Over the past 7 years I’ve worked on nearly a dozen startups and web based businesses. The startup world is one of my passions and I love turning ideas into an actual business.
Why is customer acquisition important for a startup?
During each startup experience I learn new things, meet new people, and acquire new resources. The one thing I constantly work on and have not been able to perfect is customer acquisition. I have developed many methods and tried a countless number of marketing techniques, but finding the right combination that leads directly to sales and new customers has escaped me.
I have not been able to create a successful business because I haven’t effectively and efficiently built a solid customer base. Even having a profitable business model and moderate sales won’t be enough to grow a startup without developing leads and constantly acquiring new customers. Through the entrepreneurship program I attended at Bradley University and my experience working on launching several startups, I have not encountered an all-inclusive customer acquisition strategy that has worked for me.
In the book The New Rules of Lead Generation, seven proven strategies for lead generation and customer acquisition are defined in-depth.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Marketing through bidding for specific keywords relevant to your product/service.
- Social Media: Using social media platforms to advertise and market your product/service.
- Display Advertising: Advertising on websites through visual ads including flash animations, pop-up ads, and other forms.
- Email Marketing: Advertising to a group of potential customers through Email.
- Direct Mail: Sending mail advertisements to potential customers.
- Cold Calling: Calling prospects unfamiliar with your product/service.
- Trade Shows: Advertising through participating in conferences and trade shows.
The book goes in-depth with each of the seven strategies and how they can be used to work for a specific business. The right strategy for your startup may be using several of the strategies or a combination of them all. The worst move for startups is to ignore these methods, thinking that simply building a solid product or business model will result in automatic customers. This is the mistake that I have made on several occasions.
Marketing executive and expert David T. Scott is the author of The New Rules of Lead Generation. In addition to serving as CMO for a Seattle startup, Scott also launched lead generation service Marketfish.
Customer acquisition cannot be underestimated. If you want your startup to be successful, you must invest in your marketing and focus your resources on customer acquisition and lead generation. An entrepreneur failing to focus on lead generation is similar to an author writing a masterpiece of a novel and hiding it away in his basement. Learn how to effectively market your business and reach your target market and your startup will take off.
Sources
The New Rules
