How to Lower Your Material Handling Company's Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
How much money does your material handling company spend to acquire a typical customer? Known as Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), it's an important metric you need to track. While countless factors can affect your material handling company's CAC, a
higher-than-average CAC will hurt your company's profits. It's disheartening when you spend an average of $50 to acquire a new customer, only for customers to yield an average of $40 in revenue. The good news is that you can lower your company's CAC in several ways.
Align Marketing and Sales Teams
Even if your material handling company has separate departments for marketing and sales, as a sales or marketing manager, align them to streamline your company's sales process. Marketing and sales teams have different functions, but they have a shared goal of generating quality leads that result in sales. If your material handling company's marketing and sales teams operate independently of each other, it may take longer and require more money to acquire new customers. Start by identifying key prospects you want your material handling company to acquire. Then determine the types of communications and who’s responsible. Tag team the two departments to foster internal communications and efforts.
One way to enjoy some quick success and for the two departments to realize the value of working together, use the Project Reports by SalesLeads. These Project Reports have already identified who is moving, renovating or modernizing their equipment. They’ll get the Project description, contact names, titles, phones and emails. Now they have a strong start to quickly prove the value of working together for a common goal.
By aligning your material handling company's marketing and sales teams, you'll reap the benefits of a streamlined sales process as well as a lower CAC.
Marketing: Add Relevant Videos to Landing Pages
If you use landing pages to reach prospective customers, consider adding relevant videos to them. According to WordStream, landing pages with at least one video have 80% higher conversion rates than landing pages with no videos. Conversion rate is a metric that reflects the percentage of visitors to a landing page -- or other sales channel -- that make a purchase. Therefore, a higher conversion rate will result in more customers and, ultimately, a lower CAC.
Sales reps know which customer would be best for a video…and also agree to it. A video can consist of showing your product in use, but also support the reason to purchase such as video testimonials, and video installations. Remember, leads or prospects need to build a business case for purchasing your product / service. Give them the information they need to take to the Board.
Sales & Marketing: Ask for Referrals
Don't be afraid to ask your material handling company's existing customers for referrals. According to a survey of sales reps within the material handling industry, 78% say referrals have a higher conversion rate than other types of leads. When an existing customer recommends your material handling company to another company, he or she is essentially vetting for your company and its products or services. The new company contact will then feel more confident in your material handling company's abilities to provide a valuable product or service that's worth purchasing, resulting in a higher conversion rate.
Sales: Look for Sales Triggers
Another way to lower your material handling company's CAC is to look for sales triggers. As explained in a previous blog post, sales triggers or "trigger events" are indications that a prospective customer is ready to make a purchase. Sales triggers can be classified as either problem indicators, change indicators or opportunity indicators. Problem indicators suggest the prospective customer is having a problem that can be solved using your material handling company's products or services. Change indicators suggest the prospective customer is undergoing a change, such as a corporate merger or the appointment of a new CEO. And opportunity indicators suggest the prospective customer is looking to grow their company.
How can you find out this information quickly? Enable your sales and marketing team with a News Alert. But not any kind of new alert, because you can quickly get overwhelmed with unwanted news events. As part of the SalesLeads system, there’s a News Alert feature. Identify the company or organization, the type of news you are interested in receiving and only get notifications when the criteria is met. Now your sales and marketing teams can work together to use the strategic information to get into the account or move them through the sales funnel faster.
Marketing: Develop Valuable Content
A form of inbound marketing, content marketing is a highly effective tactic for lowering CAC. It involves producing and distributing content that's relevant to the interests of your material handling company's audience. Publishing blog posts or articles on your material handling company's website is a form of content marketing. Search engines will eventually index these posts and pages in the search results, meaning prospective customers may find them when searching for the respective topic. Over time, content marketing such as this can send countless new customers to your material handling company. When creating content, you should add a call to action (CTA) that tells prospective customers to contact your company.
Keep in mind that content marketing encompasses all forms of content. While most content marketing is performed using text, you can use other types of content to connect with prospective customers, including the following:
- Infographics
- Videos
- Slideshows
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- PDFs
Marketing: Use Targeted Advertising
If you're going to use paid advertising to reach prospective customers, you should create targeted ads. What are targeted ads exactly, and how can they can lower your material handling company's CAC? The term "targeted ads" refers to promotional ads that are only viewable to your material handling company's audience. Rather than creating ads that everyone sees, for example, you can create targeted ads that only your company's key demographic will see. Targeted ads typically yield higher conversion rates than untargeted ads, so they'll naturally lower your material handling company's CAC.
Sales & Marketing: Source High-Quality Leads from SalesLeads
Focus the sales and marketing efforts by sourcing high-quality leads from SalesLeads. Just a handful of high-quality leads can drive far more sales revenue for your material handling company than hundreds or even thousands of low-quality leads or purchasing a list. With a steady source of high-quality leads, you’ll be able to focus the marketing and sales teams’ efforts for a common cause.
Begin by opening a complimentary account and ask for a few recent Project Reports. You’ll be able to try out a few opportunities as well as explore the system. There’s plenty of functions to help support the prospecting process and sales pipeline process.