[The Essentials] The One Method to Master for Acquiring New Customers [Still the Answer in 2019]
From ACIDHOUSE, INC., this is Tetsuya Ashida.
Small and medium business owners with websites sometimes ask me this question.
I want to do something about it, but where should I start?
In the article below, I discussed “first directing existing customers to your website.”
This article assumes that step, so if this is your first visit, please read the article below first.
[The Essentials] Where Should You Start with Online Customer Acquisition? [Existing Customers First] February 16, 2019
There Is No Single Customer Acquisition Method That Is Enough
…I don't understand anymore!
I understand that feeling very well.
Ideally, something clear and requiring minimal effort would be best.
But the inconvenient truth is that there is no “single tactic you can simply focus on.”
People's behavior follows fairly predictable patterns, so approaching them in line with those patterns used to make selling relatively easy.
However, technological development overturned those rules, so that no longer works today.
People's Behavior Is Fairly Predictable
Around 10 years ago, I helped launch online retail for an apparel company. Let me explain using that experience as an example.
In apparel up through the 2000s, the following sales pattern was common.
- Use the influence of magazines read by target customers, through reader models and advertisements.
- Use television's influence, through celebrities and ordinary people featured in fashion-check segments.
- Customers visit and buy from physical stores in locations they want to go to.
I worked in apparel for young men in what was called the Shibuya style, associated with 109 Men's. Customers tended to be in their late teens or early twenties, like flashy styles, read magazines such as Men's Egg and Men's Knuckle, and go to Shibuya after school or on weekends.
That is why my company's store was a tenant in Shibuya's 109 Men's. Before online shopping developed, customers in other regions traveled long distances by train to Shibuya or went shopping at new stores gradually opening in regional cities.
In marketing terminology, these target customer characteristics are called a persona.
Technology Disrupts Traditional Behavior and Its Boundaries
But as online shopping emerged and buying clothes online became normal, behavior began to change. People visited physical stores less and spent more time using mobile devices and the internet.
As mobile and internet use increased, magazines, in which people “pay money to be shown advertisements”, became vulnerable, and the rise of social media delivered the final blow.
Fashion magazines closed, and Instagram now fulfills their role.
The internet also lowered barriers to entering business, so large numbers of competitors and well-funded companies appeared almost overnight.
Companies that steadily put in the effort developed their own ecommerce sites as purchasing channels. Others were replaced by Amazon or ZOZO and exposed to a sea of price competition.
This describes what has happened up to now; we do not know what comes next.
These environmental changes inevitably transform customer behavior completely.
What Should Guide Customer Acquisition?
With the environment changing this dramatically, honestly, there is no standard winning formula.
But there is a guiding principle: identify platforms where your target customers readily gather and where competitors and large companies have not yet gained much ground.
In that sense, nothing has actually changed since before the internet.
The question is simply where that place is in the fast-moving online world.
Gather information thoroughly about where that is. The answer is what you decide, using your own judgment, is the right place.
Where Is the Best Place for Online Customer Acquisition in 2019?
Still, some of you will want a clear answer, so I will share the most reliable method as of February 2019.
It is, without question, video, particularly opening a channel on the largest video platform, YouTube, and uploading content.
The evidence speaks for itself; see below.
■Adding video to a landing page increases conversions by up to 86%.https://blog.wishpond.com/post/87901107699/what-are-the-benefits-of-video-on-landing-pages
■Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than those who do not.https://www.vidyard.com/blog/infographic-marketers-who-use-video-outperform-their-peers/
■By 2019, video will account for 80% of global internet traffic.https://tubularinsights.com/2019-internet-video-traffic/
■More than 50% of consumers want to watch video rather than content in other media.https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/video-marketing
Pay particular attention to “By 2019, video will account for 80% of global internet traffic.” In other words, without video, there is no point doing business online.
YouTube also appears to be watched by everyone from young people to older adults, regardless of occupation.
YouTube is owned by Google, the absolute god of the internet, so the day when optimizing for Google means optimizing for YouTube may not be far away.
Advertising Is the Fuel That Accelerates Sales Growth
What about advertising?
The choice is exactly the same as choosing a platform: choose somewhere your target customers are likely to flock to and where competitors and large companies have not yet gained much ground.
So the answer is YouTube advertising.
Many people view advertising costs for online customer acquisition as an expense and want to postpone them, but advertising is an investment.
It fuels faster business growth, so naturally a large gap opens between companies that can spend on advertising and those that cannot. This is another reason reliable sales from existing customers matter.
Make sure you secure an advertising budget for this reason too.