Whether you’re targeting a B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer) market, your acquisition strategy should be effective, targeted, and sustainable. Here’s a guide to help you get results in both contexts.

Understand your target audience

The key to acquiring customers is to know your audience deeply.

• For B2B, analyze the industry, identify business decision-makers, and understand their needs, which often relate to efficiency, return on investment (ROI), and process simplification.
• For B2C, focus on consumer behaviors, buying habits, and emotional motivations.

Deepening the characteristics of your target is essential to build effective and personalized marketing strategies. Here are the most useful tools for collecting data and analyzing your audience:

1. Data analysis tools

• Google Analytics: allows you to monitor user behavior on your website: age, gender, geographical origin, interests and much more.
• Meta Business Suite: Provides demographics and behavioral data of the audience that interacts with your Facebook and Instagram pages.
• HubSpot: An inbound marketing platform that offers tools to analyze visitors, their behavior, and their position in the sales funnel.

2. Surveys and questionnaires

• Google Forms/Typeforms: useful for collecting direct information through surveys. You can ask questions to understand your target audience’s needs, preferences, and characteristics.
• SurveyMonkey: A professional platform for creating more complex questionnaires and collecting quantitative and qualitative data.
• Hotjar: Combine site surveys with heatmaps to better understand what visitors are looking for.

3. Social Listening and Analysis of Online Conversations

• Brandwatch/Talkwalker: to monitor what your audience is saying online about your products, your brand or competitors.
• Hootsuite Insights: Analyze social media trends and discussions, allowing you to understand your target audience’s sentiment.
• BuzzSumo: Identify the most popular content among your audience and locate relevant influencers.

4. Behavioral analysis on website and App

• Hotjar: In addition to surveys, it offers heatmaps and session recordings to analyze how visitors interact with your site.
• Crazy Egg: Similar to Hotjar, it allows you to analyze clicks, page scrolling, and other metrics to understand your interaction with your site.
• Mixpanel: specialized in the analysis of user behavior in Apps or digital platforms.

5. Existing CRM and databases

• Salesforce: Record every interaction with your customers, providing actionable insights into preferences, buying habits, and behaviors.
• Zoho CRM: A more cost-effective alternative for collecting and analyzing customer information.

6. Competitor analysis

• SEMrush/Ahrefs: Tools to understand the online behavior of your competitor’s audience by analyzing traffic, keywords, and successful content.
• SimilarWeb: Provides an overview of the audience of competing sites, including interests and behaviors.

7. Tools to create personas

• Xtensio: a platform to create profiles of “buyer personas” based on the data collected.
• HubSpot’s MakeMyPersona: guides you through the process of creating personas through specific questions.

8. Qualitative analysis (interviews and focus groups)

• Google Meet / Zoom / Microsoft Teams: To conduct interviews with clients or prospects.
• Lookback: ideal for testing digital experiences (UX) and interviewing your target audience.

Create a unique value proposition

Your startup needs to stand out. In both B2B and B2C, it’s essential to answer the question, “Why would someone choose my product or service?”

Creating a unique value proposition (UVP) is essential to differentiate your product or service from the competition and convince customers that you are the best choice. Here’s a guide to developing your own UVP:

1. Understand your target audience

Get to know your audience deeply to identify their needs, problems, and wants.
How to do it:

• Use data and analytics: Tools like Google Analytics, Meta Insights, or surveys on Typeform.
• Talk directly to customers: focus groups, interviews, feedback.
• Study buyer personas: Who are your ideal customers? What are their motivations?

2. Analyze competitors

Understanding what your competitors offer helps you stand out.

• Study their marketing: visit their websites, read reviews, analyze their strengths and weaknesses.
• Identify market gaps: Look for areas where competitors aren’t fully meeting the customer’s need.

3. Define your strengths

Ask yourself what makes your product or service unique from the competition. You can stand out on various aspects:

• Product quality: materials, performance, durability.
• Customer experience: support, customization, convenience.
• Price: Lower cost or higher quality/price ratio.
• Company mission: values or social/environmental impact that attract your target.

4. Articulate the Key Benefits

Focus on the concrete benefits that the customer will get by choosing you. Answer these questions:

• What problem do you solve?
• What desire do you fulfill?
• How will you improve the customer’s life?

In the case of B2B: Emphasize tangible results, such as reducing costs or improving productivity.
On the other hand, for B2C: it focuses on experiences, emotions and practical benefits for the customer.

5. Use clear and straightforward language

Your UVP should be simple, understandable, and straightforward. Avoid complicated jargon or overly generic promises.
An effective structure includes:

• Headline: a short and impactful sentence that captures attention.
• Sub-headline: Explains the details of the value offered.
• Visual support: Include images or graphics to reinforce the message.

6. Test the proposal

Don’t assume your UVP is working. Test it with your audience and get feedback through:

• A/B Testing: Test different versions of the value proposition (headline, tone, messaging).
• Collect direct feedback: Do customers understand your message? Do they find it convincing?

7. Integrate it into all channels

Once you’ve defined your UVP, use it consistently on:

• Website (homepage, landing page, product descriptions).
• Marketing communications (ads, emails, social media).
• Internal and sales team communications.

Unique Value Proposition Examples

1. Uber: “A ride cheaper than a taxi, available in minutes.”
2. Apple: “Think different” (offers innovation and unique design).
3. Amazon Prime: “Fast deliveries, movies and TV series: all in one subscription.”

How to create an effective value proposition? With this Template!

Use this structure, replacing the words in parentheses with data about your product or service.

• For [target] that [problema/desiderio], we offer [soluzione] that [beneficio principale].
• Unlike [concorrente], our product/service offers [differenziazione unica].

Building a digital strategy

Online presence is crucial. Here’s how to set it up for B2B and B2C:

For the B2B market:

• LinkedIn: An essential platform for connecting with decision-makers and creating educational content such as articles or white papers.
• Email marketing: Create custom campaigns to promote case studies, demos, or targeted offers.
• SEO and SEM: Optimize your startup’s website for niche keywords and invest in targeted ads on Google Ads to reach specific businesses.

For the B2C market:

• Social Media Marketing: Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are key to reaching consumers with engaging visual content.
• Influencer marketing: Collaborate with influencers relevant to your industry to increase your brand’s visibility.
• Targeted ad campaigns: Use tools like Facebook Ads and Google Ads to segment your audience based on interests and habits.

Offer free trials or demos

An effective way to gain customers, especially in the B2B sector, is to allow them to try your product or service for free. Free trials reduce perceived risk, giving customers the chance to experience the benefits firsthand. In B2C, you can think of promotional campaigns, free samples or initial discounts to attract new users.

Offering free trials or demos can be a great strategy for acquiring customers, especially in competitive markets or for complex products/services, but its effectiveness depends on several factors. Here’s a breakdown of the benefits, limitations, and situations where it can be most useful.

Benefits of free trials and demos

1. Perceived risk reduction: Potential customers often have hesitation in buying because of the perceived risk (e.g., “What if it doesn’t work for me?”). A free trial eliminates this barrier, giving them confidence.
2. Direct experience of value: customers can try the product/service firsthand, understanding its benefits. It is particularly useful for:
   • SaaS software (e.g. Canva, Dropbox).
   • Expensive or innovative products that require “field demonstrations”.
3. Trust generation: Demonstrating transparency and confidence in product quality increases brand credibility.
4. Data capture and feedback: During your free trial, you can gather valuable insights into user behavior, either by improving your product or personalizing future offerings.
5. Engagement and loyalty: A good experience during the trial increases the likelihood that the customer will convert and remain loyal over time.

Limitations and challenges of free trials and demos

1. Cost: Offering free trials can be expensive, especially for physical products or services that require significant resources (e.g., time, materials, staff).
2. Unqualified customers: You may attract people who are only interested in free admission, with no intention of buying. This problem is especially common in freemium models.
3. Low conversion: If the trial isn’t designed well or the value isn’t communicated clearly, many users may drop out without converting into paying customers.
4. Product complexity: If your product requires a high learning curve, a short trial may not be enough to show the value.

When is it effective to offer a free trial or demo?

1. Digital and SaaS products: it is a consolidated strategy in the software world (e.g. Netflix, Spotify, HubSpot) where the marginal cost per user is low.
   • Ex: “14-day free trial without a credit card”.
2. New or little-known products: If your product is innovative and your audience doesn’t fully understand its value, a free trial or demo can eliminate skepticism.
3. Market segments with low initial confidence: Markets where customers are particularly cost- or risk-conscious, such as startups or SMBs.
4. B2B sales: A demo is crucial in complex sales cycles to convince decision-makers by showing how the product solves specific business problems.

How to maximize the effectiveness of the free trial or demo?

1. Set a clear goal
   • Do you want users to get used to using your product?
   • Do you want to generate curiosity and interest?
   • Do you want to collect qualified leads?
2. Create effective onboarding: Make sure users understand the value of the product right away. Provide guides, video tutorials, or dedicated assistance to accompany them.
3. Limit time or features: A limited duration (e.g., 7 or 14 days) or a version with basic features can motivate the user to convert to a paid plan.
   • Ex: Canva Free vs. Canva Pro.
4. Add a clear call-to-action: During or at the end of the trial, guide the user to the next step with promotions, reminders or special offers.
5. Segment prospects: filter attendees to ensure you’re only attracting qualified leads (e.g., requesting a business email or profile details).

Examples of successful free trials

• Spotify: “3 months free of Premium” – creates a habit of using the service, making it difficult to go back to the free version.
• HubSpot: Customized demos to show how their SaaS tools solve specific business challenges.
• Glovo: first free delivery to get customers used to the service.

Free Trial vs Demo: When to Use Them?

• Free Trial: Ideal for user-friendly products that customers can use on their own.
• Demo: Perfect for complex or B2B products, where a rep needs to show value.

Where is your startup at? Join the Turin innovation ecosystem to increase the chances of making your product or service known and continue to follow us: the second part of this resource is coming soon!