Last updated on February 18th, 2025 at 01:00 am
If you’re looking for long-term, sustainable growth in your business, just driving large amounts of traffic or building a beautiful brand isn’t enough anymore.
To achieve that type of growth (and have a business that stands the test of time), you also need to focus on the two factors that matter more than both, traffic AND branding… acquisition & retention.
In this guide, we’re going to break down exactly what customer acquisition and retention is, what success looks like in each of those realms, and why it’s so critical for your long-term viability.
We’ll also show you multiple different ways to achieve each of these objectives and how to build your funnel around them so you’re able to build for the long-term, from the ground up.
Before we get to that, though…
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What is Customer Acquisition?
At the core of long-term, sustainable growth lies customer acquisition.
It revolves around getting the best-fit customers into your business in a measurable and repeatable way.
The keys there are: measurable and repeatable.
You don’t just want to drive large amounts of traffic and call it an acquisition strategy.
Instead, you want to focus on the key elements of what some of the most successful businesses do:
- Best-Fit: Your best-fit customers aren’t just ANY customer that comes into your business. Instead, they are those who are the most suitable or ideal for your product or service. This refers to customers whose needs and preferences align with your offer.
- It means customers who are most likely to get satisfaction and possibly become brand ambassadors to drive even more people like them into your business in the future.
- Measurable: For your growth to be measurable, you need to ensure that the acquisition process you’re using is something that you can track and assess, using metrics like conversion rates, cost-per-acquisition, etc.
- Being able to effectively measure the results in your campaigns helps you optimize your strategies to increase the results you get as you grow and scale.
- Repeatable: A repeatable customer acquisition strategy means that the process isn’t a one-off or ad-hoc effort. It’s something that can and should be replicated.
- Having a repeatable process ensures that your success in acquiring customers, especially at scale, is not random or accidental but can be consistently achieved over time.
When each of these 3 elements are in place, your customer acquisition strategy is ready to scale.
What is Customer Retention?
You don’t just want to focus on driving more customers into your business, though.
You also want to focus on making sure you can KEEP those customers over the long haul.
Customer retention refers to how often you’re able to keep a customer within your business over a specific period of time and may sometimes be referred to as churn or falloff.
When you’re looking to scale, the general rule is the lower your churn rate, the higher your chances of growing your revenue month-over-month.
And in terms of cost-effectiveness with acquisition versus retention, check this out:
Acquiring a new customer isn’t cheap — it costs a significant amount of money to get their attention with your marketing and typically requires more competitive pricing.
Both of these tend to be substantially higher than what it costs you to retain those customers.
On top of that, existing customers who are already familiar with your business and have been satisfied with your products or services are more likely to purchase again in the future.
The conversion rates for upselling or cross selling these customers are typically higher than conversion rates on new leads, too, which improves your profit margins.
Loyal customers are also less sensitive to price and are more resistant to competitive offers.
When it comes to driving long-term profits into your business so you can scale, it’s impossible to ignore customer retention as a key strategy to focus on.
Customer Acquisition Strategies
To get those customers in the door so you can build loyalty and retain them, you need to first focus on acquisition strategies that have proven to scale with a high long-term ROI.
There are 4 main strategies you’ll want to focus on as you’re laying your acquisition foundation.
#1- Paid Media
Paid media can be anything from advertising on social media platforms, like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or something more along the lines of buying a billboard or radio advertising.
These platforms allow you to create highly targeted advertising that can deliver near-immediate results in a way that is both trackable and measurable.
One of the best ways to utilize paid media in your acquisition strategy is to use something simple to grab attention, like a lead magnet, masterclass, webinar, eBook, or free guide.
These don’t always have to be elaborate, either.
For example, a free masterclass can be a GREAT lead magnet:
These are used to grab the attention of people who may be in your audience already but aren’t necessarily aware of who you are yet.
The lead magnets can then introduce them to you, your business, and your offers.
Here’s an example of a lead magnet ad from Amy Porterfield:
When you’re running paid advertising to a lead magnet, you’ll want to drive traffic to a landing page that highlights the value of the free content you’re offering.
The goal is to capture the visitor’s email address or contact information so you can follow up later and continue building your relationship with the lead until they’re ready to make a purchase.
And if you’re looking for a platform that’s able to grow with you as you scale — and handle large volumes of traffic — build your landing pages on ClickFunnels.
You can click here to start your free trial now
#2- Influencer Marketing
At its core, influencer marketing revolves around getting endorsements or product mentions from social media influencers — or personal brands that have large audiences on social media platforms.
These influencers tend to be viewed as experts, so receiving recommendations or endorsements from them transfers that authority from them to your brand.
This helps create trust between their audience and your offer, making them convert into customers at a higher rate than other marketing strategies.
To properly execute an influencer marketing campaign, you’ll want to first find influencers or creators that you can partner with.
You’ll want to ensure they have your best-fit customers inside of their audience before you move forward with paying for a recommendation or endorsement.
Then, you’ll give them a coupon code that’s unique to them so you’re able to track any referrals they’ve made while their audience receives a special discount for being a loyal audience member.
If you’re just getting started, you’ll want to look for “nano” or “micro” creators on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or other platforms and partner with them in exchange for commissions on the sales they help generate.
You’ve probably seen these types of posts before, too:
In the example above, the influencer was given a unique discount code so their audience can receive 20% off of their purchase when they order through the link provided.
Here’s another example of influencer marketing in action:
In this example, Magic Spoon is paying for visibility rather than using a customized discount code to track the sales generated by the influencer.
While this strategy works for large brands, remember the keys to growing and scaling your business using the acquisition strategies we’re talking about: measurability and repeatability.
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#3- Organic Content
Organic content, specifically blog content (like the one you’re reading now!) and social media content is a great way to acquire new customers in a way that is measurable and repeatable.
The key to finding success with your organic content marketing strategy, though, isn’t in bombarding your audience with sales pitch after sales pitch.
Instead, long-term success revolves around creating authentic connections through value-driven content that resonates with what your audience wants to see.
To see how big brands are creating valuable content that resonates with their audience, check out this example below:
When the content is valuable, engaging, or evokes emotion, people are more likely to share it within their networks.
This extra organic reach:
- Enhances brand visibility without seeming pushy
- Creates brand advocates who voluntarily promote your content
- Builds trust, as content comes recommended by friends or family
By consistently delivering valuable content, your brand becomes known as the go-to source for quality information or entertainment in your niche.
This consistent presence helps:
- Keep your brand top of mind without aggressive sales tactics
- Encourage repeat visits and engagement, even without direct promotion
- Build a loyal community that trusts your brand’s voice and values
Ultimately this drives more traffic to your landing pages so you get an opportunity to convert that attention into long-term, sustainable results in a measurable and repeatable way.
#4- Referrals
Referrals from people you’ve worked with or helped (especially your past customers!) can be a great source of high-converting traffic to use in your acquisition strategy.
When someone refers your business, and it’s authentic, it helps increase the trust factor and lets them personalize why your offer or service would be an ideal fit for the person they’re talking to.
Plus it’s built-in social proof that you worked so hard to earn in the first place!
To execute this strategy, there’s a few things you need to do:
- Create an easy process for your customers to refer others to your business.
- Offer mutual incentives so the person who refers you gets something from the deal, too.
- Promote your program so your existing (and past) customers know it exists.
Check out the example below to see how The Tonic does it:
You can encourage customers and subscribers to share referral links or discount codes on social media, amplifying the reach you receive and bringing more awareness to your business.
Remember, though, when you’re implementing a referral program you want it to be measurable and repeatable. (Starting to see a common theme here?)
Customer Retention Strategies
Remember what we mentioned earlier: just being able to acquire customers at scale isn’t how you build a long-term, sustainable business.
You also want to put just as much (or even more) effort into ensuring you RETAIN those customers.
Sustaining the growth you’ve experienced using the acquisition strategies above over the long-term can be accomplished using the retention strategies below.
#1- Post Purchase Experience
The sale doesn’t end just because someone became a customer.
In fact, after they’ve purchased is when you should double down on making sure that they’re not only satisfied with what they’ve purchased from you — but that they’re looking forward to doing business with you again in the future.
Ensuring that customers understand and can effectively use a product leads to higher satisfaction and an overall greater perceived value.
Eliminating confusion or dissatisfaction can also reduce returns and customer complaints.
On top of this, it helps encourage positive reviews because satisfied customers are more likely to positively review your offer or even recommend it to other people.
Then, you can increase brand loyalty by providing ongoing support to nurture the relationship and carry it beyond a one-time transaction.
To help nail your post purchase experience, check out this email example:
And here’s another example that helps their customers understand how to use the product:
You can also take a page out of the Clickfunnels book and host webinars:
Then, give your users access to a support system to help get the most out of the offer:
As you’re planning out your retention strategies, keep in mind that the sale doesn’t end just because a transaction has occurred — your job only shifts to making sure those customers are 100% satisfied.
#2- Community
Building a community around your offer, especially for your paying customers, is another great way to ensure they’re receiving support and that you stay top of mind in the future.
There are different ways you can do this, too.
Some of the most popular ways to create communities around your offer are Facebook groups, Reddit forums, or Slack channels that let your customers interact, ask questions, and get help.
Since your retention strategy should move beyond just transactions, engaging with customers inside of your community helps to build trust and brand loyalty while also facilitating peer-to-peer support.
To give you an example, Ahrefs has a 15,300 member Facebook group exclusive to their paying customers where they post product updates, answer product-related questions, and give tips on how to use the toolset better.
Talking directly to your customers helps them not only get feedback on using your product but also helps you generate ideas for new features.
People inside of the Ahrefs group also sometimes help each other if someone has an Ahrefs question or other SEO-related questions — which helps reduce the strain on your customer support team.
#3- Loyalty Program
Building a loyalty program is another great way to increase customer retention, encourage repeat purchases, and create personalized offers for your customers.
You can use different types of loyalty programs from points systems to tired programs, and even subscription-based programs to drive customer loyalty.
Check out how Starbucks does it with their points-based rewards program:
Sephora uses points and tiers inside of their loyalty program:
These systems work because of a psychological concept known as “loss aversion”.
Loyalty programs often provide immediate benefits or bonuses upon joining, making the idea of not participating or leaving the program seem like they’re losing something.
This helps tap into the psychological principle that people prefer to avoid losses rather than obtain equivalent gains.
Your loyalty program also helps drive a sense of achievement since earning rewards triggers pressure which helps release dopamine in the brain.
This positive reinforcement helps encourage repeated behavior — like returning to make another purchase in the future.
Check out this example from Sleepy Owl Coffee to see how simple it can be:
How to Build a Funnel That Handles BOTH Customer Acquisition and Retention
By addressing both your acquisition and retention strategies with a single funnel, you can create a seamless customer journey that helps you deliver a consistent message and experience from the first interaction to ongoing engagements.
This integrated approach provides you with the opportunity to collect and analyze data across the entire customer lifecycle.
It helps you understand how customers are moving through your funnel, helping you identify opportunities for improvement, personalization, or more customized targeting.
ClickFunnels is a tool that can be leveraged to achieve both purposes by creating an optimized sales and marketing funnel.
Here’s how it can be used in both your acquisition and your retention strategy:
To get started, you can map out your entire strategy from lead gen to return customer.
ClickFunnels provides professionally designed, conversion rate optimized templates and tools that are built, from the ground up, to capture leads & help you convert them into new customers.
By offering incentives, like free eBooks, webinars, or discounts, you can convert the attention you’ve captured into new subscribers on your email list.
Then, the template helps guide your prospects through a series of well-designed pages that progressively build interest and trust, leading to higher conversion rates.
With ClickFunnels, you’re also able to A/B/ split test different versions of your page and use in-depth, intuitive analytics to help identify exactly what works best with your specific audience.
With seamless sales integration into various payment gateways and shopping carts, ClickFunnels can help facilitate the final step of converting a new lead into a paying customer.
It also helps assist with your onboarding process by letting you create engaging email sequences that guide new customers to get the most from your product, helping enhance their satisfaction.
You can fully customize the built-in email templates to perfectly match your business’ branding.
Then, to further improve your long-term ROI, you can upsell and cross sell by creating one-time offers or membership areas that encourage additional purchases.
By presenting your audience with related products or exclusive content, you can help increase your overall customer lifetime value.
When that happens, you know you’re on the right track with your acquisition AND retention strategy.
If you haven’t already tried ClickFunnels, you can click here now to start your free trial.
Once you do, you’ll realize how powerful the software can be when you’re using the strategies laid out in this guide.
Learn how to not only acquire customers quicker but also retain them for longer.