Customer Lifecycle Marketing: The New Imperative

Welcome to the Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog. Today's post, "Customer Lifecycle Marketing: The New Imperative," uncovers the next phase in marketing, whereby it is a requirement to have an "always-on" contact strategy in place for the entire customer lifecycle. Staying in front of prospects and customers is paramount to achieving long term sales success, and that is not new. Today's marketing challenge lies in the ability to form continuous automation messaging and conversational loops within the contact strategy that engages and nurtures customer relationships. This level of CRM (customer relationship management) extends beyond traditional retention and enters the next phase of marketing automation.

Before we dive in, we would like to wish all a Happy Thanksgiving, filled with joy, happiness, blessings, and goodwill. Speaking of thanks, we would like to personally thank our vendors, partners, clients, staff, and readers for their continued support over the years!

Brands and marketers have, for the most part, been of the mindset that marketing and advertising efforts are not one-off campaigns. Staying in front of customers and prospects is the goal of any brand or marketing strategy. That said, going into 2020, and thanks in large part to automated processes, the goalposts have changed.

Brand communication strategies are now challenged to have a coordinated approach to audience engagement across multiple channels. To that end, marketing automation tools are now increasingly becoming must-have components to achieve and maximize cross channel awareness.

Martech is the Key

Marketing automation tools are the science behind achieving audience engagement wherever customers may be, whether that is blog posts, social media destinations, websites, or other digital communication outreach tools. To manage customer data points, most companies designate secure data lifecycle management for matters that include data tasks, from insertions to cleansing and purging, to categorization, and more. It is under the banner of martech automated tools that Customer Lifecycle Marketing is achievable. Under the hood of customer lifecycle marketing, audiences can engage via:

• Automated email marketing, which includes welcome messages, thank you responses, nurturing communications, and client retargeting campaigns.

• Social media targeting via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

• Personalization recommendations for new products, what others purchased, similar competitive products, and communication messages aimed at converting prospects to purchasers.

• Google AdWords display ads designed to retarget and remarket to those who have shown interest, as well as those who failed to respond.

• Traditional mediums such as direct mail marketing or contact via phone.
  
  

What is Customer Lifecycle Marketing?

What exactly is customer lifecycle marketing or simply lifecycle marketing? Lifecycle marketing is a marketing technique that offers your target audience the types of communications and experiences they require, or have a preference for, and is designed to convert prospects into customers, by which the hope is that these customers will ultimately become brand advocates. Typically, a lifecycle marketing strategy focuses on three-phases; Attract, Sell, and Wow.

Defining Customer Lifecycle in the CRM Environment

In the CRM environment, the term customer lifecycle refers to describing the customer's progression of advancement as they contemplate, purchase, use, and maintain loyalty to a brand, product, or service.

Are There Phases of a Customer Lifecycle?

Depending on the marketing entity that you speak with, there are a variety of phases propagated for customer lifecycle levels. The customer lifecycle designation phases are straight forward, starting with marketing, customer acquisition, relationship management, and of course, losses via churn.

The range of phases is dependent on various definitions: They can range from 4 to 6 or more. One explanation suggests that these phases are the process of attracting, engaging, pleasing, with specific steps that are dependent on awareness, conversion, purchase, activation, renewal, and referral.

What Are the B2B Lifecycle Marketing Processes?

B2B customer lifecycle undertakes four necessary marketing actions, which is to reach, act, convert, and engage.

Reach - You can reach prospects and customers more often with Print (Direct Mail), Display Ads Search and PPC, SEO, and Content Marketing.

Act - Once the prospects are in the database, Livechat and marketing automation tools are useful for promulgating messages through Influencer Outreach, Social Media, TOFU (top of the funnel) Landing Pages, Home page, Product page, Remarketing, and CRO (conversion rate optimization).

Convert - Conversion takes place on several fronts, including lead nurturing, engaging others in the buying contingent, and the repeat customer/brand advocate. To achieve conversion, Personalization, Remarketing, MOFU (middle of the funnel) Landing Page, CRO (conversion rate optimization), BOFU (bottom of the funnel) Landing Page, and Sales Calls are in play.

Engage - Lastly, the engage action starts with the customer, beginning with Customer Onboarding, Personalized Loyalty Programs, Personalization, Remarketing, and, if necessary, a Re-engagement email program.

How Often Should I Use Lifecycle Marketing?

Lifecycle marketing should be used continually as being always-on, thus providing a frequency across all mediums and channels.

Where Did the Term Lifecycle Marketing Originate?

According to Infusionsoft, commonly referred to as the originator of the definition of the term, "Customer lifecycle marketing promises to help you to design a marketing plan to attract customers, grow sales and deliver great experiences. They break it down into three stages: 'attract,' 'sell,' 'wow.'"

The overall idea of Customer Lifecycle Marketing suggests that brands and marketers are always on. This always-on mode applies to all, regardless of industry, buying group, demographics, product sets, message continuity, reach, and frequency, all lead to the goalposts where sales cross into the conversion zone.

The Net-Net

Keep this in mind. No television rep, radio rep, magazine rep, or outdoor rep would sell a customer a single marketing, one-off ad. Television and radio reps sell frequency packages that contain at least 12 ads in the set, minimum, most often will sell a two-week ad frequency package because audiences need to trust and learn about the brand/product repeatedly to cement awareness.

In today's always-on digital universe, frequency and consistency are the keys to establishing awareness, which is the first and most important step in achieving the new lifestyle marketing imperative. Happy Holidays and thanks for reading "Customer Lifecycle Marketing: The New Imperative."

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