1. Understand Your Customer's Mentality
Lifecycle marketing campaigns often involve a long-range approach, and if we've learned anything from Covid-19, it's that success in a long-range initiative requires agility. As you work through the "stages" of a lifecycle push, make sure to account for how the customer's mentality may shift in relation to news events impacting their lives. What new considerations might they have at each stage? - Michelle Stark, Red Sage Communications, Inc.2. Begin With A Problem
Use a design-thinking approach! Always start with a problem, not with a “shiny object” in need of a solution. Also, talk to the ultimate users of your solution. Only when the user's voice is heard can you then deeply understand their needs and what you’re solving for at each stage of the lifecycle. - Steve Cox, Cisco3. Know Your Analytics
Understand your analytics and how they will feed into your understanding of the lifecycle. Analytics seems straightforward, but it's often hard to get them right — meaning that they are accurate and revealing actionable insights. Map out your lifecycle and connect each point to an objective that you can track. - Sarah Falcon, Object Edge4. Meet Your Customers Where They Are
To achieve great impact, you need to meet your customers or clients where they are. That requires having a deep understanding of where they are in the buying process and doing what you can to help them during that process. Sometimes, in B2B marketing, this involves a multi-year decision and therefore breaks down the customer into the various stages and the impact at that stage is vital. - Deborah Farone, Farone Advisors LLC5. Create Content Relevant To Your Customer
In the B2B world, providing value to a customer who you want to grow into a valuable advocate means creating and curating content that has nothing to do with your product, developing non-branded gifts or experiences and allowing customers the opportunity to provide honest feedback on all aspects of the company with confidence action will be taken. - Lisa Walker, Fuze6. Over-Deliver On Customer Service
Going above and beyond early in the relationship with your customer goes a long way later. Over-delivering your services or delivering them in an expedited fashion can have a dramatic impact on successfully maintaining a long-lasting business relationship. The customer won't feel the need to go anywhere else because they will feel like they are getting the best service where they are at. - Christian Anderson, Lost Boy Entertainment Company7. Offer Unexpected Rewards
Firstly, make a great first impression in lifecycle marketing by providing an unexpected reward. Customer lifetime value (CLTV) is impacted best by showing you recognize a person for who they are. The company P.volve did just that with an exclusive offer for students, nurses and teachers during the pandemic. They recognized these groups were impacted hard and rewarded them with an exclusive discount. It paid off, increasing their CLTV by 70%. - Sai Koppala, SheerID8. Build A Strong Foundation
For effective lifecycle marketing, it's important to have a strong customer data foundation and to understand a visitor's current engagement with your company when they visit your website or call in for service. In addition, to do customer segmentation and to run campaigns, the marketing team needs good data. So, make sure to build a strong customer data foundation to support lifecycle marketing. - Tom Treanor, Treasure Data9. Focus On Important Aspects Other Than Buying
Keep your campaign narrative in mind so you can paint the full picture of the value your brand delivers to customers. The power of the product is important, but ultimately, you must communicate the value of an organization. Remember people buy value. People buy relationships. People buy emotions. Thus they don't necessarily just buy the product. - Marija Zivanovic-Smith, NCR Corporation10. Interact With Customers On Their Terms
My top tip for lifecycle marketing is to remember that customers today want to interact on their own terms. This includes the frequency and location of the interaction. The fundamentals are the same for each platform: deeply understand what makes your customer tick. The journey to this discovery is underpinned by data and deep intelligence and will uncover a smart, relevant marketing message. - Mandy Dhaliwal, Boomi11. Use Data To Build A Personalized Experience
Look at the data about individual customers — what they search, buy (and buy again), the cadence in which they buy and how they move about channels to purchase a product. Understanding each customer’s journey helps a brand personalize each experience through an omnichannel marketing strategy. As a result, you help make their messaging seamless for any device and channel. - Anna Luo, Jivox12. Provide Value And Solve Customer Pain Points
Deciding to create the lifecycle marketing campaign is the first step but actually building out the content is the most critical element for success. However, not only do you have to personalize your messages but also ensure each message provides value by either solving a specific pain point at that moment on the customer's journey or providing a specific benefit they wouldn't otherwise receive. - Melissa Kandel, little word studio13. Personalize The Customer Journey
Lifecycle marketing campaigns heading into 2022 need to consider highly developed, personalized journies that take into account post-sale and delivery disruption communication. That includes replacement and contingency plans such as product substitutions and incentives for delivery delays. Moreover, cross-functional teams may include outside vendor communications and additional preemptive complaint management. - Mollie Barnett, S.M.A.R.T. Company14. Take Feedback From Customer Data
Look to retention and churn as feedback signals for what isn't working as often as you focus on growing more of what works. I have learned so much from being laser-focused on churn in different seasons of my career. And it helps you become a better marketer when you have an "all things considered" understanding of your product and value proposition. - Austin Helton, Tally & Mass, LLC15. Determine Your Customer's Communication Style
Lifecycle marketing campaigns are effective when they’re targeted and specific to the audience that you're focused on. Be sure to understand the customer journey before venturing out on personalized communications. Also know how customers prefer to be communicated with on any platform. Lastly, make sure that the “what’s in it for me” is clear. Without that, customer engagement can lack. - Lynn Kier, Diebold NixdorfSource: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2021/12/16/15-strategies-for-building-a-great-lifecycle-marketing-campaign-in-2022/?sh=27764d5e905e
