5 Reasons SMBs Should Focus on Search, Not Social for Customer Acquisition

One cannot deny the growing importance of social media, especially when it comes to social engagement and brand awareness. It is believed to be an effective marketing tool that helps businesses to enhance their online visibility. However, the question arises if social media is effective for customer acquisition for small and medium sized businesses?

There are many SMBs that are laying stress on using social media as a customer acquisition tool, instead of search marketing. Let’s discuss how it is a mistake and why they should focus more on search and not on social for getting new customers.

1. Search gets businesses in front of new customers, especially when they are not aware of the brand. It makes new customers aware of the product or services, when need the same. Organic search may take time while paid search allows business to get perspective customers immediately with ads relevant to their queries. The visitor may not recognize the name of the company, but it would cater to the immediate needs.
2. The conversion rate from search is good. Everybody is aware of the fact that social media sites are more used for socialization, while search engines are used when they want to gather information or get some product or service. Thus, the chance of converting into customer is high in case of search than social.
3. It allows people to find the business easily. Search engine help people in finding information, such as phone number and directions. The study has brought to light that 88 per cent of mobile users who search for a local service provider take action within a day. Moreover, the number of people using mobile devices to search is regularly increasing.
4. Social media marketing is not easy. Many people start on social media marketing with the hope that it is easy, but truly speaking, managing social media campaigns is not an easy task. Getting customers through this means is also not that easy.
5. Search has proved to be an effective customer acquisition tool. When it comes to acquiring new customers, search engine has proved to be a remarkable tool with mobile search improving upon its effectiveness immensely. 

In social media sites, though people may like a page or post, but they may not do so with purchase intent. Thus, social media is not considered to be an effective tool for acquiring new customers. SMBs with limited budget cannot ignore this point and should utilize a proven customer cquring method.