Here are 4 factors I use to evaluate the best customer acquisition channels,
#1 Growth Potential: How much revenue can this particular channel create over time?
This is a big reason for content marketing and SEO to be the preferred acquisition channel for a lot of companies. It has a huge market reach – that of all relevant Google (and other search engine) users – usually bigger than any other marketing channel.
#2 Investment: To acquire an increasing number of customers what is the investment needed? How many resources, how much time and how much will it cost?
For example: Video is now considered a must-have content format, however, the costs of running a full-fledged video channel are often prohibitive for companies.
#3 Odds & Risks: Competition, technical challenges, learning curve and so on. What are the chances that this channel won’t work out as planned? And how much of loss would that incur?
For example: If a bigger competitor already dominates a particular channel, then you would need a distinct plan to make your presence felt and generate traction on it.
#4 Result Duration: When will you see results?
Channels like paid ads, influencer engagement and partnerships have some of the quickest acquisition time. One or more of these activities can be a part of your marketing mix to ensure consistent leads and customer flow. When other channels fall short, you can quickly generate business through these channels.
Another key factor to consider right at the beginning is the business objective. Usually, you want increased acquisition but sometimes there may be other priorities for your business like pivoting the brand or building trust after a merger and so on.
Two More Parameters To Consider
Recently, I came across a detailed blog post by Brian Balfour on the same topic. He has considered two more parameters which I found to be very relevant,
targeting – whether the channel allows you to target the user as precisely as you require.
For example: when companies want to target high net income groups of people, Linkedin lends itself well, you can target C-suite of large companies who by inference are HNIs. Even though it may be a B2C brand and more suited for Facebook or Instagram.
control/ownership – how much do you own or control the channel?
Channels like Facebook, Instagram often change their algorithms as it suits the platform health. This often hits businesses badly. So it is worth investing in channels which are largely owned by you and hence you can rely it for long term.
For example: having your own self-hosted blog instead of only one one on medium. Or building a private referral program.
Diversifying your acquisition channels is also a good step to ensure that your business continues even though one of the channel gets hit.
Summary,
Depending on your business situation, you need to evaluate each acquisition channel on these parameters. And select a few who are most suited for your purpose at the time.
Early stage startups may require quick customer acquisition so they need not focus on channels like SEO that are best for long term growth. (Though there are ways to use SEO content marketing for short term gains also).
Bootstrapped startups with small budgets need to look at the channels with the lowest cost and resource investment.
Depending on your business needs and constraints, pick the best channels for you.
3 Customer Acquisition Channels Cheat Sheet [Free Download]
In this report, I have evaluated 3 of the most popular acquisition channels for businesses,
-> SEO Content Marketing
-> Social Media Marketing
-> Email Engagement
You can use this analysis as a guide to analyse other channels for your business.
I also plan to add more channel evaluations to this report. If you have signed up, I will update you when I do so.
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