Zach TaijiWhat is lifecycle marketing? It’s a 360-degree relationship-building process that turns leads into customers, and customers into advocates – in the end allowing your customers to do the marketing for you.
Lead generation is the first step to lifecycle marketing. Nowadays, there are many ways to generate a lead such as email marketing campaigns, social media advertising campaigns, street marketing and events, or even content marketing like promoting blog content. The most important part of the lead generation step is determining what method will work best for your business, based on your target audience.
The second step to lifecycle marketing is lead nurturing, where you manage a personalized relationship with your lead often with the help of a CRM (Customer Relationship Management software). During this process, it’s important to know your company and its products well, so that you can answer questions in an efficient and timely manner.
After you’ve generated a successful sale, it’s time to move onto customer success management (CSM). CSM is similar to the lead nurturing process, except it’s targeted at existing customers to make sure that they get full use out of your product. The whole point of CSM is to reduce churn, increase engagement, and pave the way for a product renewal.
The final step to lifecycle marketing is promoting customer advocacy with rewards programs, incentives, and other marketing efforts to encourage your customers to spread the word about your business. A successful customer advocacy strategy will result in customer advocates – customers who essentially do your marketing for you!
Bluenose, a customer success platform for businesses, has created an infographic below highlighting the complete lifecycle marketing process from lead to customer advocate, with some interesting statistics. What have you found most helpful in the lifecycle marketing process, and how big of an impact have customer advocates had on your business? Let me know in the comments below.
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