Give: The New Customer Acquisition Strategy

6 min readApr 19, 2020

The shift in thinking for growth marketing in the new new reality

The most common question as a marketing strategist I am asked is “How do I Get More Customers”? I get it. You're in the business to grow and new customers are the way to make the till ring. But not the only way.

For this article, I will keep the focus on customer acquisition. The traditional thinking is to break down the cost of reaching and “acquiring” a customer. Let's just break that down for a moment.

This is flawed in my humble view.

Let’s be honest… you never really are buying a customer. They are humans who purchase from you and if they purchase more than once you can call them clients.

The single-serving Buy a customer and identifying my “Customer acquisition costs” has its shortcomings. It is suggesting your investment in “getting the customer” is one and done.

When does that ever really happen? It requires so much more momentum and exceptional customer experience to get a customer to buy again. Now if your a one-trick pony and you just want single serving clients — that is a transaction.

If you in business for repeated clients then you are looking for a relationship. So this requires more investment and a different approach. This was the case pre-COVID 19 but in my view, it's like 10x that in post-COVID 19.

You need to reframe how you want to attract people to invest time to view, consider, and proceed to get to know you and consummate the relationship with one and more transactions. No one night stands here.

What if you flipped it around by focusing on investing in giving value as a method in attracting people to invest their time and money with you?

This is already a reality and its growing. How often do you see a request just for your email and you gain access to an ebook or some gated valuable content?

Today during COVID-19 there is an overwhelming amount of “Free helpful content” that you now competing with a flood of value into the market.

Sorry but I do not see this changing any time soon.. The new new reality is here!

The content game is ramping up to new levels, as so many people/businesses recognize they need to publish and keep relevant during this massive shift in our world.

Give:

The shift in thinking for growth marketing in the new new reality.

You need to reframe how you want to attract people to invest time to view, consider, and proceed to get to know you and consummate the relationship with one and more transactions. No one night stands here.

IF you looking to build a groundswell of ongoing profitable clients, the new acquisition strategy is to focus on What you can give of value to your clients to attract and invite them to proceed in the next stage of the relationship.

“Reciprocity — whereby people are more likely to do something in return of a favor, regardless of the favor done and the ask now presented to them Commitment and consistency — people who have taken one action are likely to take another, regardless of the size or difference in action Social proof — in a state of uncertainty, people look to the actions of others to help them make their own decisions Authority — people look to those in the position of authority to decide which actions to take Liking — people will do business more readily with people and companies they like over those they don’t or are indifferent to Scarcity — people will take action when they are worried that they will miss out on the opportunity in the future”

― Sean Ellis, Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

When prospects are looking to solve a problem they tend to go in stages: Awareness, Consider, Comparison, and Commitment.

Most business owners focus on awareness- but one of the best “growth hacks” of awareness that has a growth component built right in is the idea around giving value. You see once someone becomes aware of something of value — we tend to share it right? So this amplifies your ability to gain EVEN MORE awareness!

So what happens when you become aware of something of value? And your giving it to me? The feeling of discovery. The feeling of slight obligation that I am willing to go quickly to the next step — (with ease)

Consideration

Why would you not consider a company that has immediately helped me and not asked anything in return accept to consider what we have to offer?

When you have considered the offer you are also likely much more engaged. Should you do such a good job of this — you have already emotionally stacked the situation — jump to commitment. YES!.

However, some people are wary and may want to go to the next phase

Comparison.

Looking at what you have to offer and weigh it against other options out there. The great news is you have already banked equity in the mind of the prospect AND you have stacked momentum they have already experienced what it's like to do business with you.

This is an invisible barrier to entry for your competitor because unless they have also invested in giving value — you have intrigued them to consider if this is what its like BEFORE I purchase what is it like after?

The key to rapid sales growth is to develop desire… this happens before demand. You can play with demand by holding back people so that they can’t simply just purchase they must invest more time/ or create a waitlist. This increases both desire and generates demand.

You can’t always hold back, nor should you — because if there is desire… there is demand. Where there is smoke — there is the burning desire fire!

Commitment.

This is what you’re looking for. Even if it’s just committing to follow you or subscribe in stages.. They are stages of commitment (a topic of a future article)

Getting to commitment in any relationship takes patience and time to develop. Of course, it can happen all in one sitting. But think about it. The bigger the commitment in terms of time and money the longer the time spent in the earlier stages.

Be patient and “hack” the process but starting with Giving — it the most efficient way to get to COMMITMENT.

Listen podcast episode: Give: The New Customer Acquisition Strategy

Ok one last footnote.

First let me say that I think we should change referencing Customer Acquisition into words that are not about “capturing people”.

We should be making this more Human. Perhaps call them guests.

I recognize that in the interim using language most people are used to is important to get your message out so that is why this is titled “Acquiring Customers” so i am guilty as well.. but I am just stating — Its time to Be Human. (The title of Episode 01 of my Season 2 coming out soon with Bruce Kasanoff)

This shift happened after doing this incredibly insightful episode:

Humans Not Customers — was actually the title of my first guest appearance by Bruce Kasanoff on The Groundswell Podcast