Have you ever received five-star reviews and new referrals from repeat customers? If so, you're ready for intentional business growth. With some social media research, you can create Ideal Customer Personas (ICP) from your current High-Value Customers (HVC), market to similar people, and intentionally grow your service business.
Here's how successfully funded start-ups approach the customer acquisition strategy.
Sorting Sales Records
Small business sales, marketing, and accounting software have sorting features to show how much each customer buys in specific time periods. You can sort this customer data from most significant to most minor amounts and focus on the top twenty-five customers.
Exporting this customer data to an Excel spreadsheet is easy. This not only keeps your project organized but also makes it a cinch to update, like the table below.
Full Name | Annual Sales | Marketing Channel | Marketing Content | Sent Referral | Left a Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jane Doe | $1,200 | Facebook Ad | Summer Deal Campaign | 2 | Facebook, Google |
John Doe | $1,110 | LinkedIn Post | 40% off | 2 | Yelp, Website |
Zippy Doodle | 1,000 | Referred by John Doe | Spring Sale | 1 | Facebook, Google, Yelp |
Note your marketing channels and the marketing campaigns that worked.
Knowing what marketing channel/s (most likely multiple channels) brought first-time customers to your business would be fantastic. The more you collect this marketing performance information, the better you can allocate your budget to marketing channels and content that deliver higher Return on Investments (ROI) or Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS).
Most small businesses have multiple marketing channels set up. For example, maybe the customer conversion started on LinkedIn with their daily or weekly post (brand awareness phase), then moved to their Facebook Ad, then to their website (consideration phase), and then to filling out a form or calling their business to purchase (decision phase).
Creating Ideal Customer Personas with Social Media Research
With the top twenty-five customers, you are ready to start your social media research. Depending on your service business, the social media channels might include Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn - a combination of these channels.
As you search for the customer's name and collect data, remember that each piece of information is a valuable puzzle piece in creating the ICP. Typical information might be age range, gender, occupation, city, relationship status, hobbies, interests, etc. Once you complete the research, patterns will emerge between all ICPs.
Congratulations - you're ready to create marketing content to strategically and consistently post, email, or run ICP-relevant advertising campaigns.
Note: People generally need to see your offer seven times before they take action. Be sure to create enough content for three months.
Financial Smarts - Aiming for High Value Customers and Tracking Customer Acquisition Cost + Customer Lifetime Value
Creating a viable business model for your enjoyment, becoming attractive to angel investors, or passing a small business funding audit requires aiming high and meticulous tracking. Knowing your ICPs will impact how well your marketing performs and how much sales revenue will be available to invest back into the business to grow.
To fully understand your business's financial health, it's essential to know your marketing expenses quarterly and annually. These expenses include creating marketing content, running campaigns, paying labor, and acquiring customers. This data is crucial for calculating your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), which is the total cost of service delivery and marketing divided by the number of customers acquired in a specific period.
With well run marketing campaigns, your CAC could be 1:3 through 1: 7 (estimate). You get three to seven dollars back for every dollar you spend on marketing. And, for High-Value Customers (HVC) acquired, you will see a higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which is how often they purchase and how much they spend in a specific period.
You can reach Kate at 973-600-9716 or kate@kateroa.com
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