Acquiring new customers is just as important as retaining the current base that you have. I apologize for stating something that may seem obvious but how exactly does this “magic” happen? It’s really nothing more than knowing your audience. Wow! That was simple to say but is it really that simple? The truth is (as I am sure you’ve guessed) that it’s not. Just as we saw this year, everything is constantly changing, so did the behaviors of your audience. Remember your friend from high school? Do they still act the same as they did over a decade ago? I sure hope not but that’s a topic for a different audience. Also I am sure a global pandemic didn’t help. Again, a topic for a different audience.

Communication is key

How are you primarily communicating with your audience? Email? Social media? Online website forum? Your customer Sally from Newark, DE prefers Facebook while Ronnie from Allegany, NY prefers email. While, yes, they are both your customers - it doesn’t mean that it’s a one and done to be used across all mediums. Cultivating the perfect message for that specific audience in that specific moment in time for that specific medium will benefit not only your current audience but that new one that you are also trying to obtain.

Taking a small sample of the population, testing out the messaging and then finally reaching that audience will help significantly in communicating effectively.

Ok, so now you can communicate with your audience but does this mean that you know and understand your audience? Not entirely, but communicating effectively definitely helps. Without the testing, this would have been truly just guesswork that we don’t have the time, money, and resources just to shoot from the hip on this.

Learning your audience

Customer acquisition can seem like quite the daunting task. You want new customers but how do you get them? Well, there are a couple ways to approach this and honestly, it won’t hurt to execute all of them.

One of the easiest is to create a “lookalike audience” on Facebook for a Facebook campaign. Facebook’s algorithm for the lookalike audience basically takes the behaviors from your current audience (that you would have to provide to them) and then targets ones that appear similar.

But, have you learned anything about your audience with this approach? Not really - but you are targeting the right group so that is a plus.

Facebook has a number of great audience tools that can be utilized - including audience insights. Running an engagement campaign for your current audience, reviewing the audience insights from those that engaged, and then targeting those exact behaviors for an acquisition campaign. A campaign like this would be targeting those exact characteristics and behaviors of the audience that you want. While the initial engagement campaign may seem tedious - the end results and information learned will be beneficial in the long run.

Another option for learning your audience is to simply send out a survey to your current audience, asking the questions that you would like to confirm (never assume anything) or learn about them. Keep in mind though, using this, will only provide information on the customers that engage and respond. The silent majority (the fact of the matter is that it is a majority) likely won’t ever respond to a survey but that’s ok. Not entirely bad, because likely, you want to know and replicate that audience that is engaging.

*Now that you know about your current audience and your desired audience, read the electronic room, and start engaging. *

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