The key to a successful business is having happy and satisfied customers! Every business must manage relationships to build a community of loyal customers.
Marketers who take the initiative of establishing long-term relationships with their consumers tend to achieve a greater ROI.
An integral part of expanding your community is being well-aware of all the steps your customers go through before they purchase your product.
This can entail visiting your website or outlet/retail store, reading reviews online, etc.
In order to maintain your customer base and boost your revenue, you need to put yourself in the client’s shoes and understand the concept of customer lifecycle marketing or CLM.
What is Customer Lifecycle Marketing?
Customer lifecycle marketing revolves entirely around developing strategies that are aimed at keeping customers engaged and captivated throughout their buying journey.
A typical customer lifecycle comprises a few main stages, starting from a potential prospect’s first interaction with your product and ends at retaining a customer and transforming them into an advocate of your product.
Now that you know what customer lifecycle marketing is, let’s see the strategies that can be incorporated at every stage of the process to achieve business goals.
Customer Lifecycle Marketing Strategies
Here’s how you can integrate different marketing strategies in the different stages of the customer lifecycle.
Awareness
The process of customer interaction initiates at the awareness stage. This is when a potential customer comes in contact with your brand and starts building a relationship with it. For startups, they often choose lead generation outsourcing to the Philippines to assist them in knowing their customers and implementing the best approaches to generate leads.
The prospect becomes aware of your brand and its offerings through different sources such as word-of-mouth, advertisements, etc. A customer typically becomes familiar with a corporation long before they reach its website.
You can’t expect a prospect to magically know about your company, especially if you’re not advertising it. The best strategy to use at this stage is to market and advertise your brand as much as possible.
To do this, you can employ either traditional sources such as billboards or digital marketing sources such as social media marketing.
Another great tool at your disposal is word of mouth – make your existing customers so fond of your brand that they become advocates. All in all, you need to give prospective buyers a general understanding of the things you have to offer.
Evaluation
Every customer goes through this stage. All customers go through reviews and feedback before making any buying decisions.
They also compare products, services and offers from different brands, evaluating various aspects, in order to choose an option that’ll bring them optimal satisfaction.
The best strategy for you to adopt at this stage is to stand out from your competition. You can do so by providing your customers with robust digital self-service.
Allow your buyers and customers to evaluate your offerings on their own terms.
Your social media pages and other digital marketing platforms such as blogs will give your customers a chance to find answers by themselves.
All in all, ensure that you consistently provide your customers with the necessary information through various channels to make their decision.
Purchase
If a customer is buying from your online store or website, they’ll need support now more than ever.
Research shows that more than 50% of buyers tend to abandon their purchase if they can’t find quick answers to their queries.
The most successful strategy to employ at this stage of the process is to provide live chat services on your website.
Real-time responses from a representative of your business will offer your customers all the assistance they require to make a purchase decision and have a good experience!
Customer Support Services
Providing exceptional customer support service is the key to retaining existing customers. Your relationship with a customer doesn’t end once they purchase your product; you have to struggle to maintain the bond.
At this stage, you need to ensure that every interaction that your brand representatives have with your customers gives them the assurance that you’re keen on developing a relationship with them.
Engagement
Once your customer purchases something from your brand and begins to like the product, they will try to engage with your brand through several platforms. At this stage, it is crucial for you to maintain your presence on channels that are open to communication.
The evolution of digital media has provided marketers with the greatest tool, i.e., social media, to interact with customers.
Ensure that your brand has accounts on all popular social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Moreover, you’ll have to make sure that these accounts are regularly updated with different discounts, offers, etc.
Once your customers are aware of your website, you can also provide them with the option of signing up for newsletters or subscribing to your blog.
If you don’t do your best to engage with your customers at this stage, you might lose them.
Bonding
It’s essential to build a bond with your customers to ensure that you retain them for longer. The best strategy is to build an emotional bond with them while providing them with exceptional quality services.
If you show your customers that you value your bond and connection, they will feel the same way.
Conclusion
Attracting new prospects is a far more tedious process than maintaining existing customers. Hence, the main objective of all marketing specialists is to convert one-time purchasers into loyal customers.
Adopting different strategies such as creating a customer lifecycle marketing strategy and using platforms such as customer master data management will help transform your customers into advocates of your brand!
Author Bio: Xen Chia is the Strategic Marketing Director of an award-winning digital marketing company, with more than 15 years of experience in digital marketing strategies, brand development, CRM data analytics, and business transformation.