For climate tech startups, understanding the customer acquisition funnel is crucial because it can help them identify where in the funnel they are losing potential customers or failing to convert leads into sales. By analyzing the funnel, startups can identify gaps in their branding and messaging that may be hindering their success in acquiring and retaining customers. This information can be used to refine their brand story, messaging, and content strategy to better address the needs and pain points of their target audience.

Additionally, for startups in hardware-heavy or deeptech industries where buying processes can be complex, understanding the funnel can help them develop more effective strategies for nurturing leads and guiding them towards a purchase decision. By creating tailored content and touchpoints for each stage of the funnel, startups can build trust with potential customers, demonstrate their expertise, and differentiate themselves from competitors.

Overall, by leveraging their understanding of the customer acquisition funnel, climate tech startups can develop a more effective branding and marketing strategy that not only attracts and retains customers but also helps to drive long-term growth and profitability.

The four-step customer acquisition process

Today customers have between 7-10 different interactions with these touchpoints before they even consider your solution. Each one of these four steps requires one to three touch points to move down the funnel. Sometimes more in complex industries. Here are the four steps in customer acquisition.

1. Getting Their Attention

Lead status: They’re just discovering that you exist, but they may not know what you do or how you do it. And that's OK. It's your job right now to introduce your expertise in a way that comes across as helpful — not salsey.

When a customer first engages with your brand, it’s more than likely that they won’t need your help initially. They may not even know that they have a problem.

This is typically known in marketing terms as the top of the funnel and requires you to create content for this specific stage of the buyer's journey. 

It’s where you put your best foot forward and tell your audience about the problem that you solve and the first steps towards a solution.

This can be done through many different forms, including: Blogs, podcasts, social media posts, online or offline events, cold email or pay-per-click advertising. 

At this stage, it's all about making the customer become problem aware, positioning yourself as a valuable resource and helping them see that there's a better way to do things than they're currently doing it. (Sound familiar? It should. Remember your brand's story from the first section!)

2. Getting Them Interested

Lead’s status: You’ve got their attention and they want to know if your product may be a good fit for them. Does this lead has the potential to turn into a prospect?

Traditionally, the qualification process would happen manually, usually by phone or email. Whilst that’s not necessarily an issue, the idea of demand generation is that by the time you interact with your customer, you know they’re qualified. 

That’s why it’s important that your content speaks to people's needs and asks them these questions in advance within your content. Before they enter into the nurturing stage, they should already know what problems they have that you can solve and that you’re the right person/team for the job.

For example: if you’re selling a solution for drivers, a question that you may ask is if your leads have a car or if they plan on buying one. If the answer is no, then they are not a prospect. 

Another example in a B2B context could be focused on selling sustainability consulting services. Your question might be something along the lines of “Does your company want to become more sustainable in 2021?” 

Obviously, if the answer is no — either because they don’t have a company or because they’re not interested in becoming more sustainable — then they’re not a prospect. The qualification process begins as soon as you receive someone’s contact details.

However, it's when you're able to actually help the person on the other side of the conversation that this becomes valuable for both parties. 

Different types of content at this stage of the customer's journey include: 

• Community-building events

• Webinars

• Offline events

• Exclusive content & downloadables

• Conversational email marketing

Keep in mind: As climate-positive entrepreneurs, we often focus on people who aren’t leads, asking “Why you should make your company more sustainable in 2021” rather than engage people who already think that they should make their company more sustainable in 2021. “How to make your company more sustainable in 2020”. We spend too much time convincing people to make sustainable decisions, and not enough time helping people make them.

3. Desire to Work Together

Lead status: Keen to know more. 

This is where most businesses start the process and whilst it’s an important step, it’s useless to start here. You need to first have prospects discover your brand and then transition into a lead before you can nurture them into a customer. It's a long game, but it's worth it.

However, once you have determined whether your lead is the right fit for your business or not, the next step is to nurture them from a prospect into a sale. 

Here you must induce in your customer the desire to buy and introduce your product as a solution to the problems that you’ve identified further up the funnel. 

Different type of content at this stage can range from educational content, product demos, social proof (i.e., testimonials) and inspirational content. Video can also be very effective here.

4. Action: Converting

Lead status: Ready to commit. Here you want to make sure that you make it as easy as possible for this prospect to become a customer. 

The key is to eliminate all hiccups they may have in the buying process. This stage is all about focusing on building meaningful relationships with the customer. 

Customers who have already purchased from you are 60 to 70% more likely to purchase from you again. Furthermore, they’re likely to refer you to their mates. 

So maintaining these relationships is crucial to building your brand. Remember, your brand is how people experience your brand and that’s just as relevant for today’s customers as it is for tomorrow’s. Tactics include:

• Good refund policies or money-back guarantees.

• Well-trained and prepared sales team armed with a strong brand story and well-informed value propositions.

• Not spamming people with emails when they’re already ready to buy.