Lifecycle marketing gets integrated into marketing strategies more often. The customers’ needs and interests shift as they go through different stages. Marketers that don’t practice lifecycle marketing will always fall behind.
Table of contents:
✅ What is lifecycle marketing?
✅ Why lifecycle marketing is important for businesses
✅ The purpose of lifecycle marketing
✅ Lifecycle marketing process, how it works
✅ Retention marketing ideas to improve the CLV
✅ Defining a lifecycle marketing strategy
✅ Achieving your goals for lifecycle marketing
What is lifecycle marketing?
Lifecycle marketing is essentially a way of thinking about how customers move through different phases in their lives and what you can do to target them at each point. The goal is to capture the attention of your target audience and remain top of mind throughout the customer journey. You aim to increase customer loyalty by focusing on the different stages people go through and their shifting needs. It’s about recognizing where people are in their lives and understanding how this impacts their view of your products, brand, and marketing messages.
Research found that existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more, on average, compared to new customers - Forbes
Why lifecycle marketing is important for businesses
Lifecycle marketing is the process of marketing to customers at each touchpoint with your brand. It’s important for businesses for several reasons. By targeting customers at different stages, companies can increase the overall customer lifetime value (CLV). This is crucial since increasing the CLV is often less expensive compared to the overall customer acquisition cost. Any company that sells to customers is likely to see benefits. By targeting certain stages, you can build brand awareness and drive acquisition at the same time. You can apply these techniques to your business no matter how big or small you are. Even if you only sell one product, you can still benefit from lifecycle marketing.
The purpose of lifecycle marketing
If you are leveraging lifecycle marketing, you will see clear results in your marketing ROI. Lifecycle marketing is all about knowing when your customers are ready to buy and how to trigger them. You need to reach customers at all stages by identifying where your customers are in the journey, what they are likely to be interested in, and what their buying motivations are. Once you know the cycles for your different types of customers, you can identify where they are and what drives them at that stage. The purpose of this strategy is to then focus your marketing efforts on reaching them at the right time.
Knowing our highest-value guests allows for more laser focus, giving 15-20% of guests the best possible experience so they have a higher propensity of coming back ~ Greta Wilson, VP Brand Strategy, Pitney Bowes
Lifecycle marketing process, how it works
So understanding the lifecycles of your customers allows you to reach them at the right moment. Some will skip a step and move to the next one early, while others may go through two or three lifecycles before they stop purchasing from you. Overall, there are the following stages that cover the process.
Lifecycle marketing process, the stages:
☑️ Awareness
It’s the first phase. The phase where potential customers meet your brand for the first time. You only have one first impression, make it stick.
☑️ Engagement
You’ve made a good impression, well done! Now your target audience starts interacting with your brand. Nowadays you can even allow them to earn rewards with their interactions.
☑️ Evaluation
Have you provided a good customer experience in the previous touch points? This stage will be easier for you. Here’s where the customer makes a decision between you and your competitors based on features, pricing, customer service, and added value.
☑️ Purchase
The first conversion. Optimize the buyer’s journey to ensure this stage is where your customer base grows. Ensuring a good experience in this stage increases the odds of a returning visitor.
☑️ Support
Follow up on every type of interaction with a relevant message to support your (potential) customer. The first purchase is important, but it is not where most of the money is made. Customer satisfaction is an essential element in retention.
☑️ Loyalty
Stay in touch with your customer with a loyalty program. Preferably on a mobile application for the best convenience. With blockchain-based token economies, you’ll be able to incentivize customers to always return efficiently.
Retention marketing ideas to improve the CLV
Retention marketing is about doing whatever you can to keep your current customers engaged with the brand that represents your product or service. You grow customer retention rates by identifying their needs in each stage of their lifecycles and acting on them. If you know when your customers’ lifecycles are coming to an end, you can identify the pain points and tackle them. This is how customers will return, and therefore how customer retention rates will increase.
Retention marketing ideas:
☑️ Diversify from your competitors
To truly capture your customer’s attention, your brand needs to be something special in their eyes. Leverage branding, and build a positive brand image by providing good service. This is also one of the results of a successful loyalty program.
☑️ Ensure the brand experience is convenient
An example we’ve recently implemented is the ease of logging in. To optimize the onboarding process in our application on every device we implemented Web3Auth.
☑️ Engage with your customer, and build a community
Become part of the lifestyle of your most important customer to build lasting loyalty. By implementing an incentive-driven content strategy that allows you to connect with your community on a daily basis, for example.
☑️ Use personalization for better customer relationships
Everybody appreciates some special attention. Simple personalization, like addressing someone by their first name, that’s a great first step. Leveraging community insights with personalized follow-ups and offers, now that’s where it gets interesting.
☑️ Use the right platforms
Knowing your target audience is essential for every retention marketing strategy. Are you aware of what platforms you can find your ideal audience on? Social media has accelerated the opportunities. Often, more than one channel is required to reach everyone you want. A good omnichannel marketing strategy is essential to make it work.
Defining a lifecycle marketing strategy
Understanding your customers' lifecycles is essential for lifecycle marketing. You can then identify the best lifecycle marketing tactics to reach your customers at the right time with the right message. The most important stage is the loyalty phase. Brands can use lifecycle email marketing, but we have something better.
Achieving your goals for lifecycle marketing
Lifecycle marketing means reaching your customers at the right stages in their lifecycles and boosting their lifetime value. This is how you grow your total revenue. It is a difficult process and takes time to optimize.
At Crowny, we have developed a new initiative for brand loyalty, retention, and the best lifecycle marketing we could imagine. We leverage the benefits of blockchain technology and combine all the best-working features we have seen performing in the marketing and loyalty industry for years. By combining all these performance-driven ingredients, we believe we’ve developed something truly special that will help businesses everywhere achieve their goals.
We are launching soon, make sure to get early access.
