6 seconds. That’s the average attention span of a web user today. That means that you have less than 6 seconds to attract, engage, and (hopefully) convert visitors to your site to customers, or at the very least, followers. What?!
We feel your pain. Competing for web traffic might as well be an Olympic sport these days. Especially when you’re competing with cute puppy videos and a Korean pop star rapping about satirical references to South Korean culture that garnered over 2 billion views on YouTube. Again, what?!
Have no fear. We have come up with a short guide that will help you identify tips and strategies to implement into your inbound customer acquisition marketing strategies.
- Be human. Nobody wants to follow a company that offers up content robotically and without any feel for what their audience is looking for. Your audience wants to feel like you are speaking TO them, not AT them. A company can no longer be just a company. Users want to know who is standing behind that company; they want transparency. So be honest and open upfront and you’ll begin to build trust and authority.
- Patience is a (marketing) virtue. That leads to our next point: in order to gain trust and authority from your customers, you must be willing to run the marathon. Inbound customer acquisition doesn’t happen overnight; it takes months to build trust with your followers and position yourself as an expert and authoritative voice in your industry.
- Strongly define your value. What is your company’s value proposition? You probably know the answer to this question—at least we hope you do. But is your value proposition integrated with all your communications. What are your prospects gaining by signing up for your blogs or newsletters, following you on social media, or engaging with your content? Providing a benefit for your prospects will not only help acquire them, it will help you retain them, turn them into potential customers, and if you’re really lucky, turn them into promoters.
- Interaction trumps acquisition. This tenet is key. So many people believe that the more followers you have, the more successful your inbound marketing strategies are. That’s most likely not the case. If you have 1,000, 10,000, or maybe even 100,000 followers, well that’s great. But of those thousands of followers, how many of them are actively and frequently engaging with you? When you post a remarkable blog, are your prospects commenting on it and sharing it? If not, then we have a problem. It’s not enough anymore to simply put the content out there, you have to find creative ways for your prospects to interact and become engaged. Run a contest at the end of a blog post, or ask thought-provoking questions that encourage active debates. This makes you interesting, relevant, and helps your stand out from the crowd.
While competing with 2 billion YouTube views might not be a feasible, or even relevant goal, it helps put in perspective the enormous level of competition that the Internet creates for businesses today. Your competition is competing just as hard as you are at acquiring customers through inbound marketing strategies. It’s time to stand out and win over your prospects so that they eventually turn into customers.
Want to learn more about customer acquisition and lead generation? Download our eBook, 30 Lead Generation Tips!
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