Marketers or product managers who focus on a long-term view of the customer relationship achieve great ROI on the marketing effort. Rather than focusing on bringing new customers, retaining the existing ones will offer long-term benefits. Customer lifecycle marketing can help you bring back your existing customers again and again. 

Customer lifecycle marketing is a process of understanding the user journey and providing the relevant messages and experiences to transform them from returning customers to loyal customers. 

The blog highlights stages of lifecycle marketing, tactics in each stage, and its benefits 

Brief of customer lifecycle marketing 

A customer lifecycle is a journey that a user takes from buying a brand to become a loyal customer to stop using the service/product. In a user journey, the exit is a common part of the life cycle. Still, with customer lifecycle marketing, you can attempt to stop users from reaching the end of the buying lifecycle and rather get them again on the circle and make them continue as an active customer. 

For every business, customer lifecycle is different. Some brands like Starbucks or KFC have an incredible short user lifecycle as every purchase sets the user to come back soon. Like automobiles and real estate, some other brands have longer life cycles, so their goals are different. Once a user buys a home or car, the company’s goal is to convert them as a brand ambassador and try to bring in more business through them rather than trying to make a business deal immediately. 

The goals of customer lifecycle marketing are simple. In the effort, you should also:

– Encourage leads to first-time buyers.

– Increase ROI 

– Engage with more users

– Transform first-time buyers into loyal customers 

– Reduce churn rate and make them an active customer again 

– Boost Customer lifecycle value 

– Transform repeat customers into loyal customers.  

Stages of the Customer Lifecycle

The customer lifecycle has five progressive stages a customer goes through, starting from browsing to product research to engagement to make a purchase. 

The below mentioned are the progressive CLM

– Creating Awareness

– Engagement

– Acquisition

– Conversion

– Retention

– Loyalty

1. Creating awareness

The first step of CLM is creating relevant product awareness or reaching in front of your potential customer base. Social media marketing paid ads, and digital marketing provides the initial boost that grabs a customer’s attention. Though there is a various approach to getting your user’s attention, reaching through the channels that your customer base is on is the ideal method to grab more attention. 

2. Engagement

The second stage is to engage your audience with relevant context. Engaging your target audience will let them know more about your brand and your products. Creating awareness will let them consider buying your offerings. These marketing strategies are still high in the funnel, but the intention shifts to help the leads envision the experiences, qualities, and benefits of using the products or tools. The critical point here is to help your prospects to get insight as per their level of knowledge. Also, your engagement should answer the below questions of the customer. 

What are the top features of your products or services? 

Why should a user invest in the product? 

How can your user benefit from your offerings?

3. User Acquisition 

With customer lifecycle marketing, user acquisition is all about attracting a prospective customer base and bringing them into the sales and marketing funnel to be encouraged to move to the next step – conversion. In this stage, it is essential to give them the desired information to make their buying decision. Sharing whitepapers, blog posts, templates, webinars, eBooks, and other resourceful materials can help them understand your brand better and solve any challenges of your user. 

4. Conversion

Conversion is the crucial stage for any business, as it determines the success of any business. You have already convinced your customer, brought them into the funnel, and are receiving your campaign post, push notification, and in-app notification. But these are not sufficient to make the actual sales conversion. Users need more than content to make them buy. You should give them confidence and trust to make the sales conversion. 

5. Retention

This is another important thing here is customer retention to engage, retain, and upsell to them. When a user makes their first purchase, they will be using your app. Hence the main objective should be here is to engage them and make them use your app on a regular basis. The more you influence the customer to return to your app or site, the better your chances of user retention and increased CLV (customer lifetime value).

6. Loyalty

If you can satisfy your customer’s expectations, then you can transform your significant user segment into a brand ambassador or an influencer among their network. Satisfied clients generate leads through word of marketing. Rather than proclaiming your brand value, let your customers do for you. But, if you want this to happen, you should need a stellar product that speaks for itself and excellent customer service. Over 70% of the customers turn to be loyal customers based on how you sell your product and deliver your customer service. 

Takeaway

Remember that CLM (customer lifecycle marketing) is a progressive effort. As customers transform from prospective leads to paying customers, they need a quality and seamless app experience. Further, engaging them through various channels will help in retaining them as lifetime and loyal customers.  Brands should take the responsibility of fulfilling the customer needs and marketing is a wonderful opportunity to engage them and bring them one step closer towards brand advocates.