How to Get New Customers and Keep Existing Ones| Advice + Strategies

Getting new customers and keeping your existing ones is crucial to business prosperity. Without a strong push to do this, you can’t grow or increase profitability.  

Eventually, no new customers buying your products or services and current customers dropping off will put you in negative cash flow, affect your market position and, worst case, shut you down. 

Because of this, customer acquisition and retention is something we strongly encourage our clients to work on continually—and it’s something we’re always working on here at Maxim. But what’s the secret to success?

Success starts with strategy 

Being successful in customer acquisition and retention is all about strategy. 

We talk about strategy a lot, but that’s because it’s so important for everything you do in business. To get new customers and keep the ones you have, you first need to start with a comprehensive plan.

Customer acquisition and retention are part of marketing but should be a part of your broader business strategy. That’s because business operations and marketing efforts are closely interconnected.

Your business (and marketing) strategy should include:

• Your business mission and vision
• Specific goals and objectives
• Situational analysis (SWOT)
• Your competitive advantage
• Your market positioning 
• Action plans and tactics 
• Resource allocation
• Performance metrics 

It’s through creating this strategy that you’ll better understand and be able to map out how you’ll go about finding more customers and keeping your existing ones. 

Related: Strategic Planning blog series 

Customer insight comes first

They say the customer comes first, and this is definitely true when creating a fruitful marketing acquisition and retention strategy. 

You need to know who your customers or target audience are to attract and keep them effectively. You can’t be vague when doing this. You need to know specifics, including:

• Age
• Gender
• Occupation
• Interests
• Challenges
• Buying motivations
• Preferred channels of communication
• Decision-making criteria

With this information gathered from market research and real customer data about your existing clients, you can build customer personas. Personas are detailed and semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer. 

Most businesses have a few personas to reflect different customer segments. 

How strong is your brand?

Another thing you need to consider before you dive into the plans and tactics is your business brand. 

Branding is a critical element of marketing. It’s about creating a distinct identity. This extends much further than just having a nice logo and visual style. It should also shine through in your copy, messaging and customer experience. Importantly, it should be consistent. 

What would you want your customers to be saying about you when you’re not in the room? The answer to this question is what you’re trying to convey when building your brand. 

Create a personality, a feeling and engaging encounters that go beyond your name and the products and services you offer. This emotive approach is key to drawing the right people to your businesses and building lasting connections. 

Now, let’s talk tactics. 

Tactics for customer acquisition 

Attracting new customers involves careful planning around how to reach prospects and warm up cold leads. 

It’s about leaning into those customer personas, creating that unique selling proposition and showing that you can solve problems with your products or services. 

Effective acquisition tactics to consider 

• Social media – Use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to build a community, share content and interact with potential customers. You can also run targeted advertising and marketing campaigns. 
• Build a solid website – Is your website user-friendly? Does it have easy navigation, quick load times and engaging and informative copy? All of this can enhance satisfaction and attract customers. 
• Create engaging content – Creating valuable and relevant content such as blogs, videos, e-books and guides to attract and engage potential clients or customers can position you as an authority and keep interest peaking. 
• Invest in search engine optimisation (SEO) – To get the above strategies to really work for you, you need to optimise your site and content with keywords and other SEO tactics to rank higher in search engines and get seen. 
• Attend networking events and hold your own – Not everyone loves networking, but it’s a big one for bringing in new customers and clients. We highly recommend this, and it’s something we do a lot of. 
• Special offers, freebies and promotions – This could be a free consultation or audit, timely customer discounts, or a free trial or sample. Tactics like this can help build awareness and build trust through experience.
• Ask existing clients for reviews – When people see how others have been satisfied with your service or product, they’re more likely to trust and try. Send happy customers a link to your Google My Business online reviews page.
• Set up a referral program – Encouraging satisfied people from your existing customer base to refer friends and family by offering incentives like discounts, credits, or rewards is a great way to get new feet in your door.
• Speak on panels and podcasts – This can enhance your business credibility and visibility, drawing in target customers by demonstrating your expertise to a specific audience actively searching for industry insights and solutions.

Tactics for customer retention

Customer and client retention necessitates a robust strategy grounded in understanding your existing customers—their challenges, priorities, and what long-term value means to them. It’s all about experience and nurturing. 

Effective retention tactics to consider: 

• Offer an exceptional customer experience – Promptly address enquiries, resolve issues efficiently, and consistently go above and beyond to exceed customer expectations. In other words, be a great business to deal with.  
• Keep in regular communication – Don’t forget about your customers after the first purchase or engagement. Sending out regular personalised email marketing that offers something valuable will keep you front of mind. 
• Set up a loyalty program – Loyalty programs that reward customers or clients for repeat purchases, referrals or engagements can incentivise people to keep coming back.
• Ask for feedback – Do this regularly using surveys, reviews and social media, and make sure you act on it to improve products, services and the overall customer experience. People value being listened to. 
• Give them exclusivity – Offer your existing and most loyal customers exclusive content or early access to new products or services to reward them and make them feel valued.
• Build a community – Bring customers together with in-person events, online forums and social media groups. This will encourage people to interact, share experiences and build relationships.
• Offer helpful education – Provide resources, tutorials or webinars that help customers maximise the value of your products or services. Educated customers are more likely to remain satisfied and loyal.
• Proactively check-in – Reach out to customers proactively to check in on their satisfaction, offer assistance or provide relevant updates or tips. Let them know you’re a priority for them. 
• Surprise and delight – Occasionally surprise customers or clients with unexpected rewards, gifts or personalised messages to show appreciation and strengthen the relationship.

Take a balanced approach

To achieve sustainable growth and profitability in your business, you need to strike the right balance between acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones. 

The reality is that acquisition can be a lot more expensive. In fact, it’s approximately five times more costly than retention (Invesp). Retention also has a better return on investment, which makes sense as the people you’re targeting have already been sold on your brand at least once before. 

Ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the balance you choose and the strategies and tactics you use. Your industry and whether you’re B2B or B2C, business stage, market dynamics and customer preferences should all play a part in your decisions. 

With some trial and error (make sure you’re measuring and evaluating everything you try), you’ll find that sweet spot that keeps you on a path of sustainable growth. If it’s not something you want to do yourself, call in a professional marketer. We know some great ones we can recommend. 

Related: 3 steps to client/customer strategy success

Want to talk business strategy? Reach out to your Maxim Advisor or contact our team today.