Customer Acquisition Strategies and Tactics
C H A P T E R
5
Customer Acquisition Strategies and Tactics
M
anaging customer acquisition consists of a variety of interrelated tasks and activities. Among the more important are pricing programs, advertising, alternative and direct marketing systems, sales promotions, and personal selling methods. Based on the solid foundation of developing a customer-oriented company, customer acquisition creates the lifeline of sales and return visits vital to a company’s long-term success. The product life cycle model remains an important tool for understanding how to acquire customers. The introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages of the cycle necessitate careful responses and strategies from the marketing team. Customer acquisition provides a key response to the challenges of competition, especially in the maturity stage of the product life cycle. At every point, companies face the demands of keeping current customers balanced with using tactics to find new customers. In general, three basic forms of customer acquisition are 1. developing existing or new markets, 2. developing existing or new products, and 3. branding programs. y Identifying Markets
Customers are acquired through the analysis of existing markets and new markets. New customers can be located in existing markets. Some may be found through the efforts to increase brand switching. Others can be identified when new needs arise as situations change, such as when television programming shifted from analog to digital signals. Further, a product may be featured as being different and better, which is the product differentiation approach to attracting new customers in existing markets.
99
100
CASES IN MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Finding new markets, the second approach to identifying markets, consists of geographic expansion into domestic markets and international markets. When a company does not operate nationally, domestic markets are assessed to see which will be the most viable for entry.
5
Customer Acquisition Strategies and Tactics
M
anaging customer acquisition consists of a variety of interrelated tasks and activities. Among the more important are pricing programs, advertising, alternative and direct marketing systems, sales promotions, and personal selling methods. Based on the solid foundation of developing a customer-oriented company, customer acquisition creates the lifeline of sales and return visits vital to a company’s long-term success. The product life cycle model remains an important tool for understanding how to acquire customers. The introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages of the cycle necessitate careful responses and strategies from the marketing team. Customer acquisition provides a key response to the challenges of competition, especially in the maturity stage of the product life cycle. At every point, companies face the demands of keeping current customers balanced with using tactics to find new customers. In general, three basic forms of customer acquisition are 1. developing existing or new markets, 2. developing existing or new products, and 3. branding programs. y Identifying Markets
Customers are acquired through the analysis of existing markets and new markets. New customers can be located in existing markets. Some may be found through the efforts to increase brand switching. Others can be identified when new needs arise as situations change, such as when television programming shifted from analog to digital signals. Further, a product may be featured as being different and better, which is the product differentiation approach to attracting new customers in existing markets.
99
100
CASES IN MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Finding new markets, the second approach to identifying markets, consists of geographic expansion into domestic markets and international markets. When a company does not operate nationally, domestic markets are assessed to see which will be the most viable for entry.