S O , Y O U ’ V E A C Q U I R E D A C U S T O M E R — W H A T ’ S N E X T ?
Customer acquisition is the first step in retaining customers and turning them into brand advocates . No matter how great your customer experience is or how engaged your current customers are , you can never stop marketing to new customers . After all , in order to grow , you need to continue adding new customers to your brand community .
The good news is that you don ’ t have to do all of this acquisition marketing alone : you can actually use your existing customers . One of the best acquisition marketing tools is referrals from existing customers . Referral marketing can take many different forms from word-of-mouth marketing , user-generated content , to social proof on social media .
The key to generating this type of marketing is building customer engagement , which is the second step of the customer loyalty journey . Using tools like loyalty and referral programs and exceptional customer experiences that people want to share is a great way to build engagement . Finally , this brings you to the retain stage where you are encouraging repeat purchases and creating brand advocates .
In order to grow sustainably , you need to strike a balance between marketing to potential and existing customers by monitoring your customer acquisition cost .