How to choose customer acquisition channels for your business
Search, articles, catalogs, advertising and recommendations: how to compare channels based on the quality of requests and associate useful content with the service.
Choose an acquisition channel based on how the buyer makes decisions. If he is already looking for a supplier of a part by part number number, he needs a product card. If you are trying to understand the cause of a breakdown, a diagnostic article and the ability to request repairs are more useful. Both paths can lead to a sale, but at different stages.
Separate cold, warm and hot demand
| Stage | Example question | What to give a person |
|---|---|---|
| Cold | Why does equipment overheat? | Explanation of reasons, limitations of self-checking, signs of need for service |
| Warm | Repair or change the unit? | Selection criteria, example of work, diagnostic composition |
| Hot | Model X repair in my city | Service page: competencies, terms, calculation and enquiry |
Don't force the reader of the article to buy right away. Offer the next clear step: compare the solution, look at the case, or get a calculation for your problem.
Which channels to compare
- Search.Suitable when the task is already formulated as a request. You need relevant pages and time to crawl and evaluate the site.
- Useful articles.Help at the selection stage. Measure conversions and follow-ups, not just views.
- Maps and industry catalogs.Useful for company verification and local selection. Information about the work area and contacts must match the site.
- Advertising.Can check a proposal faster if you have a budget. A weak landing page can waste your budget without qualified enquiries.
- Recommendations and partners.Particularly important for complex procurements. The site helps validate the experience and convey the specification.
How to do a short test
Choose one service, one region and one buyer segment. Agree what qualifies as a relevant enquiry: the task, budget, location and deadline. Link the traffic source and landing page to the enquiry in your CRM. After the agreed period, compare costs, qualified leads and sales. For a long sales cycle, payments received in the first week are too early a basis for a conclusion.
There is no such thing as a free result for organic search: working on the site, content and processing requests costs money, even when you don’t pay per click. Don't compare one channel's advertising budget to another's zero.
What our cases show
I.W.H.works with international B2B demand for spare parts, and"Firewood of the Neva"— with local delivery. These are different buyers and page structure. Transitions from neural networks indicate the presence of a source, but in themselves do not prove that its visitors buy better.
Send the service, region and website address. During the analysis, we will determine which queries relate to your clients and which path to the request should be built first.Discuss attraction channels.
Questions and answers
Should you use all channels at once?
It’s better to start with a priority segment and clear accounting of results. Otherwise, it will be difficult to determine which actions brought the right customers.
Is it possible to get clients only through articles?
Articles can help attract people, but they need a relevant offer, a link to the service and a working connection with the company. The number of publications alone is not enough.