What is lifecycle marketing? Why is it critical to the success of your business?
Lifecycle marketing can be considered the culmination of all the email marketing best practices out there; the Holy Grail. Lifecycle marketing takes the “batch and blast” mentality and culls it down until it is (close to) a 1-to-1 communication with each and every one of your customers and prospects.
Q: This sounds like a good idea, but how do I implement?
A: Review and implement email campaigns that are unique to each of the stages of lifecycle marketing:
Lifecycle Marketing Stages
1. Lead/Introduction - Taking a page from our beloved dating analogies, this stage is “eyes locking across the room,” and a mutual acknowledgment of interest. Marketers generally refer to this as the first stage in the sales funnel. This is the time to send a welcome message and introduce the prospect to your brand/products. Williams-Sonoma’s welcome message is a great example of solid execution.
2. Nurturing/Dating - In this stage, you are flush with excitement over the new relationship. Managing the prospect’s preferences, or interests, is vital in order to provide relevant content and personalized messaging tailored to these preferences. When planning for this stage, keep in mind that you may need to ask “Are you still interested?” This will ensure the lead doesn’t become cold.
3. Consideration/Engagement - You’ve made it to the selection stage. Unlike a real-life engagement, the prospect is likely to have more than one brand they are “engaged” with. They may be thinking about a long-term vs. a short-term relationship. In this stage, it’s important to communicate the benefits of your products, like Eaton does, and the value the prospect will be receiving by “marrying” your brand.
4. The Sale/Marriage - Congratulations — they chose you! Make sure that you’re telling the new customer how much you appreciate and value them. Follow up directly after the purchase with a thank you and perhaps a deal for their next purchase, which leads into the…
5. Post-Sale/Married Life - The sale should not be the end of the conversation. In the post-sale phase, focus your messaging around cross-selling and upselling efforts, as well as post-purchase support. This post-sale communication will be vital when it comes time for the customer to renew or purchase the product again. If you’ve been engaging with them all along, they are likely to buy from you again. FAO Schwarz does a really good job of following up after a certain time frame to encourage a repeat purchase. You need to be asking the question “Are you satisfied?” during this stage as well.
Here’s the important takeaway: Each stage needs to be communicated to differently. You should be aware of where each and every one of your prospects and customers are in their lifecycle and speak to them based on which stage they are in.
Do you have any success stories from implementing lifecycle marketing? Please share them and any other thoughts below.
Kelly Lorenz
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto
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