The word “acquisition” has always meant a company buying another company to the business world at large. Now you’re starting to hear “customer acquisition” thrown into the mix as part of the ongoing focus on gaining customers that will most benefit a business. It’s a clever term to use, because some of the same processes of business acquisitions apply to customer acquisitions. Even though you’re not buying a customer, you still have to find as much information as you can about them in order to appropriately market and give them specific discounts and offers.
While it might sound offhandedly like customer profiling, it’s an important aspect to business so they don’t cater to customers who aren’t that loyal. There’s also a financial angle to acquiring the perfect customers who fit your business model.
Using Analytic Tools for Customer Segmentation
You can use business analytic tools to find key information about your customers that can help you target the right kind of people. While some of this research can be done through Google Analytics, it doesn’t give you a complete picture. You need to use more diffuse data to determine certain habits of the demographic you want to market to.
Some of the above can be done by looking into your own database of customers who’ve already given you business. This can help sort out those most apt to stick around based on information your marketing department extracts. Places like Experian, however, can give you analytic tools that open up customer demographics on many different levels. They can give you information under the categories of customer data, consumer data and business data.
Finding Financial Statuses of Customers
Once you’ve found a group of customers you know you can market to, you should try to find records that show you their financial status to avoid any risks. One of the biggest threats to businesses that many people don’t think about is customers who are loyal, yet don’t pay their bills. Some of those customers may have credit issues that makes them unable to pay and potentially leaving your business at a loss.
While you can utilize debt collectors, being successful at collection isn’t always possible. That’s why it’s best to scope out these people in advance and not allow them to buy things on credit from your store.
More Efficient Direct Mailing
While direct mailing might not sound workable in the digital era, businesses find just as much success there through targeted campaigns than they do marketing online. In fact, Online Marketing Institute says 65% of all those who’ve received direct mail campaigns have purchased something as the result of those mailings. Finding targeted information beforehand can ultimately save you money mailing out to only those who matter to your bottom line.
The Balance with Digital Marketing
Acquiring customers online still needs to be balanced with the above direct mail process. The key today to acquiring customers online is to engage in dialogue on social media that leads those people to your website. Once they visit there, you can again use Google Analytics to determine what your visitors are responding to. If you create a private list on places like Twitter, you can have a one-stop source where you social media leads are.
With the public record of people being all the more public today, it’s to the benefit of all businesses so customers don’t hide things that need to be known. It’s all part of the increase in better digital tools that are helping businesses large and small thrive into the second half of the 21st century.
