Four Stages of Customer Acquisition By Any Other Names Smell Just Like Sales

When you think of the phrase “the four stages” you might automatically fill in “of grief.” It’s a normal association. After all, we all experience some kind of grief – from the death of a loved one to the attrition of a customer. One of the ways to mitigate against customer attrition is to focus on customer acquisition. Then loyalty. But maintaining customer loyalty is another subject all together. 

Chuck Leblo calls the four stages of customer acquisition “vision, target, messaging and profitability.[sic]” HubSpot refers to the stages as “attract, convert, close;” there isn’t a fourth. Why? In a strict customer acquisition definition, the customer’s journey ends with a purchase. They’ve been acquired. The rest is the whole funnel. They’re superfans, they refer business, etc.  

You could break the customer acquisition cycle into affinity and loyalty. Why? Affinity leads to loyalty and loyalty leads to sales. Whatever you’ve called the stages in the past, you need to understand what customer acquisition truly is and how it fits in your marketing funnels.

What is Customer Acquisition?

Before we dive into the four stages of customer acquisition we need to understand what it is. In layman’s terms, it’s how you get customers. Now, in order to answer the question for your specific business, dear reader, you have to do one crucial thing. What is that thing you ask? That’s just it. You have to ask. 

“How did you hear about us?” is a great way to ask a prospect to identify the source. Sometimes they’ll say they found you “on the internet.” However, in the age of social media, “on the internet” isn’t specific enough. So you may need to press a bit more. Understand, if you’re doing omnichannel marketing, the prospect may not even remember. It could have been a combination of your email marketing campaigns toward new drivers, with TikToks and Instagram reels. 

But just so you know, we can patch missing omnichannel data. It’s kind of what we do. ;)

After asking how they found you, the customer acquisition path must be recorded. This step cannot be understated. We know you’re using a CRM and it may have rules and automation. Tagging contacts correctly is a data science discipline that must be part of your company’s workflow. You can’t optimize the four stages of customer acquisition if you don’t know which channels work best – and, for which audience.

Stage 1 – Brand Awareness

Stage one of customer acquisition is the most expensive and takes the most time. It’s brand awareness. This stage involves organic tactics (social media marketing, email marketing, blog publishing) and paid tactics (direct mail, radio spots, Google Ad buys). 

As you’re building your online presence, pulse your media buys. Spend ten days boosting a post on Facebook, buying Cox Radio ads, and bidding on keywords in Google Ads. 

This is the beginning of your sales cycle. So it’s super important. You want your customer to see your name everywhere. And then, if the marketing gods are in your favor, to associate a generic term with your brand name.

I say “tissue,” you say, “Kleenex.”

I say “copy,” you say “Xerox.”

I say “search,” you say “Google.”

You get it.

Stage 2 – Relationship Building 

In the second stage of the customer acquisition cycle, prospects have become fans. They’re consuming your content, saving your email campaigns, and commenting on your social media posts. As you speak to your audience and they simultaneously find you, your replies start to build a relationship with prospects. In this stage you’re building affinity. (“They like me, they realy like me!”)

The reply button in email, on tweets, and in LinkedIn inboxes is your most important tool. Sure, you’ll have conversations with people who you don’t think matter. But guess what, everyone matters. You never know who is behind an account and how much influence they have. Be polite. Connect with everyone you can. Be aware of spam and block them, but do it. 

The two most powerful words in the relationship building phase are “thank you.” Use them often. You’ll thank us later.

Stage 3 – Listening and Overcoming  

During Stage 3, your prospect has finally experienced a pain point so large, they’re willing to overcome the objection to change vendors. Meaning, their current solution isn’t working. It’s come to a point where they are ready to explore the idea of change. What would it look like if they used your service? How would their homeowner’s insurance change with your company. They had State Farm for their Malibu residence for 15 years. Now, they need a new insurer. They have to change. 

It could also be that they’re looking to reduce costs. Or maybe their business has grown so much that their current solution doesn’t scale. Companies (like yours) face all kinds of challenges through industry disruption, economic outlook, and even AI threatening current infrastructure.

The point is this: in the third stage of customer acquisition you have their ear. The key is to listen first. Listen to the prospect’s objections, challenges, and, to be quite honest, fears of change. If you don’t listen, you’ll never be able to convert. Don’t be quick to get a sale. This is the most delicate part of the buyer journey (another overlapping marketing term). The sales person who listens, wins. Why? Because people, deep down, want to be heard and seen. That creates loyalty – not in a creepy, used car salesman way (sorry, not sorry) – but real, true loyalty. That loyalty is something you can never replace.

Stage 4 – Sales, Sales, Sales!

Who doesn’t love a sale! You’re never so happy to see that transactional email come through. You’ve been chatting with this person over Google Meet, Zoom, or whatnot for months. They’ve been a loyal follower on your Twitter account. They respond to your reels. Maybe you’ve played a few rounds of golf. They were finally ready. They’re a customer. The end of your customer acquisition cycle is the end of your sales cycle. 

By the way, if you don’t know how long your sales cycle is, we can help you do a little bit of auditing. Take a sample of 100 customers. Or maybe 10. When did they first contact you? When were they engaged before? Maybe the average sales cycle is a year. Maybe it’s 7 weeks. And, it could depend uon your products as well. Just to make things more complicated, you can even track your sales cycle by audience and/or by product. Or by each audience for each product. You get the point.

Choose The Proven Leader in Customer Acquisition 

At AWI we listen first, then deliver a crafted solution matching your needs. This solution ensures you get required data attributes to successfully deliver on your marketing objectives.

With data-driven project requirements, Andrews Wharton is the proven direct-response solutions provider with a long-standing reputation for solving your toughest marketing challenges. Are you ready to get started?

Success. Delivered.