Customer Acquisition Strategy Report-Free-Samples for Students

Question: You are required to create a Customer Acquisition Strategy Report. The outline will provide your understanding of what is required to complete the Customer Acquisition Strategy Report. Answer: Introduction Customer acquisition marketing is the most common style used by the firms in order to increase their customer base. It is the process of attracting the customers to purchase companys products and services (Peppers Rogers, 2016). Appropriate management methodologies are developed for fascinating the consumers that includes various techniques of marketing such as promotion. These things are widely used to build a desire in the customers which generate their willingness to pay for the commodity. However the firms have to understand that in order to expand their business they have to enter into digital marketing because this will enable the companies in building their name in the market. Further they can start the promotion of their products on the social networking sites. Proper strategies along with the stabilised platforms are also been develop to increase online sales of the organisation. The above process is known as internet customer acquisition strategy. This assignment has taken into considerations two businesses. The first one is a retail outlet by the name of The Reject Shop and the second one is the online business retailers Deals Direct. This report throws light on how internet business can create value for customers and what are the value propositions from The reject shop as well as Deals Direct. The report also compares the business models of the two stores as well as the customer acquisition strategies adopted by both of them. Value Creation in Internet versus Retail Businesses Customer value is a broad term that includes different ways which are being used by the customers in order to measure the benefits that they will avail after purchasing the commodity. These decisions are taken in comparison to cost of product. Every firm knows their target customers and which channels are they willing to use to buy the products of the company. There are many ways in which internet business commonly known as e-business help the firms in increasing value of product for the customers in many ways such as (Strauss, 2016)- Providing products at the better cost to the customers in comparison to the competitors entrepreneurs that are actively engaged in conducting e- businesses enjoy economics of scale as, there products are been exposed to large customers group so that they can easily sell their product at a lesser cost to all the customers who have desire to purchase the same. There are various products which are sold by the Reject Store that are priced lesser on their own online platforms as given below. Providing quality services to the customers the brick and mortar retail store managers find it difficult to maintain long term relationships with their target customers which results in their inability to provide after sale services to their respective clients whereas on the other hand, internet business like Direct deals can keep a track of their consumers previous purchases, demographics, frequency of shopping etc. Based on which, direct deals sends customized discounts and offers to them through emails (Reimers, Chao Gorman, 2016). This results in adding to the value in customer satisfaction level. Large variety of products- Online businesses have the liberty to offer a wider variety of products to their customers as they do not need a very large store or display space. This large variety of products makes online platforms a one stop shop for all the shopping needs of customers and hence enhances customer experience (Priem, Wenzel Koch, 2017). Business Models in Internet versus Retail Businesses Value position refers to the statement in which company summarise that why the customers should buy their product or avail their services. It clearly tells the target customer group that how the companys product can solve their problems and the benefits that the customers can expect from the product (Shin, 2017). The reject shop (retail business outlet) Being a big retail shop it has many boards of directors. Some of them are, William (Bill) Stevens, Kevin Elkington and many more are responsible for the efficient working of the retail store. Being an offline business, the model starts with obtaining materials from their suppliers and distributing across their 350 stores in the world. Upon reaching the store, the product is sold to the customers who walk in the store. The business model of an offline business works on instant exchange between the company and its consumers. The exchange period offered by the store is ideally 15 days. The overall sales depends upon sale of the products (Comfort, 2017). Deals Direct (Ecommerce) Deals direct is an ecommerce platform and hence has a completely different business model to follow. The business model used by them is B2C (Business to customer). Deals direct follows the idea of warehousing and storing. They work on economies of scale and hence store a large quantity of products in their warehouse. From the warehouse, the product is shipped and delivered to the customer as per orders received. If the customer is not satisfied with the product, he or she can request a return for the same. Direct Response Marketing via the Internet versus Retail Direct response marketing is conducted to get the response directly from the customers. This facilitates direct actions as soon as the customer faces it or providing immediate feedback as well as response to the customers. Such type of marketing helps to develop favourable image of company in the mind of the customer (Thomas Housden, 2017). The Reject store In case of an offline store, the direct response marketing is extremely fast and almost always on the spot. If the customer finds any product faulty, he or she may ask for a replacement then and there and walk away with the product of their choice. There are many customers to visit the store on a daily basis and hence if the customer places a particular request, the manager may be able to fulfil the request at the time. Deals Direct Since deals direct is an online platform, the amount of time between placing of order by the consumer and receiving the order by the consumer varies from order to order. No response can be retained from the customer at this time. However, once the product has been received, if the customer is unhappy with the product, they can file for a return. This process ideally takes a long time. The benefit of ecommerce platform is that all the user feedback can be recorded and saved for future reference. Customers are asked to rate their entire shopping experience and provide recommendations if any. These responses of consumers are saved by Deals direct for further improvisation of their services. Other Customer Acquisition Tools via the Internet versus Retail There are many tools that can be used by leading brands to acquire the consumers. Being in the internet business following strategies can be adopted by Deals direct to enhance their customer base Customer Acquisition Tools via the Internet for Deals Direct Social media marketing Deals direct could invest in social media platforms and enhance their social media presence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This would help the business in gaining brand awareness (Tuten Solomon, 2017). With the advent of digitalization, every leading firm has a presence on social media which has largely helped companies in targeting more people and acquiring a larger number of customers. Digital marketing Digital marketing includes the process of ensuring that the brand is easy to search on the web search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and AOL etc. Deals direct has a team handling its search engine optimization as well as search engine marketing so that it becomes easy for the potential customers to search for the brand and hence reach their website (Chaffey Bosomworth, 2012). Geo-radius targeting The biggest advantage of an online portal of ecommerce is the ability of the system to store cookies used by the internet users. This helps the brand target the consumers who are already looking for similar product. Geo-radius targeting also involves targeting people specifically on their online platforms who are in close vicinity of the brand or its competitors. Customer Acquisition Tools via the retailers Offers and Discounts Customers can be acquired by the reject store by offering various discounts that can be promoted physically outside the store via banners or by placing these ads on billboards in the 1km radius of the store. These discounts will attract more customers and hence lead to increased footfall in the store. Better negotiation Many times the reason behind higher sales at an offline store is the negotiation skills of the marketer. The massive advantage of a bricks and mortar store is the ability of the salesperson to negotiate with their consumers face to face. This will enable the firm to gain more customers and increase sales. Word of mouth marketing Offline stores can successfully acquire more customers through word of mouth marketing as well as newspaper advertisements. The reject store can give ads in leading newspapers and attract customers. The existing customers of the reject store can also improve upon the brands positioning and lead to increased sales. Conclusion From the above report it can be concluded that, every businessmen aims at increasing its customer base by adopting different strategies (Casadesus Ricart, 2010). Although these strategies may differ from a bricks and mortar business to an organisation which is involved in an online business. However, both have to be prepared with an appropriate business plan so that they can perform the entire organisational task in a suitable manner by developing appropriate business model. The shift from offline to online business is evidenced in the current shopping trends however both have their own set of advantages and disadvantage. References Casadesus-Masanell, R., Ricart, J. E. (2010).From strategy to business models and onto tactics.Long range planning,43(2), 195-215. Chaffey, D., Bosomworth, D. (2012). Digital marketing strategy.Implementation and Practice. Comfort, M. (2017).Retail Rebooted: Reboot Your Business Model Stay Relevant. BookBaby. Peppers, D., Rogers, M. (2016).Managing Customer Experience and Relationships: A Strategic Framework. John Wiley Sons. Priem, R. L., Wenzel, M., Koch, J. (2017). Demand-side strategy and business models: Putting value creation for consumers centre stage.Long Range Planning. Reimers, V., Chao, C. W., Gorman, S. (2016). Permission email marketing and its influence on online shopping.Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics,28(2), 308-322. Shin, S. (2017). A short but useful definition of marketingexchanging value to satisfy stakeholder needs profitably and ethically.Copyright 2017 by Institute for Global Business Research, Nashville, TN, USA, 208. Strauss, J. (2016).E-marketing. Routledge. Thomas, B., Housden, M. (2017).Direct and Digital Marketing in Practice. Bloomsbury Publishing. Tuten, T. L., Solomon, M. R. (2017).Social media marketing. Sage