Social Media & The Power of Customer Acquisition
Customer Acquisition is the ultimate goal of every business; the more clients you gain, the more it helps your bottom line. However, traditional ways of acquiring new clients, like cold-calling, are becoming more and more obsolete. Luckily, that’s where social media comes in.
Social media has changed the way companies are acquiring customers. Companies are now using a new method called social customer acquisition. Social customer acquisition is about getting potential leads engaged in your product and/or service and the community you’re created around you on different social media channels. It goes way beyond selling and focuses on creating long-lasting relationships; relationships that over time can turn customers into brand advocates. Social customer acquisition is sometimes referred to as social selling by sales professionals.
First Steps of Customer Acquisition Through Social Media
Begin your journey of social customer acquisition by monitoring your different social networks, and segmenting your client base. If you're just starting out, begin by monitoring just your profile and taking a look at key phrases and words that clients use while talking about your brand.
By doing this, you are able to have insights into what clients think about your brand and the products that you are offering. You can also learn a lot about your competitors; all the things you wouldn’t be able to find out otherwise. It’s a golden opportunity to understand your potential clients better and offer them a tailored solution that can help you acquire them successfully.
Monitoring mentions with the right keywords can work wonders and can very often be more effective than other promotional campaigns. A brand that is reaching their clients via social media is very often more visible than one using regular ads and sponsored banners.
Acquiring Customers Using Social Media Monitoring
There are a few ways of using Social Media Monitoring which can help you in building long-lasting relationships, spreading awareness about your brand or product and eventually assist you in turning social media users into your steady customers.
Looking at social mentions is a great source of valuable information on the crucial changes you have to make to your site and/or product. By monitoring social media channels, you can improve your product by learning about your strong and weak points. It’s also a great overview of your clients’ sentiment and people that know your brand only through your other clients’ opinions. Once you tailor your product or service to the clients that expressed their dissatisfaction with it, you’re likely to get them back and also retain the existing customers who probably were also becoming frustrated with what you were offering to them. Your are also likely to acquire new clients who heard from their friends about your exclusive approach towards your customers.
Once you start monitoring the internet you can also learn about the sources and channels through which your potential and current clients are exchanging information about their needs and expectations regarding sought-for services and solutions. Reaching out to clients who are looking for solutions to their problems and helping them out without asking for anything in return can work wonders for your brand’s awareness and client acquisition. Potentially, by providing them with special offers or discounts, you can also speed up their decision process on buying a product from you and not your competitor.
Another source of clients are your competitors’ ones. Looking at your competitor’s social media channels will give you a lot of knowledge about their actions and direction in which they’re going. By monitoring social networks, you will also be able to find the opinions that their satisfied and unsatisfied clients left online about them. Negativity, for instance, can draw your attention to what your competitor’s (your potential) clients are missing and act on that to acquire them.
Lastly, finding the influencers in your niche and reaching out to them is something you shouldn't forget to do. Building customer loyalty takes time, but once you regularly create high-quality content that people engage with and find valuable, you should achieve success. Influencer outreach, i.e. connecting with popular bloggers or content writers, can help you in reaching a broader audience which that way you will have an opportunity to acquire.
To sum up, monitoring social media can truly help your bottom line when it comes to acquiring new customers. Not only is it cost-effective and pretty simple to implement, but also it can bring you some truly amazing results. Your clients’ happiness and satisfaction should be your ultimate goal and by using social media, you can acquire them smoothly by providing them with exclusive treatment that they will surely want to get again, and also recommend to their friends.