Reaching the Next Level: Scaling Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

• Uncover what it takes to elevate your brand or business to the next level by boosting brand/product discovery and converting consumers.
• Learn a step-based method for scaling up your customer acquisition strategy.
• Skyrocket your customer acquisition strategy into the stratosphere faster by working with Interest Media and taking advantage of our omni-channel solutions for advertisers and publishers.

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Is it Time to Take Your Customer Acquisition Strategy to the Next Level?

Every brand or business reaches a point when they reach a plateau and get stuck at a level. There may be various distinct stages of this type of “hitting the wall.” On the low end, there’s the plateau of trying to be profitable or simply breaking even. At another level, it’s that wall where you’re doing okay, getting by. Then there’s that plateau where you’re profitable, but you can see the big profits on the horizon and that’s really where you want to put your business.

Getting to the next level with your customer acquisition strategy

In any of the above scenarios, it’s a time when brands and businesses want to move from one level to the next, or even up several notches. So the question is: “How to get there?”

In a general sense, across all industries, there is a universal answer: “Acquiring more customers.”

Along more specific lines, the types of additional customers you need to acquire will vary according to where your business is at.

If you are a fairly new business, you need more people to know about you. Your focus is going to be in the area of promoting brand discovery.

For a brand that’s gaining some recognition, your need will be turning those showing interest into new paying customers. This is one area that Interest Media excels at, using its intent-based marketing tools to directly target consumers demonstrating buyer intent.

When it comes to brands and companies that are making sales but need to make even more, post-transaction advertising can help boost “up-selling” and “cross-selling” opportunities.

9 Ways to Take Your Customer Acquisition Strategy to the Next Level

Here are nine methods for taking your customer acquisition strategy to the next level. Not all of these methods will likely apply or be necessary to your particular brand and/or business needs. But if all apply, use them all. Utilize them as they make sense for your marketing goals. Consider them “tools” in your marketing toolbox and select the ones that meet your situation.

Before we look at the nine methods for boosting customer acquisition, there are a few things that are prerequisites before you begin:

• Identify your target audience.
• Divide your audience into segments/groups. If possible, create detailed buyer personas.
• Understand the customer journey of your audience segments.
• Identify where each of your target audience segments is most active online (specific social media channels, use of search engines, websites visited, etc.).
• Know what your ideal customer is seeking in a product or service.
• Be aware of the major problems/pain points of your target audience.
• Match your products/solutions to each of your audience segments.

Armed with the above preparation, let’s explore the strategies known to help boost customer acquisition.

1. Develop and/or update your SEO strategy to improve search rankings

As discussed earlier, if you are a new brand or company your biggest issue for attracting new customers is awareness and visibility. It’s all about being discovered. Some of the strategies that will follow also improve discovery. But the first place we want to start is making sure that being discovered for “free” – without having to pay for advertising – is in place and being utilized to its fullest. It won’t be your only strategy, but when discovery is critical – SEO is critical. Depending on your advertising budget, SEO can also be critical for established brands.

SEO is a long-term strategy, meaning it takes time to get results that can be analyzed to determine whether it is working or not and/or what needs to be adjusted or changed. This is a repeating cycle. There is no such thing as “set it and forget it.” SEO is a continual work in progress that constantly needs to be analyzed and reformulated as necessary to achieve its desired result – even when it’s working.

Search engines continually update their algorithms, and your competition makes changes as well. It’s an ongoing battle that never ends to stay on top. If you’ve been neglecting your SEO, in some cases, that alone could be the factor that has made you plateau and is preventing you from getting to the next level.

2. Seek to build a social media following

“31% of social media users discover new products through influencers,”– HubSpot Marketing Report

Social media is another place where brands and businesses can attract a large following of new customers, as well as retain existing customers.

There are several important things to be aware of when moving into the realm of social media-seeking customers.

First, each different social media site is a world of its own. It has a set of common behaviors and expectations unique to its audience. Each social media platform leans toward different styles. Thus, a technique or piece of content that works on one platform, may not do as well on another.

Second, it’s important to know what’s a faux pas so that you don’t make a mistake that could hurt your reputation.

Third, a lot of social media is driven by influencers, which we will address in the next strategy.

Fourth, engaging and interactive content tends to perform best on social media.

All concerns aside if you can succeed on social media and achieve a wide reach it can do wonders. Social media success brings even more than a greater audience awareness. These days, lots of people look to their “peers” on social media –other users like themselves, friends, and family – not just influencers. Before buying a product or service they consult their social media “peers” for reviews and recommendations. Your audience may become advocates for your brand. They will tout the benefits of your products or services. They may even write their positive reviews. In essence, it’s getting extra marketing help from your audience.

3. Creating partnership programs

“Increasing influencer marketing spending leads to increased engagement,”– University of Washington Study

As previously mentioned, social media “influencers” hold huge sway with audiences. Influencers are one of the best ways to increase audience engagement. That’s one major reason, but not all the reasons that you may want to consider trying to partner with influencers.

The majority of consumers, 42%, look to influencers for how-to content and tutorials.

When a company or brand starts a channel on social media, it may take time to gain the audience’s trust. Typically, people just think companies are there to sell them stuff. It can take a while to have them view you like a “trusted friend.”

Conversely, influencers have already built trust and a large fan base. Partnering with them can transfer trust to your band. Secondly, the reach influencers have can instantly increase your referral base. And if there’s an enticing incentive, you can see your sales shoot up.

By a HubSpot 2024 estimate, for every dollar spent using influencer marketing programs, on average, brands can expect to earn $5.78. According to another report, 21% of brands work with at least 10-50 influencers on a campaign. At least 16% of brands work with 50-100 influencers on their campaigns.

Affiliate Partnerships are another way of working with others to help get your products and services out to large audiences. Affiliates will set up websites for one (or many) of your products and/or services where they will tout its benefits. They may spend money on paid advertising to drive traffic. They will get product testimonials from real people. They may also get on social media and/or do guest posts to try to make a sale for you.

4. Use content marketing and engage consumers with helpful information

“76% of marketers reported that content marketing helped generate leads/demands in 2023,” – Content Marketing Institute

One of the best ways to build authority and authenticity is to build a bond with your customers by being helpful, especially through free content.

This comes back to understanding your customers and their problems/pain points. The next step is to help rid them of these.

The first way to do this is to create content that informs your customers. Educate them on what they need to know. Show them how to solve their problems. Show them everything they can do for free on their own. Make all this information engaging and entertaining by using storytelling.

For the big problems, mention your products and services as the best solution. You can mention your competitor’s products and services as well. However, make sure to show why yours is a little better (even if it costs more, you get what you pay for).

Overall, in your content marketing don’t go for the hard sell. Always put your customer first by being helpful with free content on your website and asking nothing in return. However, for premium downloadable content, you’ll want to ask for an email address for access. You can also take premium content to the next level with how-to videos, downloadable how-to guides, or podcasts.

5. Engage in email marketing

“The ROI on email is $36 for every $1 spent,” – Litmus study

You’re probably already doing this, but it has to be mentioned. Old doesn’t mean dead or even tired when it comes to email. Despite the popularity of push notifications, apps, and social media marketing – email marketing remains a must-have, highly effective marketing channel.

Email is another marketing channel where you can put the act of being helpful to your customers into play. Offer newsletters that contain helpful and educational information that your customers will look forward to receiving every month.

Personalization can also be utilized with newsletters to ensure you’re getting precisely targeted messages to the right audience.

Don’t look at email as something whose success depends on sheer volume. By contrast, email can target your prime buyers. The Pareto Principle comes into play – 20% of your customers represent 80% of your sales (or best sales). You can use email to target those most likely to buy. You can segment your email list to send special offers to your best customers as a method for rewarding them and boosting sales.

6. Create customer loyalty and/or rewards programs

Customer loyalty and rewards programs can keep customers coming back. These programs can also drive new purchases and/or up-sells. “Personalized experiences” can be used both to attract new customers and retain existing customers.

“Early access” offers can entice loyalty/rewards program members to make purchases at a discount or to snap up limited availability products.

These programs can offer other incentives such as giveaways, and contests, or drive engagement through quizzes and polls to earn rewards or loyalty points.

In general, these programs can act as incentives to attract new customers, get them to sign up for offers, as well as encourage existing customers to stay engaged.

7. Running sweepstakes offers

Another powerful way of attracting new and reactivating existing customers is through sweepstakes offers. Sweepstakes can drive new product launches, draw attention to new highlights in your brand, boost purchases, raise sales, and more.

Interest Media is a leader in helping brands and businesses connect to the right audience. We can provide leading expertise on how to run compliant and effective promotions. Interest Media has a wide variety of owned and operated sweepstakes properties geared toward helping publishers and brands boost their ROI.

8. Make post-purchase offers

Done properly, post-purchase offers after the checkout experience are a great way to increase “up-sales” and “cross-sales” opportunities. These generate additional sales to the same customer at a lower incremental cost per sale.

Aim to make your post-purchase offers personalized to get the most effective results possible. If not personalized at the individual level, personalize at the buyer persona level. Match the offers to the wants, needs, and problems of that particular buyer group or demographic.

9. Paid advertising: Partner with a provider with robust targeting solutions

Rather than trying to initiate and launch all of the strategies listed in the previous steps, another solution is to find an advertising partner with robust and powerful tools to help you scale up cost-effectively.

Interest Media specializes in providing unique, audience-centric, omni-channel solutions to help both advertisers and publishers reach audiences in a highly targeted manner. Interest media uses effective, intent-focused marketing. Focusing on user experience and diversification of campaigns, Interest Media has established publisher trust by offering engaging interactions that resonate with customers.

Advertiser Solutions: Successful advertising starts with the positive experience of the consumer. Interest Media is an industry leader that provides data-driven results for advertisers. They engage customers through a network of owned and operated web properties that boast over 100 million fully registered consumers. Through the use of first-party data and consumer insights, Interest Media attracts high-value customers who show a clear connection to your brand. This allows you to reach ideal customers within niche audiences. Best of all, you only pay for real conversions.

Publisher Solutions: Starting with a consumer-centric advertising solution, Interest Media utilizes proprietary first-party data in conjunction with precisely targeted first-party offers. These are combined with real-time optimization that maintains a positive user experience while driving higher earnings. Media publishing companies who partner with Interest Media earn more for their inventory than anyone else in the industry today.

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