THE (REAL) COST OF NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISTIONOn today’s episode, we have recurring guest Mike Ferranti Founder and CEO of Endai. Damian and Mike pick up their conversation about new customer acquisition. This episode focuses on the (Real) cost of customer acquisition. Some companies try to disguise the cost but it is real and needs to be uncovered for any business that wants to be successful.First Mike answers the question “Why is knowing the cost of customer acquisition important?”Next, they try to figure out the right way to measure the cost of acquisition.Damian then brings the conversation to the Practioner’s point of view. The practitioner is the marketer who is trying to implement a new customer acquisition strategy.The conversation turns to the differences in companies that have a large brand presence and those companies that need to rely on non brand clicks.Then they get into a discussion about Seasonality and how some businesses can thrive while others are dying throughout the year.Damian then brings up Attribution and how some businesses use Last Touch Cost while others use Cumulative Touch Cost. As well as how do you really attribute any marketing to new customers. Mike gives an example of a shortcut that some businesses take when it comes to attribution.Mike and Damian then discuss how some companies refer to organic traffic as a free channel and how you can match an organic searcher to a previous expense. This then brings up the idea “is new customer acquisition a part of your Cost of Goods Sold”, which both of them refute.Finally, Mike brings up an example of how a company was marking the sizes on their website was increasing returns. This brings up the idea of, “is a returner a new customer?” This topic is debated and it comes down to of course they are a new customer, getting all the way through the sales cycle is the definition of acquisition.All of this and more in Episode 9 of the Inevitable Success Podcast.Part 2 of a 6 Part SeriesNeed to catch up? Here is part 1:New Customer Acquisition: Prime your Business for New Growth [Part 1]What follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 9 of the Inevitable Success Podcast with Damian Bergamaschi and special guest Mike Ferranti. TranscriptDamian On today’s episode part two of our six-part series about new customer acquisition we’re going to discuss the real costs of customer acquisition.I’m here with Mike Ferranti and the very first topic that comes up is Why is knowing the cost of customer acquisition so important. When I think about it’s pretty simple, are we making money?Mike Yup that’s that’s where most folks start. One of the things I would raise strategically is the ultimate answer to the cost of customer acquisition usually depends upon where an organization is in their development and what their goals look like. So just to give an example I would say an early stage company that doesn’t have a great acquisition model or doesn’t have a brand that is driving acquisitions because they exist, the way they view it would probably be very different than an organization that was acquiring customers and had all of those things.So there might be some expectation that it would be very low because with brand power behind it and maybe with hundreds of physical locations or other assets you know there might be very different thoughts and expectations. Also, a mature business may have so many customers in their database already that they have different priori...