Customer Sources: 6 Ways to Get New Customers to Grow Your Business And Expand Your Reach

When building wealth, it is common to hear the phrase "diversify your assets," meaning don't get all your money from one place.

When building a customer base or trying to increase sales, the same holds true.

You should not rely on one source to get all your customers.

Stuff happens in business. Social media platforms change, pandemics strike, and the marketer of today's culture needs to be stable in any circumstance.

By understanding and implementing the 6 sources of getting customers in marketing, you will be more agile in your marketing strategy no matter what happens in the future.

First, I'll explain the 6 sources. Then, I'll clear up the biggest misconceptions business owners make when considering them for their marketing efforts and give three hacks for branching out into different mediums.

1. Paid Advertising

Any time you pay money to get in front of eyeballs, this is paid advertising. Billboards, direct mail, social media marketing, all paid.

The tricky thing about paid ads is that each platform has different rulesets and best practices.

You can't use certain language in your Facebook ad. Advertising on LinkedIn is very different from advertising on Instagram.

When considering which platform to learn when creating a paid advertising strategy, you should first test the waters with organic posting.

LinkedIn might not be the best place to advertise for your cashmere slippers, and Instagram could be a dead-end for your cybersecurity firm.

Try them all, and see what works.

However, when testing, you need to give it an honest go. If you have not posted consistently on any platform, you will not have clear data to know where to direct your money.

2. Earned Media

These are platforms that give you a chance to build an audience.

If your podcast has a bunch of subscribers, this is earned media.

If you have a huge YouTube following, this is earned media.

Earned media is great, but it also takes more time and strategy to build up.

Here people have to choose to see your content; it doesn't get displayed automatically.

This also means that this audience is closer to your target audience and closer to becoming a potential customer. They are getting some value from your content and have decided to stay connected with you.

Similar to paid advertising, each platform requires a different strategy and skillset.

3. Owned Media

Think email marketing, phone number lists, and your website domain name.

Facebook can ban you from the platform overnight.

Your Instagram account can get hacked and you might have to start all over.

But your email and phone lists are yours to take with you wherever you go. Owned media often works in conjunction with paid and earned:

You run an ad that gives someone a free trial in exchange for their email address and phone number.
You invite someone to a webinar in exchange for their contact information.
If you want to change your website hosting from WordPress to Squarespace, your domain name is yours to take and the traffic that comes with it.

This is an essential medium for virtually all businesses because it's something they can rely on despite external circumstances.

If your car breaks down, you can always call your friends to give you a ride, but only if you have their number.

4. Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is when you call or email prospects who are "cold," meaning they have not subscribed to your stuff or given their information to you previously.

Finding people who match your customer type and striking up a conversation on LinkedIn is outbound.

Cold calling business owners is outbound.

Using Facebook Messenger to talk with folks in your target market is outbound.

This type of marketing is often demonized as an unwanted and sleazy salesperson. However, outbound is really just networking.

Networking is intentional connecting with people who potentially share your interests and goals.

That doesn't sound so bad, does it?

5. Referrals

Many businesses generate a huge part of their revenue through word of mouth from their existing customers.

Yet, this process can also be systemized and incentivized in order to produce even better results.

Also, this is a natural outflow of having a tremendous customer experience and customer satisfaction focus.

If you make your current customers happy, they will tell their friends because it increases their status as someone who knows quality products or services.

Happy customers equal new customers.

Additionally, a focus on referral marketing can lead to an increase in customer lifetime value or how long a customer sticks with you.

Also, being too focused on customer acquisition over customer loyalty often leads people to fall stagnant in developing content or in continuing to add value to their following.

You may have subscribed to HBO because they had a show you wanted to watch, but you stay on board with them and tell your friends because you discovered another show that is even better.

Here, customer retention also becomes lead generation.

Lastly, when you focus on getting great testimonials of your target customers this also allows you to create content and specify your messaging using the words your customers actually use.

Look at your Google and Yelp reviews to see how people are reacting to your brand. You don't need to pay a research firm to sit with your sales and discover your prospects’ demographics and pain points.

6. Strategic Partnerships and Affiliates

Most businesses do not operate in a vacuum. Their product or service is dependent or complementary to another product or service.

When you find a compatible business with your own, then everyone wins.

Traffic goes both ways.

A bookstore partners with a coffee shop.

A gym works with a prepared meal company.

A YouTube video on camera gear has an affiliate link to earn a small percentage of the sale.

It is easy to focus on your own goals as a business owner, but when you look beyond your ideal customer, you begin to see other products or services that can also help.

The Biggest Pitfalls Businesses Make When Considering Customer Sources

Ever known someone who ran Facebook ads for a week and then shut it off because they said that it "doesn't work for their business”?

Have you heard of the person who sent an email to a list and then declared "email is dead" because they didn't land a single sale?

These are folks who did not enter the customer source with the right mindset.

For example, you cannot spend $50 dollars on Facebook ads and say they don't work. Chances are you should be spending $50 dollars a day.

You actually need to give the algorithm time to narrow your audience and learn how to create a compelling Facebook ad.

You can't call up 50 cold leads a week and say that outbound marketing doesn't work.

You should be calling 200 people a day, and you need to get good at using a script to close the deal.

Building skills takes time.

Building a platform, a list, an audience, a sequence, and a process all take time, too.

3 Hacks for Conquering These Customer Acquisition Mediums

1. Build complementary earned and paid media channels.

If you have a great Facebook following, consider advertising on Facebook. If you only interact on LinkedIn and that's where people know you, go there.

You have a basic understanding of the platform and the type of digital marketing that people are already doing.

2. Don't trade one customer source for another.

Get good at and comfortable with at least one source first. Add quality, consistent value. From there, branch out. Going on a new diet while trying to get back in the gym will ensure that you fail at both things.

To increase your customer base, you should be adding new things over time, not taking things away.

It is easy to get excited by a new marketing strategy and abandon a previous strategy.

Don't do this.

If it is working, keep doing that thing. Just slowly add in new things as you develop mastery.

Every brand that appears to be everywhere now started by becoming really good somewhere.

If you are a small business or a startup, and you are really good at Facebook advertising, keep doing that.

If content marketing is your jam and search engines are your best friend, don't stop creating content.

3. Measure your customer source with metrics.

A great marketing campaign is a measurable marketing campaign. You should know if your efforts are making you more money or not.

Set goals and measure those goals.

Measure website traffic and new emails to your list in Google Analytics.

Measure clicks and conversions on your Facebook ad.

Having clear, objective metrics will allow you to create better content and keep you motivated on days when you are not sure if your efforts are being wasted.

For example, analyzing when views drop off in your YouTube video can help you to create better videos.

Seeing that people click on your ad but don't convert on your landing page can inspire you to make a better landing page.

Summary

By understanding the 6 different sources of where you can get customers, you will be able to understand:

Which sources you are currently using.
Which sources you have yet to use.
Which source is worth going after next.

Understand that each source takes time to build up. You need to level up your skillset and you need to give yourself time to develop on different platforms.

Build off of complementary channels.
Don't stop utilizing channels that are working for you.
Make sure you are measuring your results along the way.