At the beginning of the previous article (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/qual-%25C3%25A8-la-differenza-tra-lead-generation-e-di-clienti-ferraioli/?trackingId=ahRTnWSBSpWoIEVbDpX7Jg%3D%3D) we have also said that customer acquisition can also be an expensive process, but how can you then do to optimize costs?

How to optimize customer acquisition costs

Here's a simple truth about marketing: You can always do better. You can always reach new audiences, create better messages, and minimize associated costs.

Basically, there is always something to learn and always something to improve.

If you are looking to improve your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), you might want to focus on these 3 aspects:

1.Improve your website conversion efforts: Improve your calls to action, make sure your site is responsive (even on mobile), optimize your landing pages and do several A / B tests on images and copywriting .

2.Increase the value of your current customers: always keep them updated and allow them affordable upgrades, so that over time they can become examples for others, real promoters of your business!

3.Adapt and optimize your customer acquisition strategy: cost optimization passes above all through a continuously improving acquisition strategy, without losing focus on 4 fundamental pillars.

How to improve your customer acquisition strategy

A solid customer acquisition strategy must have at least 4 characteristics: sustainable, flexible, focused and diversified.

1.Sustainable

A sustainable customer acquisition strategy is one that works over the long term. This means that the investments you make (money, time and human resources) can be sustained for the foreseeable future.

For example, if you plan to gain new customers via a blog, you should have the tools and resources to ensure your content production goes beyond one or two posts, effectively driving organic traffic for months or years to come.

2. Flexible

Your customer acquisition strategy should also be flexible because marketing, sales, and how people react are constantly changing.

For example, we know that today salespeople are no longer the only custodians of information on a product / service. And that your prospect uses different channels to collect information about your business. And often these channels also affect customer perception!

So, keep your strategy flexible and you will always be ready to respond to market trends.

3.Targeted

Not all customers are YOUR potential customers and targeting the wrong target, or the wrong channel, will only waste your resources.

A focused customer acquisition strategy requires you to step back and figure out what's best for your business, your assets, and your audience. Only then can you expect to have real answers to your customer acquisition efforts.

4.Diversified

Have you ever heard of cross-pollination?

It is when bees spread pollen between a variety of plants, resulting in species variations that are better resistant to time and nature.

When you diversify your acquisition strategy and use various acquisition methods, you have a better chance of reaching different audiences and generating new leads.

Additionally, diversifying your customer acquisition strategy creates a balance of risk and benefit, which means that if one channel starts to fail (see the sales example above), it's easier to reallocate assets to another channel with better performance.

Up until now we have always talked about acquiring new customers.                                        

But it is often forgotten that even current customers must be held back, so what?

Customer retention is the new acquisition (method)

Despite the hard work and use of various methods to acquire new customers, they sometimes leave us. tear

This is the unfortunate motivation behind customer acquisition, however, and it's important to recognize it. In this note, we talk about another password: abandonment. Yuck … the word itself doesn't sound too friendly, much less is the definition behind it.

What is the customer churn rate?

The customer churn rate represents that percentage of customers who walk away from your business and give up on your products or services. It is also referred to as customer attrition or turnover.

Why is churn important? Customer abandonment is what motivates companies to find and acquire new customers. When you lose customers, you want to go out and find new ones, right? Historically, as companies have experienced higher churn rates, they have invested in more (and more expensive) acquisition methods.

Well, my friends, it's time to look at customer acquisition and abandonment in a new light. Instead of using acquisition methods to compensate for customer churn, what if we worked to reduce churn altogether?

What if we avoided the proverbial (and expensive) patch of customer acquisition and went to the source of the wound: dissatisfied or dissatisfied customers? Those are, in fact, the customers who leave, ahem, break down, aren't they?

What I'm saying here is that customer retention is the acquisition of new customers. Instead of looking outward and forward to find new customers to replace old and forgotten ones, I propose to look inward and work to build customer loyalty using new and improved customer service methods.

Remember how I discussed the marketing funnel in the first section? While the funnel is a hands-on visualization of how customers learn and buy from your brand, it lacks one thing: how your current (and past) customers nurture future customers. When your business revolves around delighting and retaining customers, your marketing strategy begins to resemble a flywheel, not a funnel.

The "flywheel" is the model adapted by HubSpot to explain the momentum a company gains when the entire organization is aligned to deliver an amazing customer experience that produces happy customers that drive referrals and repeat sales.

This is customer retention in action: working to retain your customers (as opposed to paying to replace lost ones) is actually a method of acquisition in itself, and even cheaper.

It is well known that keeping customers costs much less than acquiring new ones. 90% of satisfied consumers are more likely to shop again, and 93% are more likely to be repeat customers at businesses with excellent customer service.

These are just some of the reasons for establishing customer retention strategies, just like customer acquisition ones.

The customer retention strategies you put in place vary by business model, audience, resources, and more.

Turn satisfied customers into promoters

Regardless of how you plan to retain your customers, there is a common denominator: providing an amazing customer experience. This is non-negotiable and means providing more than the client's basic expectations.

To turn your satisfied customers into promoters, you need to aim for customer satisfaction, not just loyalty. Customers who stay loyal because they genuinely want to can deliver much more value than increased revenue - they can also act as the best marketers.

You can enable your customers to promote your business and help you save time and money on other acquisition methods.

1.Ask for customer stories.

Whether through case studies, interviews, reviews, or user-generated content, ask your customers to tell their stories about how they came to discover your business and why they love it. Instead of bragging about your company via paid advertising or social media, pass the microphone and let your customers do it for you.

2.Make content easily shareable.

While a happy feeling can convey the message, wouldn't it be even better if your customers were equipped to directly share the content you created, such as social posts, blog posts, or graphics?

This is called the viral cycle and it is when your customers share content that leads their followers back to your business. Create Click-to-Tweet links so your customers can easily share posts on social media, and make sure each piece of content posted has options for sharing via email or social media. The cheaper the promotion is for your customers, the more likely they are to engage.

3.Inspire referrals.

Creating a referral program is a surefire way to bring in new business through your customers. Offering incentives, be it credits, physical gifts, or monetary rewards, is usually the best way to motivate a customer to share information about your company (and compensate them in return). If you consider a customer referral as valuable to your business, you need to provide something just as valuable as an exchange.

While a structured, incentive-based program typically works best for B2C companies, B2B companies may be more fortunate in asking for direct referrals from their customers.

Whichever referral strategy you choose, be sure to provide value first and ask questions later. Give your customers a reason to want to refer you, because they are so excited about your business that they can't help but share.

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