Customer is a lot more than closing one-time deal, and every customer professional knows that very well. Customer Lifecycle is clearly known as the progression in the customer purchasing lifecycle. It contains a lot of stages namely awareness, consideration, purchasing, and usage. These stages leads to the customer loyalty to a product or service. The customer lifecycle management approach has been popular for decades. Customer Relationship Management tools (CRM) are designed to improve customer relationships with customer retention in mind, because this can generate a lot of revenue than you can even think. In customer lifecycle management, customers’ data is used to create customer campaigns which might tempt the customers on buying those products. The customer lifecycle concept helps to identify when to raise the bar for your products and services and when not to, depending on the customer’s increased customer lifetime value. In simple words, Customer Lifecycle is a marketing term which has been used since decades to describe consumer behavior in the market. It has been designed to ensure consumer satisfaction while focusing also on sales opportunities. It is important to understand the customer lifecycle because it helps you to understand about the customer behavior and gives you ideas about retaining them. This article is all about customer lifecycle management and how to make use of it? Let’s Dive in!
Importance Of Customer Lifecycle Marketing
The customer lifecycle marketing is considered to be crucial for the business because, it provides a detailed guidelines for interacting with the consumers according to their needs and preferences. The campaigns can be created according to the choice of the consumers and personalized like never before, the companies not using customer lifecycle marketing will definitely be left behind.
Five main stages of Customer Lifecycle
- Acquire
- Retain
- Increase Value
- Cherish
- Reactivate
Acquire:
In the first stage you should focus on attracting traffic to your site and making new purchase. Under this category, there are some varieties which comes such as,
- Engaged Visitors:
Engaged visitors are those visitors who visit your site, but don’t purchase anything.
- What can be done : secure a communication channel with the customers and know bout their preferences and expectations from a product.
- Campaigns :
- Email collection banner
- Vouchers for first purchase, but for limited- time.
- Banners promoting unique selling promotions of the site.
- Loyal visitors:
Loyal visitors are those visitors who don’t purchase, but leave a mail in your website, regarding suggestion or something else
What can be done – make them to purchase your product.
Campaigns:
- Email them about the fresh sales after they have visited your website.
- Send them newsletters mail on weekly basis.
- Onboarding newsletters campaign
Retain:
In the second stage of the customer lifecycle marketing make your customer to buy another product. Retaining your customer sounds like a difficult task, but you have to so it to increase sales.
- First time customers:
The customers who have bought your products only for one time they are known as first time customers.
What can be done – Make them to buy even for the second time.
Campaigns –
- Mail them about the complimentary products, offers
- Send feedback surveys and ask them to fill them.
- Recent customers:
The customers who have purchased goods in your website recently, but hasn’t purchased often.
What can be done – Ensure that they had a good experience while purchasing their products and are also satisfied with it.
Campaigns –
- Ask them about the product reviews and feedbacks
- Provide vouchers for their friends as well
- Give them limited time offers indirectly reminding them about purchasing the products soon.
Increase Value:
The third stage in the customer life cycle marketing is to increase the value of the product in the eyes of the buyers. So, that it will increase the frequency and the average order value.
- Promising Customers:
The customers who purchase your products periodically, but don’t invest much on the products.
What can be done–increase the frequency of the orders or monetary value gradually.
Campaigns –
- Upsell them with limited-time offers.
- Incentivize higher spend with bundle deals.
- Potential Loyalists:
Potential loyalists are those customers who have made recent purchases, spend more on the products, and also buy often. They are similar to promising customers.
What can be done – Do the same as promising customers just increase the value of their products.
Campaigns –
- Prioritize their shopping and give them thank you note to keep them happy.
- Continue to incentivize higher spend with bundle deals.
Cherish:
Cherish is the fourth stage and also the very important stage on the customer lifecycle marketing, because you have to ensure your customer that your business is of no value without them. Make them feel important.
- Loyal Customers:
Loyal customers are those customers who spend a lot and are also responsive to any marketing mails you send them.
What can be done – Try to always keep them happy and make them to take steps towards champion customers
Campaigns – Send a gift voucher on every purchase with a personal note too.
- Champions:They are the real asset of the company. They are the most spending customers of all time and they also purchase products often.
- What can be done – always ensure that they have positive experiences with the stores, and make them realize that they are very important for their company.
Campaigns –
- Give them rewards by giving them opportunity to access the products first.
- Give them gifts on their occasional orders.
- Prioritize them specially when they need something or they are facing issue with.
Reactivate:
Try bringing back the lapsed customers to your website and make them to purchase the products. Focus on retaining the most valued customers.
Can’t lose them:
They are those customers who have been former champions, but they have stopped purchasing now.
What can be done – Your goal has to be to bring them back. They are the big customers and you cannot afford to lose them.
Campaigns –
- Get them purchasing again by sending store credits to the customers
- Call them and try to find out the answer behind not continuing the purchases with their company.
At Risk:
They are the high value customers who have recently stopping buying your products.
What can be done–Act now to bring the customers back before they lapse completely. Push your company to bring back those customers.
Campaigns :
- Send them a personal note to re-engage them on purchasing the products along with a small gift.
- Send exclusive offers just for them to bring them back.
Create the positive experiences with the customer to retain them for the life time. Customer lifecycle marketing is a customer specific and data-driven customer management. This approach will help you increase the customer retention and customer lifetime value (CLV), because of targeted campaigns that are personalized for specific customers.