You’ve got products to sell – where are the customers? Today’s blog takes a look at the ever-important topic of driving traffic and converting shoppers to customers – marketing acquisition.

Build it and they will come… that rarely happens! Setting up shop is half the battle – generating traffic and converting shoppers to buyers comes next. Optimizing strategies for acquiring and retaining customers should always be top of mind. There is no business without customers and acquisition strategies need to be a focal point of any marketing strategy.

The goal of a successful marketing acquisition strategy is to anticipate shopper needs – where and when they search – to make sure they find you and the products you sell, and at the same time, to deliver relevant and, whenever possible, personalized experiences that encourage coveted click-through.

Customer acquisition strategies – also known as the paid digital marketing channels – include Paid Search (or PPC/SEM), Display Advertising, Mobile Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE), and Social Media Marketing. With so many different moving parts, it can be daunting to determine the right approach, prioritize efforts, and select the right tools to support your marketing acquisition strategy.

Each marketing acquisition tactic requires a unique set of skills to master and tools to help support the efforts to optimize results. Some retail organizations may have the internal capacity to manage everything in house. But, most retailers can benefit from tapping into a range of services offered by specialized marketing agencies to optimize results.

Guest Post by Nicole Jennings, SVP Paid Digital Media, PMX agency

Acquiring new customers is often the most critical goal of a company’s broader business objectives. But in the crowded ecosystem, the challenging realities marketers face today are that customers are more sophisticated, more socially aware, more digital savvy, and, have more choice of brands than ever before. Performance marketing, and all of the various channels, are an effective way to attract new audiences and influence conversion activity to both your site and your brick and mortar. However, today we must think more creatively about customer acquisition, using a blend of traditional brand initiatives and performance, to deliver the personalized and meaningful experiences that customers crave.

What does this all mean in a complex performance landscape? It means understanding the natural behaviors of consumers – how and where they like to communicate, what platforms and media they interact with, and what passions drive their decision making. Great performance marketing meets the KPIs we lay out and drives ROI, but it also complements the consumer’s consideration and purchase journeys by providing the right personalized content in the right moments of intent.

Today, mobile marketing requires an even more nuanced approach to content. Mobile now enables engagement and buying decisions across all touch points, which encourages marketers to think not just from a mobile- first perspective, but a truly customer-first perspective. It’s never been more important for brands to maintain an always-on approach – which could mean staying on top of Google’s organic algorithm changes, understanding how display or search ad experiences translate from desktop to mobile,

leveraging local and geo-targeting methods, and continuing to develop content that’s thumb-stoppingly creative.

While each performance channel plays a key role in the acquisition of new customers, integration of channels is increasingly important to deliver a cohesive story and a seamless customer experience. For instance, we like to think of how paid and organic search inform content marketing and social content creation. We then ask ourselves and our clients tough questions like:

• How can I boost exposure for all content within my paid and organic channels? What do I have to “give up” in order to do so?
• If the customer gets a catalog, or sees a TV or OOH ad, how seamless is that brand experience?
• In addition to selling, how can your email program evangelize the content and social content experience using cost-effective email?
• What does every moment and touchpoint feels like to a consumer on the path to purchase?

Seeing customers in a connected view across channels helps inform the integrated strategies used to engage and sustain them over time. And that means marketers now need to think of themselves not as channel owners, but as advocates and strategists for the brand’s overall business health.