Building long-term relationships with customers requires brands to rely on lifecycle marketing. What is lifecycle marketing? Lifecycle marketing is an approach that aims to deliver engaging and relevant experiences at every step of a customer’s journey, from learning about your company to becoming a loyal customer.
When you integrate lifecycle marketing into your overall marketing strategy, you can target your marketing efforts more efficiently and engage people at the right time with the right content. Discover three reasons you need lifecycle marketing as part of your marketing strategy.
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Increases Customer Lifetime Value
Customers become loyal to businesses that understand the importance of building relationships with them. To measure how long a customer spends at every stage of their journey, you can calculate their customer lifetime value (CLV).
The CLV comes from calculating the amount of money a company expects to receive from a customer over a period and the current value of that cash flow.
Calculating your CLV lets you understand customers’ potential value for your brand. Loyal customers increase your company’s profitability because they are willing to pay for your products and refer your company to others, boosting brand awareness. In the long run, retaining customers generates larger profits for your company.
Your CLV also enables you to tailor marketing strategies based on customer segments. For instance, you segment customers into high-, medium-, and low-value groups based on their CLVs. You can then personalize your retention marketing strategies with regular emails and SMS campaigns to keep your high-value customers.
Using data is central to a lifecycle marketing strategy to determine where customers are in their journey and tailor your messaging to them. For example, you can examine transactional data, such as the amount of money they spent on their last purchase, and behavioral data, like the last time they visited your site. Other crucial data points for your marketing plan may include:
Product Page Views
This data shows your customers’ interest in your company. For example, if you sell skincare, you find that a loyal customer looked up moisturizers on your site but did not purchase them. Your email newsletters can promote your company’s lotions as a moisturizer for their skin.
Prior Discounts
There are various ways to offer discounts, including free shipping, a percentage discount, and gift certificates. Using the customers’ purchase histories allows you to identify the most popular types of deals and offer them.
Visit Frequency and Duration
Visit frequency indicates how often customers visit your site, and time spent on a site indicates how long customers spend browsing your products. These data points illustrate how customers engage with your site. For instance, if you see an increase in a customer’s engagement with your site, you might send targeted marketing messages to encourage them to buy from you.
Using these metrics helps you determine the success of your lifecycle marketing tactics, but you can take your metrics further with performance branding efforts. A part of what is performance branding entails using data from your website, social media, and email campaigns to understand how customers interact with your product or service. This information helps you improve your strategy through regular testing.
For example, if you run an online store that sells shoes, you can track how many people visited your site left without purchasing an item. If this number is high, there may be an issue with a product page. You can find a solution by experimenting with different page designs or updating the page’s copy.
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Improved Customer Experience
A strategic lifecycle marketing approach gives you an improved experience for your customers. Lifecycle marketing tailors your efforts toward your target audience’s specific needs, helping you create a personalized experience for every customer your brand sees.
For example, SMS and email marketing help you reach customers in a more informal, personable way than traditional marketing. Sending new customers sales offers coupons to entice them to visit your store helps them feel unique and see your brand as relatable, helpful, and exciting.
You can also offer VIP or point-based loyalty programs with personalized messages and exclusive perks like access to limited products or in-store cashback incentives. 78% of consumers say the VIP rewards program steers them toward a specific brand.
These strategies help you attract and retain customers through an exceptional customer experience. They will look forward to what your brand offers and likely recommend your company to others.
Boost Your Branding Efforts with Lifecycle Marketing
Lifecycle marketing is a valuable marketing approach for attracting new customers and creating loyalty for your brand. Because the strategy focuses on customized end-to-end customer engagement, you’ll see higher lifetime value, gain actionable data insights, and improve the customer experience for a better ROI on your marketing efforts.
Partnering with an experienced lifecycle marketing company ensures you use the right tools and methods for implementing performance branding and lifecycle marketing.
Interesting Related Article: “How Website Analytics Are Driving Marketing Decisions“
