As customers move through different phases of their journey (think: awareness or onboarding), communications like email, SMS, or push notifications play different roles with specific goals to keep customers engaged. Equally important is the content you include within these messages. Engaging customers strategically throughout their lifecycle can support your retention and engagement efforts, which are critical for long-term success.
What is customer lifecycle communication?
Customer lifecycle communication is a series of touchpoints your brand has with potential customers and subscribers taking place at different stages of their journey. These communications help your customers navigate through the journey so you can build strong connections with them, drive them to convert, and encourage them to return as loyal customers. Personalizing your messages so that your marketing matches whichever stage your customer is in can help boost that engagement and increase conversions.
The stages of customer lifecycle marketing
Here are some of the lifecycle communication strategies marketers can use to keep customers engaged from their first visit to their fifth purchase and beyond.
Awareness. The goal is to make a strong first impression. In this stage, you’re introducing potential customers to your brand, product, or service. Touchpoints that work well include a welcome campaign for new subscribers and brand story introductions that provide customers with information about what you do, why you matter, and an overview of the products/services you offer.
Engagement. Email newsletters, nurture campaigns, and push notification programs are ideal for increasing engagement and building a loyal customer base. Use content from owned- and earned-channels to provide your audience with relevant, timely information that can increase your open and click-through rates.
Consideration. Provide expert advice and information as a way to guide customers into considering your brand’s products or services. Consider creating a guide, ebook, or informative infographic that addresses customer pain points and demonstrates how your solution could solve their challenges. Customer testimonials can also help those in the consideration phase move toward conversion.
Activation/Conversion. You want to focus on driving the customer to take action, like purchasing a product or service. Email and SMS promotional offers, new product alerts, sale notifications, and social proof are all important elements to increase the likelihood of conversion.
Onboarding. Keep customers loyal to your brand by helping them to get the most out of your products or services. Tutorials, videos, on-demand training, and detailed user guides will make it easy for customers to interact with your brand.
Retention. Keep customers engaged and satisfied so they consider buying again. Loyalty programs, personalized offers, post-purchase follow ups, product updates, and customer surveys are all ways to retain a high-level of interest in your brand and keep customers loyal.
Loyalty/Advocacy. Create brand advocates out of happy customers. Referral programs, featuring customer reviews, and making testimonial requests along with offering social sharing incentives will help you build community and a strong connection to your brand.
Re-activation/Win-Back. Re-engage inactive customers every three months and incentivize them to return to. Try a re-engagement email series for inactive subscribers with special offers, and short surveys to better understand why they lapsed and what you can do to win their loyalty.
It’s not enough to capture a customer’s interest. You have to think through all the actions a customer may take on their journey to making a purchase or choosing your services. Utilizing different customer lifecycle communication strategies across channels is the best way to increase engagement and make meaningful connections. For more ideas, download our one pager, Build engaging email content across your entire customer journey.
