Customer lifecycle marketing

A deep understanding of your customers is crucial when building a community of loyal clients around your brand. And the prime goal of marketing is exactly to increase revenue by turning more one-time buyers into devoted customers and retaining them. 

Knowing the customer lifecycle marketing techniques can help hit this target. But what does the term customer lifecycle marketing mean?

What is customer lifecycle marketing?

Customer lifecycle marketing describes all the strategies companies use to adjust marketing campaigns to each customer lifecycle stage.

The classic customer lifecycle comprises five stages:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action
• Retention

You can find some variations of the cycle depending on the industry. For example, in SaaS marketing, only three fundamental stages are defined:

• Prospecting (or acquisition)
• Nurturing (or engagement)
• Retention

Usually, all three customer lifecycle stages coincide with the three primary stages of the sales funnel (top, middle, and bottom), and we’ll talk about it a little further.

Benefits of customer lifecycle marketing

Who will argue that messages you share with a customer when they first interact with your brand differ much from those you send to a regular client? The main benefit of customer lifecycle marketing is that it aligns your marketing strategy with the customer journey. 

When this alliance is effective, it may increase customer lifetime value (CLV), which is the total worth of a customer to your business over the whole period of your relationship. The higher CLV, the more revenue each customer will bring for your company. So, try to build long-term relationships with your customers and do your best not to let them go at each stage of their journey. 

In the long run, implementing customer lifecycle marketing strategies will help you engage customers more effectively, increase revenue, and grow your brand.

Сustomer lifecycle marketing strategies

Сustomer lifecycle can be complete and last quite long, ideally for as long as your company exists. But it can also be partial, ending after the acquisition or engagement stages. 

To prevent a customer from leaving your brand, let’s take a closer look at all customer lifecycle stages and marketing strategies you should use to ensure the customer stays with you for as long as possible.

Prospecting stage

The beginning of the lifecycle often coincides with the “top of the sales funnel” when a potential customer first comes into contact with the band. 

Prospects can be acquired in two ways: inbound (e.g., through content marketing, SEO, or word of mouth) and outbound (e.g., through cold emailing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, or advertising on social media). 

A sale is not required for the prospecting stage, and it’s okay if we keep in mind that 96% of visitors that come to your website are not ready to buy. But providing a prospect with relevant information about your product or service that meets their needs is vital because your potential clients are looking for a solution to their problem at this particular stage. 

The more original and easy-to-perceive information they get, the more chances you have they will leave their contact details on your website and thus enter the next customer lifecycle stage. 

Alternatively, you can harvest your email leads from anywhere online — from company websites to Google search results and LinkedIn. It’s not at all difficult with the help of lead generation tools like Snov.io Email Finder. 

Lead nurturing stage

This stage can be seen as the reflection of the “middle of the sales funnel” when prospects are midway to make a purchase and ask for more information, either more details or the final price. 

It means that your potential customers may now compare products from competing brands (including yours), do thorough research, and read customer reviews to find an optimal offer. 

It makes sense to send personalized automated email sequences with unlimited follow-ups to nurture cold leads and convert prospects. Here’s an example of an automated email sequence you can create in Snov.io:

Сrucially, at this stage, you should regularly provide insightful educational material on your product, including various types of sales collateral, until your lead is hot enough to take action and buy from you.

Customer retention stage

As soon as your lead makes a purchasing decision and reaches the “bottom of the sales funnel,” you get a new customer, which is always great news as your business’s got a new revenue stream. Now, how long this stream will work for you is a good question. And it may happen it won’t last long if you don’t have a good retention strategy. 

The good is the enemy of the best, as you know. It would be best to have such a strategy that generates repeated purchases and builds brand loyalty, thus preventing your customers from switching to competitors. 

Customer retention begins with a question on how your user feels about your product or service. And you should constantly work at improving your customers’ satisfaction as 86% of customers will pay more for a great customer experience. 

Ensure you get your customers’ problems solved with your product or service and provide them with your dedicated customer support that immediately responds to their requests or questions. 

In addition, make your customers feel special by sharing discounts and referral bonuses, free exclusive offers and VIP content in the form of newsletters, access to webinars, etc. 

You can develop special loyalty programs for regular clients and improve interaction with them by asking for feedback and using other techniques that help enhance the user experience. 

Wrapping up

A well-crafted customer lifecycle marketing strategy is a must for businesses to win more sales and improve overall performance. 

And if you’ve chosen email marketing as the strategy to reach these objectives and take relations with your customers to the next level, you’ll hardly do without automation tools that simplify the whole process, saving your time and effort. Snov.io is the right service that will help you move forward and thrive.