In this fast-paced disruptive-led world we live in, any business owner can easily say that retaining and acquiring new and existing customers is the name of the game. Innovative apps, products and services easily take up the top space for downloads on virtual stores and yet – not more than a week or a month after, similar versions come along and steal all the customers!

 

Sure, not every business is an app, a website or a unique piece of software. Brick and Mortar stores are still popping up and people are coming up with more reasons to go to the mall. However, as much as we hate to admit, any established industry is under the threat of disruption and there are many ways to retain and acquire consumers that will patronize your service or product. So the question is, what is an effective way to acquire customers that will prefer your business over never-ending competition that comes around every now and then?

 

The answer is quite tricky due to the overwhelming number of published content talking about the topic – but it doesn’t mean it’s not possible. With some hard work and dedication, you can get customers to know who you are and that’s the best place to start.

 

Here are some of the most mentioned topics on customer acquisition:

 

• Email Marketing
• Blogging
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• UX/UI Design
• …and so much more

 

So let’s get to it.

 

Email Marketing

In a study conducted by The Radicati Group it is estimated that there will be more than 3.8 billion people in the world using email accounts by the end of 2019. This means that half of the world uses their email and if your business utilizes online channels, then you know that this is not a subject you should tread lightly.

 

Although most of the time we don’t really read emails that are sent to us by companies and it may seem impossible to make an effective campaign; there are a lot of tools available online to help you keep track of your email marketing performance. There is a good number of email marketing software available on the market and most of them let you know the percentage of opened emails and unopened emails!

 

Blogging

Companies have been utilizing the blogging platform for quite some time now as it has been proven to be an effective way to build brand awareness. In a recent e-commerce statistic report, it was found that nearly 80% of companies nowadays use blogging as an integral part of their marketing strategy to acquire new customers. In the same report, 82% of companies believe that blogging is critical to their business.

 

Blogging builds the brand in the digital world and more often than not, it establishes your business as a leader in your industry. This can happen by providing high-quality and relevant content religiously, which then builds trust and establishes your expertise in the industry. You never know, but by churning out high-quality content your blog might be the preferred “go to” resource which will of course, increase leads and conversion rates – and new customers.

 

Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is an essential part of the process. Without it, your website won’t be able to fulfil its function and users will not visit your page – because they won’t see it on Google, Yahoo, or Bing!

 

Since the internet is full of information, customers nowadays do their research more than before. Whether it’s a product or a service, they don’t easily trust all the reviews that go out and opt out to what captures their attention instead. Organic search makes this happen. As a customer searches the internet for a product or a service they want or need to use, having that top spot on the search result page gives the best chances for your website to get noticed and acquire new customers.

 

There are a number of elements that go with SEO that make it hard to learn, but there are a lot of professionals out there who can do this for you. It may not be cheap in some parts of the world but it is definitely worth the budget and it will surely help your business stay noticed in the long run.

 

 

User Experience

Say that your blogging and SEO come to play and they’re successful, but users who visit your site often leave at first glance which means that your conversions are low. The possible reason for this is a poor user experience and website design.

 

Your website is the digital representation of your business and the higher the quality it projects the more trust it builds with customers. Even if you have great content on your blog as well as updated SEO practices – if the user experience is ineffective then you’re just wasting time.

 

Having a good user experience means that your business knows what your customers like. A good user experience should be data-driven and constantly evolving to keep up with the fast-growing demands, just like SEO and blogging. Sure, you might get attention in one way or another with the number of channels available online for your marketing – but retaining that attention is where UX comes in.

 

‘The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.’ – Jerry Gregoire

 

Quality above all.

At the end of the day, it does not matter how much content you pump out or how much money you spend on online ads – it all boils down to quality. Quality is synonymous to transparency in this context as it is to personalisation and user experience. The more you think about your customers and the service you are delivering, the more likely your data will be promising. A good example is the Pampers vs. Domino’s app comparison.

 

Pampers came up with an app called Hello Baby. Though Pampers is already a well-known brand, anybody would expect that its new app would perform greatly from the start – it didn’t happen. The app required women to connect to Facebook which would then post details of their pregnancy on their news feed – nobody wanted that. Eventually, it was evident that the app was a marketing campaign to create value over social media and it did not go well with the users. Hello Baby does not exist anymore.

 

Domino’s, on the other hand, was not a well-performing pizza brand and when they came out with their mobile application. They focused more on utility, user experience and a reliable mobile app. Today, the Domino’s app has been downloaded for more than 6 million times and has a 5-star rating on the Apple Store.

 

The gist is; if you’re writing a blog then its best take more time to generate less content. If you’re planning on executing a digital ad campaign then you better make sure it is personable, relevant and memorable. Whatever it is you’re trying to do online, it has to be of high quality for it to stand out in this highly competitive, digital world – and physical world.

 

Delivering on your promise.

One thing that’s important in this age of technology and e-commerce is the actual service customers get in the physical world. Yes, that’s right – it’s delivery. The better your delivery system is, the better the service you provide to your customers.

 

In a survey conducted by Zoom2u it was found that 57% of Australians say their expectations towards delivery options have increased over the past 5 years and that 67% of Australians expect to receive the same day delivery experience from businesses no matter how local or global the business is. It was also found that almost half of Australians are influenced by delivery options when it came to making a purchase or not.

 

In a study conducted by UPS, it was reported that 72% of online shoppers are satisfied to see expected delivery dates when purchasing a product and that 48% feel that guaranteed delivery dates are important when checking out online. Delivery options are so important when purchasing online that 46% of online shoppers abandon a shopping cart when the shipping time is too long or not provided!

 

The main reason for this phenomenon is that even though shopping online is more convenient for most of us, its convenience actually hinders time-sensitive personal reasons that never existed before when it was all brick and mortar shops.

 

We live in a world where instant gratification is attainable in a matter of clicks but without quality  instant delivery, it can never be a home-run strategy for acquiring and retaining new customers.

Zoom2u’s B2B and B2C delivery solutions are curated for businesses to succeed in this new, highly competitive age. Learn more on how we do that here.