Your Guide To Mastering Customer Acquisition

In a world where top brands are building their audience online and driving their business in stores, let's dive into how you can stay ahead of the curve. Becoming a leading emerging brand in the industry is all about how quickly you can expand your reach and acquire new customers. So, let's break it down.

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What is Customer Acquisition?

Customer acquisition is all about transforming prospects into paying customers. It involves every step from the moment they first hear about your brand to the point they make a purchase. For modern brands, balancing online engagement and in-store sales is key.

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Trade Spend: A Double-Edged Sword

Trade spend, often your second-largest expense, is critical yet tricky. Historically, it's been used to boost sales velocities through payments to retailers or distributors. However, this approach offers no visibility into who’s actually buying your products. To make the most of your trade spend:

• Allocate a portion of your budget to customer acquisition and brand-owned programs.
• Avoid spending 100% on programs that don’t provide consumer data.

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The Post-Covid CAC Conundrum

The post-Covid era, coupled with iOS14 changes, has spiked online customer acquisition costs (CAC). With a push towards retail, brands are navigating a shift from full visibility in DTC (direct-to-consumer) channels to limited visibility in retail. But don't worry, there are solutions!

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Digital Rebates: Empowering Brands

Traditional print coupons should remain in your toolkit, but digital rebates offer a powerful alternative, enabling brands to own consumer data. Digital rebates entice customers to move from online to in-store, offering free products to drive trial and awareness.

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What Digital Rebates Are Not:

• Not a velocity cure-all
• Not a savior for struggling brands
• Not a 1:1 substitute for traditional trade spend programs

What Digital Rebates Are:

• An audience-building tool
• A strategy to own parts of your trade spend
• A top-of-funnel hack to reduce CAC
• A conversion tool for both online and in-store channels

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Getting Rebates In Front of Shoppers

To maximize the impact of digital rebates:

• Target shoppers through social media ads.
• Deliver rebates directly to your audience.
• Use platforms with large shopper bases.
• Utilize QR codes for in-store events.

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Types of Offers and Use Cases

Consider these rebate offers to attract customers:

• Free Product
• Buy One Get One (BOGO)
• Dollar Off

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Reducing Customer Acquisition Costs

To effectively reduce CAC:

• Prioritize targeting relevant and appropriate audiences.
• Focus on key regions.
• Create lookalike audiences to find customers with similar interests.
• Offer strong incentives like a FREE item instead of a mere discount.
• Retarget audiences with each new offer.

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Understanding Lifetime Value (LTV)

LTV measures the value of a customer to your brand over time. Engaging high-value customers multiple times a year is crucial. Here’s how to maintain and grow this value:

• Ask for feedback after rebate campaigns.
• Keep customers informed with newsletters and updates.
• Retarget newly acquired customers with fresh offers.
• Nurture your audience to build long-term relationships.

It's important to remember that the audience you build through rebate programs is as important as the immediate sales they generate.

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Want to learn more? We'd love to chat. Book time with us here and we'll transform your customer acquisition strategy together!