Content-Driven Customer Acquisition Strategies

Any business's lifeblood is customer acquisition. It is the engine behind any marketing strategy or overall business growth.

It is also very competitive and expensive. In the six years since 2006, customer acquisition cost (CAC), has increased by more than 60%. Sounds daunting, right?

In today's digitally saturated marketplace where every company has a website, blog, paid ads, social media and more, it's certainly a challenge. Every company has websites, blogs and paid ads. These same channels also offer an opportunity to attract new customers with content, and not just any content.

This is high-quality, user-focused content that is SEO optimized and unique. It will grab attention and convert web visitors to paying customers.

Digital content is an important part of any company's business strategy. However, fewer companies are focusing on quality content that performs and not the junk most companies produce.

Every day, we are seeing results with our clients. We have seen that being smart about content can help you get more customers faster, more affordably, as well as quicker than your competitors.

Are you ready to learn how? Let's get started.

Quick Takeaways

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  Great content is a powerful tool for customer acquisition. It builds brand trust and drives purchase decisions.
  
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  Optimize your content strategy to increase customer acquisition by creating content that is relevant for each stage of the buyer's journey.
  
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  Brands have the opportunity to capitalize on existing content. They can optimize their most successful posts and webpages by
  
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  Capturing contact information is the key to acquiring high-value content such as lead magnets.
  
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  Social proof can be another key factor in building brand trust. It assures customers that your brand will live up to its promises.
  

The connection between customer acquisition and content

As smart as savvy businesses that use digital opportunities to convert customers, customers are also smart when it comes choosing brands and making purchase decisions. To capture their attention, traditional marketing techniques such as catchy slogans and salesy language are no longer sufficient.

What is the solution to this dilemma? This is why customer acquisition has become so crucial to content.

Consumers don't just want the most popular marketing slogan, they also want brands they can trust. 81% of consumers consider brand trust to be an important factor in making their purchasing decisions, according to research. It was rated higher than any other attribute or factor of a company, apart from product quality and value.

Research shows that thought leadership content is a great way to win new customers.

Image Source: Edeleman

The same study also found that 76% of consumers pay attention when ads are from trusted brands, while only 48% do so for brands they don’t trust.

Where can consumers find the trust they so value? Your content. Your content.

Why Customer Acquisition is Keyed to Content

Content vs. Ads

Marketing is often viewed as a form of advertising. It is the distracting stuff that interrupts what you are trying to digest. What is the Superbowl like? We're going to serve 3 ads first. What is Forbes' article? We're not going to pop-up an advertisement for something that you don't want. Ads don't work. Everyone knows this. Marketing is what most people believe it to be.

Content marketing is the type of content that actually benefits people. This is what marketing should be. Marketing's primary goal is to attract new customers.

Content marketing works because it's written by people for people. Content marketing works because it's designed to educate, share experiences, and drive you forward. Because content marketing is a way to acquire new customers, it works well. Its goal is not to sell but to help.

Content for search, email and social

Do you want to rank in search engines? ChatGPT is not the best tool to rank for search engines. To rank in search engines, all you need is to answer the keyword search intent and the questions that your buyers are asking.

It works in email and social media when you have content that ranks well. You see, search still matters! Alot.

Content ROI

Okay, we are now really getting into this. Content marketing is a great way to acquire customers. Marketing statistics show that content marketing leads are 62% cheaper than traditional marketing. Because content marketing attracts and converts new customers at a lower cost, it is more effective.

Our content marketing platform at SAP generated $7 in revenue per dollar spent. This is a 7X ROI. What was the ROI of marketing the rest of the time? Around 1x. Marketing barely paid for itself. (To be fair, marketing didn't "credit" the pipeline we had influenced with hundreds of millions of dollars.

Paid Content

A lot is being said about AI taking over content market. While we have proven this nonsense to be false, it is true that organic acquisitions are becoming more difficult than ever. Paid content acquisition can be a way to complement organic content acquisition.

I am not referring to banner ads with 99 problems, a click isn't one. Paid content marketing is what I am referring to. We use the best content from our clients and spread it around the internet. We then re-target these readers with offers at later stages.

Our CPC is 90% lower than the industry average, and our click through rates are 20x higher. Paid content marketing is also a great way to acquire customers!

How to Ace Customer Acquisition With Content

Align your Content to the Buyer Journey

It is common to hear that all traffic is good traffic for website visitors. This can be true to a certain extent, especially if your company is young and your primary goal is increasing awareness. However, you must be intentional when it comes to generating customer acquisition through content.

This means that your content should be matched up to your buyer's journey.

Your buyer will move through the sales funnel and the content they are looking for will change. A person searching for a product or service on Google is most likely seeking more information. Content like your top-of the-funnel blog posts will be very relevant.

A whitepaper or case study might prove to be more convincing for someone who is later in the buying process.

This is a visual that will help you to think about which content belongs in each stage.

Image Source Hubspot

You should always think of these two things when aligning your content and the buyer journey.

• Potential buyers can get the information they require at their current stage.

• Include a call to action (CTA), or any other motivator, to get them to the next stage in the buyer journey

Take your blog seriously

Your blog is the core of your content marketing strategy. It is great to know you need a website. Most companies have one. It's not enough just to publish content, even if it is relevant to your industry, and hope it will be successful.

Blog content should be consistent and customer-focused. Be very intentional about your blog content. You can use categories to organize your content according to your content goals, customer search intent, and buyer journey.

Start with keyword research and an audit of your current content. Then, build on that. You can find more information in our guide to choosing the right blog categories and content topics.

Your blog can be set up for success by combining content optimization strategies with careful attention to technical details that support your blog's performance, such as blog visibility on your main navigation and using article page templates.

Or maybe you just need a weekly blog service?

Optimize Your Best-Performing Content

Optimizing your best content can be a low-hanging fruit strategy to increase customer acquisition. Your efforts have already paid off. The content is driving traffic to your site and performing well.

It's now time to make it even more effective by converting that traffic into leads or sales.

Here are some ways to optimize your best content.

• Use tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush to search for your domain.
• To access a list with keywords that you rank for, and the URLs to them, click on "organic keywords".

Once you have a clear picture of which content is performing well, dive deeper using the other tools available on these platforms and your own research. Make sure that they are as optimized as possible. Ensure they rank for the correct keywords, and that you have strategies in place to capture visitor data (such as CTAs, gated content, subscription forms, etc.).

We love to update articles that have been performing well. This is one of our favorite tricks. This article was originally published in 2018, but it has been updated with the most recent stats, links, and information. These are some ways to update your posts.

Use high-value, gated content to your advantage

Lead magnets are gated content. They capture visitors' information and offer them something of high value in return. Although there are many types of gated content, they all offer something more valuable than the content your visitors have access to in free content.

If your blog discusses why content audits matter, your gated content might be a PDF guide for conducting a content audit.

Whitepapers, ebooks, checklists and templates are some of the most popular (and most effective) forms of gated content.

Make videos

Online users are increasingly looking for video content. Brands are responding by using video in their marketing strategies (86% of companies use it). Cisco predicts that video will make up 82% of all internet traffic by next year.

The good news is: The good news is that you don't have to spend a lot of money on video production equipment in order to create great videos that will drive customer acquisition.

Smartphones are being used by most companies and people all over the globe to capture and share high-quality videos. It is easy to create social media stories that make your brand more visible to customers. You can grow your video skills (or have more resources) as you improve.

You can also try vlogging, live events online, webinars and user-generated video (sharing video of customers engaging with your brand/product).

Demonstrate social proof

To acquire new customers, social media is not enough. However, it can help you acquire customers through content marketing.

Are you looking for testimonials and reviews when buying a product? So does everyone else! Research has shown that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Buyers often read hundreds of reviews before purchasing.

Social proof can be used to increase customer acquisition by including it in your content. Here are some of the best ways you can do this:

• Include testimonials and reviews on your website
• Sharing case studies that show your success with customers is a great way to demonstrate this.
• Sharing user-generated content, such as online reviews or product photos and videos.

Your potential customers can trust social proof to prove that you will keep your word. This is often what a customer considers when making a purchase decision. Social proof content can be integrated into customer acquisition strategies to increase conversion rates and drive sales.

Get customer acquisition content to grow your business

Marketing Insider Group can help you publish content that drives results. Marketing Insider Group can provide ready-to-publish content every week for up to a year. Our Content Builder Service provides a custom strategy to help you get it.

To get started, schedule a quick consultation today!