Customer acquisition — successfully acquire new customers

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When acquiring customers, many may still think of unsolicited phone calls or home calls. But there are now a variety of modern ways to attract new customers. We give you an overview of how customer acquisition works and what you need to consider.

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Definition: What is customer acquisition?

Customer acquisition is the process of getting potential customers to buy your product or service. The aim is therefore to attract new customers to the company. In return, customer acquisition attracts so-called leads, maintains these contacts until they are ready to buy, and finally turns them into customers.

What is a lead?
A lead is a contact who shows interest in your company or offer. For example, that person may have downloaded a white paper from your website or signed up for your newsletter.

How does customer acquisition work?

Companies can wait for customers to come to them of their own accord, but their chance of expanding their customer base and increasing profits is then only slim. That is why customer acquisition is about developing strategic measures to systematically acquire new customers.

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A carefully planned customer acquisition involves these five steps:

Define goals — what do you want to achieve?

‍Customer acquisition measures should be geared towards this. This also allows you to evaluate whether you were successful with your customer acquisition strategy.

Define an offer — what makes it stand out?

Before you start reaching out to potential customers, you should be aware of what you offer potential customers. What makes your offer special, even compared to your competition?

Define the target group — who are you talking to?

It is essential to determine exactly who you want to reach. Be as specific as possible. Because the more specific your target group, the more effective your measures will be. After all, not every age group can be reached via the same channels. And the approaches to acquiring B2C and B2B customers also differ — social media, for example, works well for the former, the latter may need individual discussions and advice. By the way, the persona method is helpful to better understand your target group.
Don't you know them yet? In doing so, you develop a fictitious person who is right for your target group and describe her as precisely as possible: Create a profile with possible demographic data, needs, wishes and goals of your buyer persona.

Collecting contact details — how do you reach your target group?

Once you have narrowed down your target group, the next step is about the prerequisites for reaching out to you: contact with potential customers. Depending on the target group, this works, for example, via social media, downloads on the website that require the provision of contact details, online research, automated retrieval of data using a chatbot or even classic business card collection at events. Important: The collection and use of data must always be legally compliant and GDPR-compliant.

Plan activities — how do you present yourself to potential customers?

After you have created an important basis in the last few steps, it is now specifically about how you structure the acquisition. There are various channels and options for this. More about that in the next section.

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Different methods and channels of customer acquisition

Nowadays, customer acquisition is no longer just about “cleaning the handles” or calling up telephone lists. You can acquire customers through a variety of tactics and channels (both online and offline). Ideally, you will create a mix of different methods so that potential customers hear about your company and your offering across channels. These are possible ways to acquire customers:

Suchmaschinenmarketing (SEO oder SEA)	Suchmaschinenmarketing (SEM) ist eine einfache Methode, um Verbraucher zu identifizieren, die Interesse an Produkten wie Ihren haben – denn sie googeln schon danach! Auf diesem Weg erreichen Sie Ihre Zielgruppe entweder durch organische Suchmaschinenoptimierung (SEO) oder durch bezahltes Suchmaschinenmarketing (SEA).
Content Marketing	Indem Sie potenziellen Kunden hilfreiche Inhalte bereitstellen, können Sie sie unaufdringlich auf Ihr Produkt aufmerksam machen. Indem Sie für einen Download von Studien oder Whitepapern Kontaktdaten abfragen, können Sie über diesen Weg auch direkt Kontaktdaten sammeln.
Affiliate Marketing	Beim Affiliate-Marketing generiert ein Partner für Sie Traffic, Leads oder sogar schon Verkäufe. Beispiele sind hier Kooperationen mit Influencern oder Blogs.
E-Mail Akquise	Mithilfe von Mailings können Sie potenzielle (und bestehende) Kunden erreichen. Hierfür brauchen Sie natürlich deren Kontaktadressen. Diese können Sie erhalten indem man eine E-Mailadresse angeben muss, um bspw. Zugang zu einem Website-Inhalte oder einen Rabattcode zu bekommen. Beachten Sie dabei, dass Interessenten vorher einwilligen müssen, dass Sie sie anschreiben dürfen.
Social Media / Social Selling	Über soziale Netzwerke und das sog. Social Selling können Sie mit möglichen Neukunden in den Dialog kommen, ohne dass Sie hierfür im ersten Schritt Kontaktdetails benötigen. Das setzt allerdings voraus, dass Sie eine langfristige Content-Strategie entwickeln und entsprechende Ressourcen einsetzen. Auf Social Media sind organische und mit Werbebudget unterstützte Posts (paid) möglich.
Telefonakquise	Einer der klassischen Akquisewege – hier rufen Sie entweder Kontakte an, die Sie bereits haben (Warmakquise) oder bisher unbekannte Nummern (Kaltakquise). Allerdings ist es gesetzlich verboten, B2C-Kunden „kalt“ anzurufen, wenn sie vorab nicht eingewilligt haben. Übrigens: Laut LinkedIn* kommt es nur bei weniger als 2 % der „Cold Calls“ anschließend zu einem persönlichen Gespräch.
Promotion	Promotion – das ist die Ansprache an öffentlichen Orten, bspw. in der Innenstadt oder in Einkaufszentren. Hier sprechen Promoter potenzielle Interessenten an, bringen ihnen das Unternehmen oder Produkt näher und sammeln Kontaktdaten bzw. Leads.
Events	Business Festivals, Messen oder zum Beispiel Barcamps geben die Möglichkeit, entweder über einen Stand oder Vorträge und Workshops mit möglichen neuen Kunden ins Gespräch zu kommen.
Chatbots	Chatbots oder auch digitale Assistenten können 24/7 mit Nutzern ein Gespräch führen. Klassischer Weise sind Chatbots für Kundenservice-Anwendungen bekannt, sie können jedoch auch in der Kundenakquise unterstützen. In dem sie Nutzer in ein Gespräch verwickeln, Produkte vorstellen oder assistieren, wecken sie oftmals Interesse. Nachdem Interesse geweckt wurde, können Chatbots automatisiert Kontaktdaten abfragen.
Online- oder Offline-Werbung	Sogenannte Display Ads (visuelle Werbung auf Websites) bringen potenzielle Kunden mit Ihrem Unternehmen in Kontakt. Sie werden entweder automatisiert über entsprechende Netzwerke ausgespielt oder indem Werbeflächen auf Websites gekauft werden. Neben Online-Ads ist Werbung über das Radio, TV, Kino oder Plakaten weiterhin ein gängiger Weg, um neue Kunden zu akquirieren.

^*Source:^linkedin

Customer acquisition: What is the difference with marketing?
While marketing aims to increase the level of brand awareness of the company, customer acquisition should directly encourage action, i.e. to buy.

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Six tips to optimize customer acquisition

Every company needs new customers to grow and be successful. There is no ONE perfect customer acquisition strategy. But these six tips can help you further improve your customer acquisition:

At the start of your customer acquisition strategy, you focused on your target group. And you should continue to do so! The key to effective customer acquisition is to Constantly develop And on the changing needs and adjust the behavior of potential customers. You should therefore be flexible here.
Your strategy for customer acquisition is only sustainably successful if it also works in the long term. So you also have to use the resources that you invest via Maintain for a longer period Can. On social media or a blog, for example, it is not enough to post once every six months.
Make use of Automation potential! Many acquisition activities can now be automated. This way, you don't have to hire a large sales team and reduce your spending all in all without sacrificing your results. An example of automated customer acquisition is the use of a chatbots in sales & marketing. This makes it easier for Lead generation immense and leads to further benefits, such as permanent availability and 24/7 service.
Nowadays, consumers like to find out more about products or services and also about the experiences that others have already had with them. Give potential customers therefore As much information as possible and testimonials at your fingertips. In terms of content marketing, you can also very broadly useful resources and knowledge provide information about your topic.
Your content and activities will be more convincing if you with your sales intent Don't “fall into the house with the door”. Focus more on giving your potential customer a To provide added value and highlight the benefits for them. Build a trusting relationship by entering into dialogue and sharing your knowledge of your subject or industry with interested parties.
Collaborations with other companies can help you attract the attention of new customers — especially when your products complement each other well. Practical example: We at MoinAI are happy to enter into partnerships and collaborations with other providers that complement our product well. So we already have common Live webinars Hosted with Userlike or Zendesk, from which everyone has something.

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Conclusion: New customers who stay a long time

Customer acquisition is about acquiring new customers who will ideally remain loyal to you for a long time. This is not a one-time activity, but a durable process. The basis for this is a well-thought-out acquisition strategy and various measures, which you should tailor to your goals and target group.

And keep in mind: Once you've won prospects as customers, you should continue to strive for them!

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