depend on chance, but be approached systematically. Subsequently, you can evaluate the ratio of successful business conclusions to the number of contacts made.
Who Is Your Point Of Contact?
If you operate in the B2B (business-to-business) sector, your customer will be a company. An important aspect of customer acquisition is finding out who your point of contact is. Do research on the key decision-makers and try to establish direct contact.
Exploit Networking
Networking is the magic word when it comes to establishing and cultivating specific business contacts. Act on recommendations from your network to recruit new customers. Try to target and build new contacts.
Use Social Media Correctly
Anyone wishing to acquire customers must attract the attention of prospects. And which channel is better suited to that than social media? It has never been easy to obtain customer information and disseminate your own content. Use social media as a channel for customer acquisition – for research purposes and also to position your company. Run ads where your target group is located.
Staying In The Customer’s Memory
The first telephone call or customer visit rarely leads to a successful customer recruitment. And you shouldn’t simply sit back after you have drafted your first offer. Make a follow-up phone call, clarify open issues, offer further support. Ensure that customer does not forget your company and your offer.
A Simple “Thank You” Brings The Customer Closer
Whether in person, on the telephone or in an e-mail, the main thing is to show your customer your appreciation. This allows you to strengthen the trust between you and create a basis for successful collaboration. There are plenty of reasons to thank a customer: for their time, for their trust and for recommending you.