What is user acquisition? In business, the term refers to the processes companies follow to gain customers or users for their product, platform, or service. Still, in a nutshell, it’s about the different strategies designed to attract potential customers that transform them into regular product or service users. In today’s fiercely competitive digital landscape, user acquisition is so essential to business growth that 44% of commercial entities prioritize it over other means of developing their business.
User acquisition strategies often involve advertising and marketing efforts targeting a specific user segment or demographic. Various channels, such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising, content marketing, and referral programs, bring in new purchases or sign-ups. But in terms of techniques, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
What are the most effective user acquisition strategies?
Before trying to implement new user acquisition strategies, businesses must understand who their potential customers are. And in order to identify this group, they need to first conduct some comprehensive market research before, secondly, getting to grips with the needs, characteristics, and preferences of their target audience.
Once these factors have been established, developing an effective customer acquisition strategy will be easy. After that, it’s time to think about how to get these customers onboard. To accomplish this, you need to think about the following.
Articulating your value proposition
When crafting a compelling value proposition for your business, it is paramount that your target audience understands what’s unique about your product or services. To impress this upon your prospects, you must highlight your competitive advantage and explain why they should choose you over others. In this respect, a compelling story can significantly help your brand to shine.
Utilizing content marketing
Engaging and high-quality content can help address your prospects’ pain points, offering them real-life solutions. Of course, there are lots of different types of content that you can create, so be cautious about which path to take. In order to know the right direction, think about what you know about your customers’ preferences from your market research. Until you’ve generated some statistical evidence regarding what they like and don’t like, it’s about experimenting with the popular content types your customers might love to consume.
Photo by Adetola Afolabi on Unsplash
Making use of email marketing
Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach your target audience and ignite their interest. It is also one of the best methods to make disengaged customers return.
So, if you’re still thinking about why you should use emails, consider the fact that today, there are 4 billion daily email users, a figure projected to increase to 4.6 billion by the end of 2025. It’s a staggeringly huge number of people and a massive opportunity for any company. Add to this the fact that 26% of marketers employ such emails several times a month—with 33% sending marketing emails weekly—as well as the reality that 37% of brands this year are increasing their email marketing budget, and it’s clear that email marketing is an essential part of any user acquisition strategy.
As such, in order to harness email marketing’s demonstrable pull, make sure to undertake these steps when designing your approach:
- Implement lead-generation strategies to capture or build an email list
- Ensure your emails are personalized or customized so customers click on them
- Set up an automated email sequence or use drip campaigns to nurture leads and guide them to take appropriate actions while in the buyer’s journey
Learn more about “A beginner’s guide to user acquisition strategies.”
3 steps to build a user acquisition plan for an app
When building a user acquisition plan, it’s important to consider the following:
Getting to grips with user personas
As mentioned, before developing a user acquisition strategy, you must first establish who your users are. Once you have a clear idea, the next step to take is to create user personas.
User personas are depictions of different segments within your target audience. When creating user personas, you are visualizing how your ideal customer looks and acts. More importantly, this method will also help you comprehend their needs, motivations, lifestyles, and pain points. By getting a clearer picture of who your customers are and what they like and want, you will have a better idea of how to present your product or service in a way that appeals to them, creating a greater number of conversions.
Work with clear goals and key performance indicators
Without clear goals, you won’t know where you are heading. What are you planning to achieve? This is the first thing you and your team need to establish.
List some goals, such as app downloads, increased user engagement, etc. After creating this list, find the KPIs that align with them. Key performance indicators, such as cost per acquisition (CPA), user retention rates, and return on ad spend, or ROAs, will help you get where you want to go.
By regularly tracking KPIs, you will be able to see what’s working and what isn’t. And don’t worry if your goals or ambitions change: you can always modify or optimize campaigns to get the results you want.
Handpicking acquisition channels
Today, there are a multitude of acquisition channels at your disposal. So before you go ahead and start using them, you should carefully select the ones that best meet your requirements. Generally speaking, most companies acquire customers by using acquisition channels such as organic marketing, social media, paid advertising, influencer marketing content marketing, and/or App Store Optimization (ASO).
Photo by Israel Andrade on Unsplash
When deciding which acquisition channel you want to use, assess your resources, budget, and target audience. To get the best results, always employ a multi-channel approach.
Initially, it will also be wise to experiment with different channels by doing A/B testing and seeing which one does the best. By doing this, you will know which channels work for you.
Learn more about “How to build a user acquisition plan for your app?“
What are the best user acquisition strategies for mobile gaming apps?
Mobile gaming companies invest a lot of money in developing gaming apps. Unsurprisingly, then, the key to recovering this expenditure – and ensuring these games’ success – is to get more people playing them. As it does elsewhere, in the mobile gaming app segment, mobile user acquisition also refers to acquiring new users, this time for gaming apps. To ensure this step on their path to success works, gaming companies employ various strategies.
Like any industry, mobile gaming is competitive. To make sure your app acquires the users it needs to recoup investment and turn a profit, be sure to stick to these strategies:
App Store Optimization (ASO)
With millions of apps available, standing out is essential. App Store Optimization (ASO) helps apps rank higher for visibility. Key ASO elements include keywords, app titles, descriptions, and visuals. Compelling visuals, screenshots, and positive reviews boost an app’s appeal.
Social media marketing
Leveraging platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which have millions of active users, is an effective means of reaching target audiences. Engaging and shareable content can go viral, expanding your app’s reach, whereas paid advertising on social media depends on your budget. Conversely, collaborations with influencers and tapping into gaming communities can significantly boost your user base.
In-app advertising
In-app advertising offers various formats, such as interstitial ads and banner ads. But to engage users effectively, you have to place them strategically. Popular types of in-app ads include:
- Rewarded ads
- Offering incentives for watching ads
- Incentivized installs
- Rewarding users for app installations and
- Enhancing user experience
Influencer partnerships
Collaborating with gaming influencers allows you to tap into their large, engaged audience. Sponsored content and gameplay videos can generate interest among their followers. The advantage of this strategy is that it can quickly increase your user base and raise brand awareness.
Cross-promotion
Partnering with complementary gaming apps for cross-promotion is mutually beneficial. In-app cross-promotion, strategic ad placements, and programmatic advertising can all drive user acquisition.
So, from ASO to influencers, all of these mobile user acquisition strategies can help your gaming app succeed. But remember, to stay on top, you need to continuously optimize your strategy using data–driven insights.
Learn more about “Unlocking success: Powerful user acquisition strategies for mobile gaming apps.“
How can you use content marketing to boost customer acquisition?
As suggested, when it comes to generating leads and attracting new potential customers, content marketing is one of the best user acquisition strategies. And if you still need to be convinced, listen to the industry: 67% of marketers agree.
And given that almost 44% of customers read two to three blogs on a company’s website before purchasing their goods or services, the logic behind this wisdom is more than sound.
When it comes to acquiring customers, content marketing is hard to beat. The reason for this is that content marketing is about creating useful information that will allow your prospects to see how your product or service will enrich their life or help them solve some of their problems.
If you want to create powerful content that can convert prospects to customers, then start creating high-quality content. Indeed, if you’re even thinking about using content marketing, this should be your primary concern.
Of course, different people like different things, including content t. From blogs to videos, infographics to case studies, and white papers to podcasts, the art of content marketing lies in finding the right content for your target audience. Depending on which user acquisition channels you plan to use, the results of this will vary. But it’s often best to do some A/B testing until you figure this out.
After you’ve created some quality content, it’s to promote and distribute it. Once you’ve begun circulating your content, you should use key performance indicators to check how it’s doing.
This will help you recognize what types of content your target audience is mostly interested in, and what is getting you the best results. It will also help you decide the content types you should focus on to achieve the best results.
Learn more about “Content marketing for skyrocketing user acquisition.“
What are some organic methods of acquiring users?
There are various ways to acquire customers.
Customer acquisition can be divided into two methods: organic or paid. Businesses that can afford advertising can reach the target audience easily, but there also exists a world of options outside paid advertising. These strategies are known as organic advertising. Here are some of the best methods that will help any business reach new customers.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization, or SEO, helps your target audience see your content. There are two types of SEO: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO is the process that content marketers follow to optimize the content they publish on their websites. It includes tasks such as using keywords to create content and optimizing web pages to make it easier for search engines to know what it contains. By employing on-page SEO, it becomes easier for search engines to rank your page and display it in their search pages when someone is using their service.
On the other hand, off-page SEO mainly deals with building backlinks on authoritative websites that increase your standing in a particular domain. The advantage of this technique is that it will also help increase your search page rank.
Social media presence
Did you know that today, there are over 4.8 billion social media users? That’s more than half of the world’s population. It, therefore, goes without saying that if you want your online business to succeed, you need to have a presence on the channels your target audience uses, such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram.
To find out which social media channels your target audience prefers, have a dive through them and see. Once you’ve got an instinct for which ones they like, start building a strong profile on them by creating engaging content that resonates with your target audience. By offering them relevant and engaging content, your prospective customers will be driven to your product or service.
To learn more about some of the organic methods that can help your business acquire users, read: “Breaking free from ads: winning user acquisition by employing organic methods.”
What are some mistakes to avoid when acquiring customers?
So far, we’ve only seen the positive aspects of customer acquisition. But what about the negatives? If you want your business to make money, avoid these mistakes.
Targeting the wrong audience
When businesses don’t put in enough effort to learn about their target audience – or simply don’t know who their target audience is – they often target the wrong segment. Before designing their customer acquisition strategies or marketing efforts, companies should, therefore, spend some time getting to know who might need their product or service.
The easiest way to do this is by researching your competitors. Once you’ve done this and identified your target audience, it’s time to create some user personas and get to grips with your potential customers’ needs and preferences.
Poor ASO
Another problem is bad ASO. If your product is an app, app store optimization is essential, and if you don’t do it, then your app will disappear among the thousands of others already available. App stores only apps have fantastic ASO, as it makes things easy for them to determine what an app is all about.
User onboarding and retention
One of the worst mistakes any company can make is not listening to your customers. It makes it seem as if you don’t care whether they like your product or not. And if you don’t, why should they? So, if you want your patrons to carry on using your product, you need to do everything you can to give them the best experience. To achieve this, develop a process that focuses on onboarding and retention. Customers need to feel valued and be able to use the product quickly. Take regular feedback from them and ensure you update the product regularly.
These are some of the mistakes that you need to avoid when trying to acquire more customers.
Learn more about “Mobile user acquisition gone wrong: Learn from these 7 mistakes.”
What are some strategies to boost user acquisition for B2C startups?
B2C or business–to–customer companies focus on trying to reach individual customers with their products or services directly. And unlike B2B startups, B2C companies focus on a diverse audience.
One of the best ways for B2C companies to reach their target audience is to harness social media marketing. Once you’ve understood who your target audience is and picked the right social media channels to reach them, you need to create some engaging content that your prospects will love.
Apart from regularly posting content on your channel, you should also use paid ads to reach the target audience. What’s more, most of these platforms provide filters that you can use to target specific audiences.
Implementing a referral program is also a good way to boost your user acquisition efforts. People trust friends or acquaintances more than ads and often share their views about products or services with friends and family. As such, they are more likely to share positive experiences if there is some benefit for them. A proper referral program can encourage this, helping you to increase your conversions.
Using influencers is also one of the best ways to help your prospects discover your product or service. Once you find influencers that have a good following, you should collaborate with them.
Your marketing team should also brainstorm with them to develop ideas that creatively present your product or service in a good light. In addition to this, influencers are also great at building brand awareness.
These are some ways B2C startups can boost their user acquisition.
Learn more about “5 Strategies to Boost Acquisition for B2C Startups.“
Conclusion
Brands and companies can only grow if they put some effort into user acquisition. While straightforward, if you know what you’re doing, this process can be a minefield if you begin without doing your homework. First, you need to understand your target audience’s desires and preferences before taking any other step. Once you know this, you can use content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and many other methods to reach your target audience.
As this article demonstrated, knowing what not to do when trying to acquire customers is almost as important as knowing the right ways. From not knowing who your target audience is to bad ASO and not listening to your customers, the pitfalls are large but can avoided by reading the information above and taking heed.
