How to Build a Robust B2B Customer Acquisition Strategy for Growth

It’s no secret that customers are the key to any business’s success. However, acquiring and retaining customers is becoming increasingly difficult. In fact, customer acquisition costs have risen by a staggering 50% over the past five years!

The problem is that many businesses lack a clearly defined customer acquisition strategy. Instead, they often rely on what they believe is working. As such, it leads to either:

• Underspending on high-performing channels

Or

• Missing out on potential customers in untapped channels

To improve customer acquisition, developing a clear and comprehensive strategy is essential. This guide will walk you through the steps to:

• Generate demand
• Track your spending
• Convert leads into loyal customers

What Is B2B Customer Acquisition?

B2B customer acquisition refers to the process of gaining new business customers. It involves developing a strategy that targets potential customers—likely to benefit from your firm’s products or services.

B2B customer acquisition covers each aspect of the customer journey:

• Generating leads
• Converting them into paying customers
• Retaining their loyalty

To create a successful B2B customer acquisition strategy, you must follow the steps mentioned below:

• Identify your target audience
• Develop targeted marketing campaigns
• Track your spending and ROI
• Offer value to potential customers

By implementing a well-defined B2B customer acquisition strategy, you can attract new customers, retain their loyalty, and improve profitability.

How to Design a Winning B2B Customer Acquisition Strategy?

For ease of planning, we have outlined a set of best practices you should take into account while devising your B2B customer acquisition strategy:

1. Understand the Customer Acquisition Funnel

The customer acquisition funnel visually represents a consumer's stages in the buying process. It involves the phases from gaining awareness of your brand to becoming a paying customer. 

The funnel typically consists of three main stages:

• Top of the funnel (ToFu): At this stage, lead generation occurs. Potential customers become aware of your brand and products or services.

• Middle of the funnel (MoFu): Lead acquisition occurs here. Potential customers start considering your product or service as a solution to their problem or need.

• Bottom of the funnel (BoFu): In this stage, lead conversion happens. Potential customers become paying customers of your business.

Customer acquisition encompasses the entire funnel, including:

• Lead generation
• Lead acquisition
• Lead conversion

It involves attracting strangers to your brand and converting them into visitors, leads, and , ultimately, customers. 

Note: Some organizations may consider customer acquisition only at the top and middle of the funnel. The bottom demands customized strategies, such as lead scoring and closing tactics, to convert customers successfully. However, B2B customer acquisition refers to the entirety of the funnel. 

Here’s how you can use multiple approaches as per the funnel stage:

Awareness

• External Marketing: Promoting the product or service through various marketing channels such as social media, advertising, content marketing, and email marketing.

Consideration

• Cross-sells And Upsells: Offering customers complementary products or services to what they have already purchased or upgrading them to a higher-priced product or service.

• Frequency: Encouraging customers to make repeat purchases by offering incentives, rewards, or loyalty programs.

Decision

• Sales: Closing the deal by converting a potential customer into a paying customer.

• Retention: Keeping existing customers engaged and satisfied with the product or service to ensure they return for future purchases.

2. Master B2B Customer Acquisition Marketing

Next, you must focus on designing an effective advertising and promotion strategy – specifically targeting consumers already considering your company's products/services. It’s called acquisition marketing. 

Now, it differs from other forms of marketing because it focuses on those consumers who are already aware of your brand. As such, they may be likelier to convert into paying customers.

In addition, consider digital acquisition marketing to make the most of your strategy. It’s a popular approach that utilizes online channels such as:

• Organic search
• Social media
• Display advertisements 

– to target and attract new customers. 

To develop a robust digital acquisition strategy, your marketing and customer services teams must collaborate in alignment. 

• Your marketing team is responsible for creating and releasing promotional materials. 

• On the contrary, customer service is critical in retaining and turning customers into loyal brand advocates.

When potential customers visit your company's website, they may passively browse the promotional material created by marketing. However, direct communication with a customer service team member makes them more inclined to be swayed.

For instance, they will interact with a customer support representative if they use your website’s live chat feature or reach out via social media. 

Therefore, the customer service team has the same ability as the marketing team to acquire and retain new customers.

To capture potential customers’ interest and convert them, your marketing team can consider several customer acquisition channels, such as:

• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing

You can improve your customer acquisition strategies by mastering these channels and working collaboratively with the customer service team. Plus, you can generate more leads, ultimately turning into paying customers.

3. Choose Your Acquisition Channels

Customer acquisition channels refer to those platforms you use to promote your products/ services among customers. As such, choosing the proper channels is vital. This choice depends on multiple factors:

• Target audience
• Available resources
• The overall B2B customer acquisition strategy

You can break down your customer acquisition methods into different types – paid and free, inbound and outbound, etc. Here are some commonly used channels for acquiring new customers:

4. Generate Demand to Acquire Customers

A demand generation framework for acquiring B2B customers is specially designed to create interest in a product or service well before the actual sales process. This is where demand generation comes into play.

Demand generation involves an integrated approach to marketing and sales. It targets the right audience and uses effective marketing techniques to:

• Increase brand awareness
• Boost high-value sales opportunities
• Multiply the win rate
• Shorten the sales cycle
• Drive revenue growth

You must deeply understand your target audience to create a successful demand generation strategy. Plus, you must identify your customer’s pain points. 

Additionally, you must create compelling content that speaks to your Ideal Customer Profile's (ICP) requirements and pain points.

The stages of effective demand generation include:

• Demand Creation: Identifying the common pain points of ideal customers and leveraging various marketing channels to create demand for the products or services
  
  The content used to create demand should be persuasive. As such, you can use techniques such as storytelling, social proof, information gap theory, empathy, and trust building.
  
  Setting clear objectives and goals is also essential in creating a successful demand-creation strategy.

• Demand Capture: Converting an audience already aware of or searching for your business's solutions.
  
  You must choose the proper channels and tactics, such as paid ads, intent data, content hubs, social selling, and email marketing, to capture this demand effectively.
  
  By analyzing metrics like cost-per-click and landing page performance, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize their demand capture strategy.

• Demand Management: Planning, coordinating, and managing customer requirements, sales, and marketing efforts. Project management software like Trello and Asana can help organize demand management tasks and processes.
  
  In addition, efficient CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot can help manage, track, and organize relationships with prospects and customers in a unified manner.
  
  Using these tools, you can effectively manage your demand and customize offerings based on user behavior, customer longevity, and interactions.

5. Develop an Enticing Pricing Strategy

Your product's pricing strategy is effective for B2B customer acquisition. In fact, you can implement it across all marketing channels. 

By setting the right price, you can naturally attract customers who may be interested later. 

You can offer freemium software. It can help you gain more customers. Why? Buyers can try the product before committing to a subscription. 

Similarly, you can offer promotions such as "Buy One, Get One Free" for consumer products. Again, it can incentivize customers to purchase and expand your customer base.

6. Utilize Social Media 

Social media has revolutionized the way businesses connect with their audience. However, it can also be time-consuming and ineffective if not done correctly. That’s why having a well-thought-out social media strategy is essential for your business to grow and succeed.

To begin, define your target audience. Knowing who your customers are will help you determine which social media platforms to focus on. 

For example, let’s say your target audience is primarily women. Then, Pinterest and Instagram would be better platforms to invest in. Why? They have a predominantly female user base.

Once you have identified your target audience, you can develop a social media plan that caters to their interests and needs. It includes:

• Deciding on your brand voice, which should be consistent across all platforms
• Identifying who will be responsible for managing your social media accounts

Plus, always have a crisis plan in place. Social media can be unpredictable. As such, a negative comment or post can quickly go viral. A plan to address negative comments and feedback will help you avoid a public relations disaster.

Moreover, social media management tools should be used to ensure effective social media efforts. These tools can help you:

• Curate and post content on your networks
• Track your analytics
• Engage with your audience

7. Calculate and Optimize CAC

Customer acquisition cost, or CAC, implies the expenses incurred by a business when acquiring new customers. These costs can include:

• Marketing expenses
• Event expenditures
• Advertising investment

Calculating the CAC for a specific campaign or window of time is essential. Why? It helps:

• Assign real value to your marketing efforts
• Measure return on investment (ROI)

The high-level formula for calculating CAC is:

For your better understanding,

• MC = Marketing costs associated with a specific campaign
• CA = Number of customers acquired from that campaign

To get a more accurate picture of CAC, you should include all costs associated with marketing spend, such as:

• Campaign spend
• Marketing salaries
• Overhead costs

For example, the more in-depth formula for calculating CAC would look like this: 

Calculate your CAC using this formula within a specific time window, such as one month or fiscal year.

Remember: CAC is a critical metric to calculate. However, it should not be the only number used to evaluate your marketing efforts. 

Some factors may skew the CAC, such as:

• The frequency of customer purchases
• Timing of marketing investments 

Now, to minimize your CAC, you can:

• Improve your website conversion efforts
• Boost the value of current customers
• Adjust and optimize your B2B customer acquisition strategy

For example, you can boost your website conversion efforts by:

• Enhancing calls-to-action

• Ensuring your site is mobile and tablet responsive

• Optimizing landing pages

• Improving copywriting 

• Implementing lead gen A/B testing

Plus, you can enhance the value of current customers by:

• Releasing a new product or upgrade
• Encouraging customer referrals
• Creating customer promoters

Finally, you can adjust and optimize your customer acquisition strategies by:

• Cutting back on extra marketing spending
• Finding newer, cheaper channels to invest in
• Staying up-to-date with marketing trends

8. Monitor Your LTV

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is a powerful metric. It measures the estimated net profit a customer will provide over their lifetime as a paying customer. 

LTV can help you:

• Identify the types of customers that provide the most value

And

• Refine your customer acquisition strategy accordingly

To calculate customer LTV, you must define key metrics such as:

• The average purchase value
• The purchase frequency

Even if these numbers are estimates, they can still help you predict the approximate revenue a customer will generate over their relationship with your business. 

With defined LTV and CAC, you can determine how long it takes to replace each investment in acquiring new customers. Hence, you can make more informed decisions on allocating acquisition budgets.

Customers with high LTV are more expensive to acquire. However, they provide the most value regarding revenue, feedback, and referrals. 

Therefore, by understanding the needs of these high-value customers, you can improve retention rates and generate more revenue. In addition, LTV provides a precise valuation of your marketing and support efforts, helping you make better decisions.

To improve LTV, providing a positive customer experience and building strong relationships with your customers is essential. It can include:

• Offering personalized support
• Providing value-added services
• Incentivizing loyalty through exclusive offers and promotions

By prioritizing LTV, you can optimize your customer acquisition efforts. Thus, you can build a sustainable, profitable business long-term.

9. Decrease Customer Churn Rate

It's not enough to acquire customers. It’s also necessary to keep them happy and satisfied. One way to do this is by reducing the customer churn rate – the percentage of customers who stop doing business with your company. 

Currently, churn is the driving force behind acquiring new customers. However, now, it's time to change the narrative. Stop relying solely on customer acquisition to make up for churn. Instead, focus on reducing churn by improving customer satisfaction and retention.

In fact, customer retention is a powerful acquisition tool. When customers are happy, they are likelier to:

• Remain loyal to your business
• Provide valuable feedback
• Refer their friends and family to your products or services

Therefore, invest in customer service methods that prioritize customer satisfaction and retention. It can include:

• Providing personalized experiences
• Responding quickly to customer inquiries
• Offering loyalty programs or incentives

By prioritizing customer retention, you can create a strong foundation for your business that allows for sustainable growth. Instead of constantly chasing new customers to replace those lost to churn, you can focus on building long-term relationships with your current customers. 

It can lead to:

• Increased revenue
• Reduced marketing costs
• A positive reputation that organically attracts new customers

10. Optimize Your Website 

Your website should not merely be about catching customers' attention. It should also be about providing a simple and engaging user experience. 

Customers should be able to find what they need quickly and easily. Plus, they must be able to make informed decisions about whether your product or service is right for them. 

As such, a customer-centric digital experience can make all the difference in converting potential customers into paying ones.

Again, the mobile experience is a critical aspect of the digital experience. With the rise of mobile browsing, it's crucial to have a responsive mobile website designed with customers in mind. 

The mobile experience should be simple and easy to navigate. Additionally, it should allow potential customers to:

• Connect with a sales representative
• Sign up for a free trial
• Receive a demo
• Contact customer service

When designing a digital experience, keep the customer in mind. Then, design the experience not just as a path to purchase but as a path to purpose. 

It's about making sales and being transparent, honest, and helpful. A simple and engaging digital experience that caters to the customer can help acquire and retain new customers. Hence, it ultimately leads to a more successful business.

11. Align Your Cross-functional Teams

Your B2B customer acquisition strategy demands the active involvement of various teams to move prospects through each stage successfully. 

As such, by aligning the efforts of creative, marketing, sales, and customer success teams, you can increase your chances of converting prospects into paying customers.

• Creative Teams: They use various advertising and digital campaigns to capture the attention of potential customers. 

• Marketing Teams: Next, your marketing department takes over. They provide helpful content resources, such as blog posts, webinars, or email newsletters, to engage with different types of customers and prospects.

• Sales Teams: They are responsible for receiving leads and prospects generated by creative and marketing activities. They then work to close the deal by emphasizing why their product or company is the best choice for the customer. 

• Customer Success Teams: Once a prospect becomes a paying customer, the customer success team ensures the customer has a positive experience with the company. This department is instrumental in retention, customer loyalty, and reducing customer churn.

By working together, these teams can streamline the customer acquisition process and increase the chances of success. With each team playing its part, you can reduce customer churn and build strong relationships. 

Conclusion

Revitalize your B2B customer acquisition strategy by combining various tactics for maximum impact. By experimenting with different strategies, you'll gain valuable insights about your audience and uncover new approaches to enhance your current process. Continuously analyze, improve, and adapt based on customer response and changing market trends – to ensure sustained success. 

Ready to revolutionize your customer acquisition efforts? Contact Revnew now and let our experts guide you toward achieving exceptional results. Revnew is your trusted partner that provides expert guidance and cutting-edge solutions to drive remarkable B2B lead generation results.