How D2C Brands Can Leverage Social Media for Customer Acquisition 

For most direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, online advertising and marketing are the best way to reach their target audience. D2C brands have gone from entering the market with little to no brand awareness to generating immense popularity through digital channels, specifically social media platforms. This blog post discusses six sure-shot ways D2C brands can leverage social media for effective customer acquisition. Read along!

With more and more customers preferring to have an online buying journey, the competition among the brands is bound to skyrocket. It is natural for these brands to look at creative, cost-effective, and efficient ways to ensure they reach the prospect ahead of their competition and convert the lead to a customer. Customer acquisition doesn’t have to be a costly affair anymore, thanks to the advent of social media. Let us look at how social media can help your customer acquisition strategy.

Velocity is India’s leading cash flow-based financing platform for new-age businesses. It democratizes access to working capital by leveraging data and online cash flows. Learn more about it at Velocity

Also Read: What is Customer Acquisition Cost, and How to Reduce It? 

Six Ways D2C Brands Can Leverage Social Media For Effective Customer Acquisition

Social listening 

Social media is a great way to connect with your prospects and customers. Gone are the days when brands were “unreachable.” The current driving point for customer acquisition is promptness. In this day and age, the public expects brands to be human. No more sounding like a robot online; brands have to pull up their socks and meet their customers where they are: in their DMs.

Social media platforms have developed tremendously and offer multiple features for engagement with your customers. Be it through messages, comments, or through live videos, brands can always know the pulse of their audience through social media channels. What more? You can easily answer your prospects’ queries quickly and convert them from leads to customers. For example, notice how BlissClub leverages the comments section on its posts to educate users about its products.

Credits: My Blissclub

Influencer marketing 

So much has been written about influencer marketing which is all the rage today. Influencer marketing allows brands to attract more customers and scale up by getting them more visibility. However, remember that more famous influencers can be expensive. That can be a deal-breaker for D2C brands that are just starting up.

We recommend using micro-influencers with a specific niche, depending on your product. That doesn’t mean they aren’t famous, nuh-huh. They are still influential and, at times, more influential than more prominent influencers, as their audience is closely knit. And since they charge comparatively lesser, you can rope in multiple micro-influencers to promote your brand. For example, Mamaearth engages micro-influencers all the time to promote its products.

Also Read: 100 Best Instagram Influencers for D2C Brands in 2022

Solve vs. sell

Brands today have learned to leverage technology to promote their business. However, they often forget that the audience has evolved to understand when a brand is trying just to sell its products vs. when they are actually solving a challenge. The public, in general, is fatigued by the aggressive sales approach by brands. They are looking for brands that genuinely care about their concerns and look to solve their problems.

If customer acquisition is your goal, walk in their shoes and post content that shows them you understand their challenges. For example, look at how the Indian makeup brand, Sugar Cosmetics, sells its products without trying too hard. They share content that would genuinely be useful for their audience. This kind of subtle positioning can help increase your credibility among the audience.

Content marketing

Content creation is more important to marketing than you think. Organic content that is original, informative, and consistent can do wonders for your customer acquisition strategy. Instead of promotional or sales-oriented content, create content that would resonate with your target audience.

For example, if you deal in baby products, posting content that addresses issues related to babies or something that helps out new mommies can be great for your brand. We love how the baby product brand R for Rabbits held a session on breastfeeding during breastfeeding week this year.

Credits: R for Rabbits

Content marketing trends keep changing, and so should you. Today, meme marketing is in trend. If your audience is on social media sharing memes, you should too. Always research your audience and see how they like to be approached. Personalize the entire experience for them, and social media will go from being a lead-gen tool to a lead-conversion tool in no time.

Embrace automation

For a brand to sustain itself in today’s highly competitive social media world, it is imperative for it to create content across all the social media channels, and that too, consistently. With limited marketing budgets and resources, it can be a nightmare. However, with automation taking over *almost* every aspect of work today, social media management can be a cakewalk. 

Some brands today have pre-filled questions as options whenever someone tries to message them on Instagram and Facebook. It is as simple as “What is your price?” or “When are you open?” This gives a certain human touch to a conversation. The brand representatives can then respond to the query when available. You can also leverage content management software or automation software to automate your posts and focus only on meaningful tasks like engaging with your prospects on a daily basis. 

Must Read: Ultimate Guide To Instagram Marketing

User-Generated Content (UGC) FTW

It is no secret that online shoppers rely heavily on customer reviews and testimonials before purchasing any product. In fact, 93% of users have made buying decisions based on an online review. This has led to many D2C brands employing UGC in their marketing campaigns. Seeing actual people using a product and talking highly about it can push others to try it, too, letting you acquire more customers without spending much on CAC.

You can even ask your loyal customers to share their experiences on social media and tag your social handle. For example, Country Delight, a D2C dairy brand, is known for sharing UGC left, right, and center. Notice how they share a video montage of multiple real product users at their homes? This gives the brand a sense of authenticity instead of looking made up.

Credit: CountryDelight

With these tips, we can guarantee you will start seeing an uptick in lead conversion in no time. However, remember, consistency is key.

Need funds to start your marketing campaigns? Your search ends here. Look at financing options like revenue-based financing where you can raise capital easily by pledging a percentage of your future ongoing revenues. We, at Velocity,  are India’s largest revenue-based financing company and offer growth capital of up to Rs 3 crore to D2C and e-commerce brands.

Businesses with healthy revenue streams can get instant funds and can make the repayments as their revenue grows. To get revenue-based financing for your business, apply here and get funded in 7 days.