Customer Acquisition (CA) is the term used to describe the methods and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries generated by a variety of marketing techniques (email, display ads, direct marketing, etc) to targeted customers.

It is often seen as the bridge between advertising or direct marketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). In short, CA is about getting new customers, whereas CRM is about keeping your existing customers and unlocking more value from them.

Customer acquisition management process

• Advertising and CRM
• Customer inquiry or response
• Inquiry captured
• Inquiry filtered
• Lead graded and prioritized
• Lead distribution
• Sales contact
• Lead nurturing or retention
• Sales result
• Analysis of promotions effectiveness.

Key points on customer acquisition

1. Define and deliver lead quality. It's no longer good enough to merely deliver leads. Leads must convert, and you must also learn why they convert.
2. Provide more and richer content to truly capture user interest and gauge intent.
3. Solve the “user intent issue”. For example, why did the user become a lead in the first place? Was it strictly due to an attractive incentive, or was that user truly interested in the product or service offered? Understanding intent leads to better conversions and, ultimately, to more lead sales.
4. Qualify leads. Systems need to be implemented to help qualify lead quality on the front end and lead conversions on the back. Ideally, the lead-gen buyer will allow some kind of integration into its CRM (define) system, so that predictive models can be built and the quality of the leads delivered can continue to improve.
5. Be choosy. Eliminating lower quality leads early on in the process can be scary but in the future, as lead quality goes up and lead volume decreases, more of these leads should convert and the lifetime value of these customers should increase.
6. Segment the audience - not just by demographics or geography but also by the ability to generate leads.
7. Consumer privacy, regulation, and compliance issues.