Winning customers’ hearts in a competitive marketplace equals providing them with value every time they interact with your brand, from the first ad display until conversion and further. In other words, you need a coherent lifecycle marketing strategy that will effectively address the needs and wants of every customer.
Lifecycle marketing is all about consistent and coordinated efforts across marketing channels, from social media to email marketing campaigns, so your clients get what they need at the right time. And it’s not abstract—there are very specific steps to implement lifecycle marketing so you can generate and convert more clients.
Source: GIPHY
Read on to learn how to grow your client base and revenues with lifestyle marketing.
What Is Customer Lifecycle Marketing?
As a marketer, you should build a friendly path for each customer step in a sales funnel: from the moment they become aware of your brand to the point they become your brand advocates. This is exactly what lifecycle marketing does: as a concept, it tries to satisfy customers every step of the way so they convert and promote your brand.
Lifecycle marketing is the best revenue growth strategy: It costs 16 times more to nurture a new customer to the post-purchase marketing stage than to keep existing ones. A 5% retention increase leads to a profit boost of 20-90%.
Here’s more about lifecycle marketing:
Creating a Framework for Customer Lifecycle Marketing
Triggers
A marketing trigger is a specific event or action that prompts a business to take the next step in its tailored lifecycle marketing process. It can be anything from a website visit to opting for a newsletter or purchasing the product.
Likewise, the absence of action can be a trigger. For example, if a customer leaves a cart and doesn’t visit your site for a day, week, or month, you can set it as the trigger to activate your re-engagement campaign.
The core difference between traditional and lifecycle marketing is trigger usage. In classic marketing, brands are in full control of the message and its timing. If the company decides to run the TV ad at 7 PM, they will show it, no matter how many people may see it.
Lifecycle marketing is more customer-centric: based on the information collected on the user, it shows what suits this specific user. At the same time, this individual strategy can be highly automated. For example, an email marketing calendar – your detailed lifecycle marketing plan – and templates can significantly ease the routine for your team.
Messages & Channels
At different stages of the lifecycle, you can hit them with customer-specific emails, SMS, and social media posts demonstrating your care about their needs. You can use responsive templates for emails and AI-based chatbots for on-site engagement.
Depending on the client’s status, you can offer them discounts, unique deals, or useful information that helps users in their current stage of the journey. All of this should include tracking mechanisms—for example, a tracking link—so you can see whether the user accepts your offer and what they do after.
Regarding the choice of marketing channel, the world is your oyster. More often than not, though, combining traditional and newer communication channels gives the best result. For example, you can use social media on par with email marketing: Two out of three marketers use email marketing to distribute their content organically.
Six Main Marketing Lifecycle Stages
Despite 60+% of companies using lead generation as the main metric to determine content success, repeat clients spend 67% more than new buyers on average. Retain current customers with the proper lifecycle marketing strategies to maximize your performance.
1. Awareness
In this stage of a lifestyle marketing plan, you are introducing your brand to potential customers. The first step is to segment your audience wisely so you can create catchy and meaningful ads that show the value of your product on the spot and in the long run.
2. Engagement
Once the potential audience sees your ad, they may subscribe to your mailing list, scroll your site, follow you on socials, or even proceed to the purchase, depending on what the ad suggests they do.
In most cases, though, the engagement stage is when you showcase the product and the brand without being too intrusive.
Here’s how you can increase customer engagement:
One crucial aspect of engagement is response time: more than 80% of customers expect immediate engagement. People don’t like to wait, so make sure they get what they want without delay.
3. Evaluation
The evaluation stage may take different amounts of time, depending on factors like price, urgency, or importance. For marketers, this means different sales cycles and approaches for different niches and audiences.
Let’s take a look at common lifecycle marketing examples:
- If you sell jewelry, the evaluation process may take minutes to hours. For electronics like computers, it may take weeks. For cars or houses, it may last for months or even years.
There’s no universal timeframe for the evaluation stage, but you must simplify the process all the same by providing helpful information to the customer.
For instance, if you sell specific laptops, think about who will be your customers: gamers, office workers, or others. They have different requests, so you should make separate = campaigns for each persona.
Among the common reinforcers are detailed descriptions, positive reviews, clear pricing policy, testimonials, and marketing psychology elements like freebies, discounts, special offers, loyalty bonuses, and more.
4. Purchase
When customers arrive at the purchase stage, they have already decided to buy a specific product and want a quick and seamless payment process. For this, you need to offer at least a few relevant payment methods and low or no commissions.
5. Support
Post-purchase retention is a crucial aspect of the lifecycle marketing strategy. The chance to sell a new product to an existing customer varies from 40% to 70%, while there is only a 5-20% chance to sell the same product to a new client.
With this in mind, it’s paramount to offer exceptional guidance into the product, customer support via multiple communication channels, and the ability to fix possible issues independently. In fact, 65% of users would troubleshoot issues themselves without contacting support.
6. Loyalty
According to Salesforce, 9 of 10 customers prefer to stay with brands they already trust. At this point, your main job is to continue meeting their expectations so they promote your brand by word of mouth for free.
Did you know that 92% of customers are looking for reviews and other social recommendations before buying anything? Brand ambassadors can write genuine reviews that will be your best promo.
Here’s how you can cultivate customer loyalty:
Loyal customers often recommend their favorite brands to others. A loyal apparel shopper usually recommends a brand to three people. After 10 purchases, that same shopper recommends this brand to seven people.
The consumer electronics and appliances sector has slightly different numbers. If the consumer likes the first interaction, they refer the business to 4 people; after 10 purchases, this number grows to 13-14 people.
Source: Bain & Company
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the definition of lifecycle marketing?
Lifecycle marketing is a customer-centric marketing approach aimed at building lifelong relationships between a brand and its clients. A customer lifecycle in marketing starts from the awareness stage and leads to the purchase to the loyalty stage when the client regularly buys products from the brand and recommends it to others.
How many life stages are in marketing?
There are six main stages in lifecycle marketing: awareness, engagement, evaluation, purchase, support, and loyalty. Every stage requires a unique set of marketing techniques for a specific client.
What are examples of lifecycle marketing software?
You can try Phonexa, Hubspot, MailChimp, and Active Campaign, depending on your marketing goals and whether you need a comprehensive solution or a narrow-focused tool that will help you close specific loops in your marketing strategy.
