Lifecycle marketing, also known as customer lifecycle marketing, targets customers throughout different stages of the purchasing journey, from being prospects to buyers and advocates. It’s a research-driven strategy that gives customers the information they find valuable at the different touch points of the buying decision.
Why Is It Important?
Lifecycle marketing is important because it involves researching the behavior of consumers and addressing their needs and interests throughout the decision-making process. Because it personalizes consumers by understanding and meeting their needs as they evolve, it builds brand awareness, trust and loyalty.
The Steps Included in Lifecycle Marketing
Marketers might have different terms for the steps included in lifecycle marketing. However, this lifecycle-marketing guide lays out the basics and what goes into each step:
- Awareness: Creating awareness of your brand and products among new potential customers is the first step. When you reach consumers through your marketing, you create that awareness. For this step, make sure your content and ads are targeted to the right market for your products using the most effective media.
- Consideration: When customers are in the consideration stage, it’s the right time to outline your product’s features and benefits. Give them reasons to choose your brand over the competition.
- Conversion: Getting a customer to convert, that is, to make the purchase, involves using different tools. They can include retargeting, email, social media marketing, special offers, site recommendations and calls to action.
- Retention: Keeping customers means keeping customers happy. That means providing excellent customer service. That includes showing appreciation, making sure they get the product on time and following up to ensure that they’re happy with the product. It also means addressing any issues they might encounter with it and providing solutions. Engaging with them on an ongoing basis to get feedback helps retain customers. It also helps to attract new ones.
- Loyalty: When customers make repeat purchases of your brand, they’re demonstrating their loyalty to it. To get to this point, it’s a good idea to make customers aware of related products from your brand. It’s also a good time to let them know about any special offers on products they might want to make a second purchase of.
- Advocacy: When customers recommend your brand to others, they’re advocating for you. When they do it on social media, they reach potential and current customers at all of the stages of the marketing lifecycle. Those stages can range from awareness and consideration to conversion and loyalty. You can encourage them to advocate for you with strategies like social media contests. You can also do so by engaging with them on topics like how they use your product.
What to Know About Lifecycle Marketing
- All of the Stages of Lifecycle Marketing Are Important. For example, although it’s more cost-effective to keep current customers than to get new ones, you need to do both. If you’re putting all of your resources into acquiring new customers and you neglect the ones you already have, your bottom line will suffer.
- It’s Customer-Centric. Insights gained from target market research and from tracking the results of your marketing campaigns make lifecycle marketing relevant to consumers. These insights help you reach them during the times that matter most during their buying process.
- It Can Help Your Brand Refine Its Products and Marketing Messages. When consumers engage with your brand you can use their feedback to refine your products and marketing messages. When you find out what they’re looking for in a product, it can help you make the changes that lead to sales.