The Beginner’s Guide to Lifecycle Marketing

Every lawsuit is different.

They are astatine antithetic stages of the buying journey and, therefore, respond to antithetic messages. Having lone 1 message—and shouting that astatine each of them—will not enactment and whitethorn adjacent crook immoderate of them off.

Instead, you request a amended strategy. One that takes into information the signifier customers are in. From there, you tin customize a much suitable message.

How bash you do that?

Well, you tin bash what’s called lifecycle marketing. In this post, you’ll larn the following:

• What lifecycle selling is
• Create a lifecycle selling strategy
• Lifecycle selling tactics

Lifecycle selling is the process of matching the benignant of connection a lawsuit wants to spot arsenic they advancement on their lifecycle.

Typically, the lawsuit lifecycle consists of six high-level stages, akin to the modern-day marketing funnel:

1. Awareness – Your imaginable customers archetypal larn astir your brand.
2. Engagement – Your imaginable customers interact with your marque and larn much astir your offerings.
3. Consideration – Your imaginable customers measure your offerings and determine if you’re the right fit.
4. Purchase – Your imaginable customers crook into customers by buying from you.
5. Support – You enactment your customers by ensuring they’re deriving maximum worth and restitution from their purchase.
6. Loyalty – Your customers emotion your brand. They acquisition from you repeatedly and/or instrumentality the inaugural to archer others about you.

The thought down lifecycle selling was developed by Infusionsoft (now Keap) to beforehand its email selling software. Today, the conception continues to beryllium associated with email marketing.

However, customers don’t conscionable interact with a concern via email. So we tin grow the scope of lifecycle selling to different marketing channels too.

To make a lifecycle selling strategy, we’ll usage this framework, courtesy of Barilliance. It involves three steps:

1. Triggers
2. Message(s)
3. Channel

Let’s look astatine them successful much detail.

1. Triggers

Triggers are predefined conditions that find erstwhile a selling connection should beryllium presented to a customer. These conditions are aligned with the six stages of the lawsuit lifecycle.

Since the six stages of the lawsuit lifecycle are beauteous high-level ones, let’s interruption them down into much circumstantial segments that tin service arsenic triggers:

• Prospects who person not heard of your marque [Awareness]
• New tract visitors [Awareness]
• New email subscribers [Engagement]
• Prospects who are comparing [Consideration]
• Cart abandoners [Consideration]
• First-time customers [Purchase]
• Churned customers [Support]
• Active customers/VIPs [Loyalty]

Basically, immoderate lawsuit enactment tin beryllium turned into a trigger.

2. Message

This is what you nonstop your customers.

Don’t conscionable nonstop anything, though—not lone should your customers attraction astir the message, but it should besides beryllium related to the trigger that sent said message.

For instance, you whitethorn privation to nonstop an email reminder to cart abandoners, i.e., customers who dropped disconnected astatine the Consideration stage.

3. Channel

This is wherever the connection is taking place. It tin beryllium immoderate selling channel—email, social, unrecorded chat, YouTube, etc.

With the model successful place, let’s look astatine however we tin use it successful reality. We’ll usage the segments we created arsenic examples of however to execute lifecycle marketing.

1. Prospects who person not heard of your brand

Trigger: Customers recognize they person a occupation and hunt connected Google to larn however to resoluteness it
Message: Educate your customers connected however to lick the problem
Channel: Search motor optimization (SEO)

Customers can’t bargain from you unless they cognize you exist. And find usually occurs due to the fact that customers archetypal find retired they person a occupation they request to solve.

When that happens, astir of the time, they crook to Google. This means if we privation imaginable customers to find us, we request to fertile connected Google. Not lone that, we request to fig retired what problems they’re searching for and what kinds of words they’re using.

To bash that, we tin usage a keyword probe tool. Here’s how:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Enter a fewer presumption related to what you’re selling (e.g., “coffee,” “cappuccino,” “coffee bean,” etc)
3. Go to the Matching presumption report
4. Switch the tab to Questions

Here, you’ll spot implicit 300,000 imaginable topics you could target. Look done the database and prime retired those that are applicable to your website. Then create contented that volition fertile for these topics.

Recommended reading: Keyword Research: The Beginner’s Guide by Ahrefs

2. New tract visitors

Trigger: Customers onshore connected your tract for the archetypal clip aft discovering your content
Message: Subscribe to your newsletter
Channel: Email

After discovering your content, astir radical volition permission and ne'er return. So if you privation them to proceed engaging with your contented and brand, you request to get them to enactment oregon instrumentality to your website again.

There are galore ways to bash this, including getting them to travel you connected your societal channels. In my opinion, email is the champion transmission due to the fact that you ain the nonstop communication. (Social platforms tin region you anytime.)

However, a visitant to your website won’t manus implicit their interaction accusation without immoderate enticement. You tin bash this successful a assortment of ways. For example, we support it elemental by asking them to articulation our play digest:

E‑commerce stores thin to dangle discounts arsenic an incentive:

Whereas bloggers similar giving distant escaped eBooks:

3. New email subscribers

Trigger: Customers motion up for your newsletter
Message: A invited bid introducing your brand, content, and catalog/products
Channel: Email

Once the imaginable signs up for your newsletter, you should present immoderate you promised—a discount code, eBook, etc. But beyond that, it’s a large accidental to proceed engaging them and introducing much of your contented (or if you’re an e‑commerce store, your catalog of products).

For example, aft confirming your subscription, selling bureau Demand Curve follows up with an email of resources you tin check out:

Dr. Rhonda Patrick has a multiday email bid that introduces you to her premium content, which she provides for free:

4. Prospects who are comparing

Trigger: Customers are looking for merchandise comparisons connected Google
Message: Feature comparisons, merchandise comparisons
Channel: SEO

Customers volition ever privation the champion bang for their buck. So adjacent if they’re acquainted with your brand, they’ll marque comparisons. One of the ways they bash this is by searching connected Google for comparisons betwixt your marque and your competitors’.

Here’s however to find who your customers are comparing you with:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Enter your brand name
3. Go to the Matching presumption report
4. Under Terms, click connected “vs”

Here, we tin spot the antithetic brands that our customers are comparing us with.

It’s up to you whether you privation to make 1 leafage oregon idiosyncratic pages for each competitor. At Ahrefs, we created one versus page:

Rather than the modular side-by-side examination of features wherever the leafage creator wins, we decided to diagnostic autarkic polls and speech astir the features that only our toolset has.

5. Cart abandoners

Trigger: Customers adhd products to the cart but don’t implicit the purchase
Message: Complete the checkout process
Channel: Email, retargeting

During the process of buying, customers whitethorn procrastinate oregon hesitate. They statesman by adding your products to the buying cart but wantonness it halfway due to the fact that they are distracted, person different substance to be to, are amazed astatine the full price, oregon are annoyed by an constituent of your checkout process.

In fact, Statista’s March 2021 study found that almost 80% of online buying orders were abandoned.

Abandoned carts are good if customers return. But galore don’t. Sleeknote claims that e‑commerce brands suffer astir $18 cardinal successful income each twelvemonth due to the fact that of cart abandonment.

That means you request a mode to effort and get these customers back.

The astir communal mode is to nonstop an “abandoned cart” email. Here’s an illustration from Bonobos, a men’s covering brand:

Abandoned cart emails aren’t conscionable constricted to e‑commerce brands. You tin usage these emails for immoderate incomplete transaction successful immoderate industry. For example, here’s 1 from CodeAcademy, an online programming school:

Besides email, you tin besides retarget these customers utilizing societal media ads. That way, arsenic they’re browsing the web, they’re reminded to implicit their checkout with your brand.

6. First-time customers

Trigger: Customers bargain your product
Message: How to get the champion retired of your product
Channel: Email, in-app, unrecorded chat, societal media, video, contented marketing

Give your caller customers a large experience, and they’ll beryllium connected their mode to becoming a VIP of your brand. One mode to bash this is to connection enactment and education—teach them however champion to usage your merchandise truthful that they volition beryllium motivated to enactment oregon buy more.

At Ahrefs, too our in-app onboarding, we besides nonstop emails introducing a assortment of resources we’ve created to assistance customers get much retired of our product. This includes a little explainer connected what our toolset does, an instauration to our knowledge base and in-app tutorials, arsenic good arsenic reminding them they tin talk to enactment unit connected the unrecorded chat anytime they need help.

We besides stock with them the champion contented connected our blog and YouTube channel, astir of which features the different ways to usage our toolset and execute antithetic tactics:

Finally, we besides invitation them to articulation our customers-only Facebook group, Ahrefs Insider, so they tin interact with different top-tier SEOs to get the latest tips, tactics, and solutions for their problems:

Education and enactment aren’t conscionable constricted to software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses similar ours. E‑commerce brands tin bash it too. Take a look, for example, astatine however Beardbrand creates contented to enactment its customers:

If you merchantability women’s clothing, you tin ever amusement your customers however to brace up antithetic styles for antithetic seasons. Or if you merchantability sneakers, thatch your customers however to instrumentality attraction of them (especially suedes!), cleanable them, and brace them up with antithetic styles (or adjacent lace them differently!).

7. Churned customers

Trigger: Customers bargain your merchandise erstwhile and ne'er acquisition thing again
Message: Discount for returning
Channel: Email, retargeting

The supra trigger is to forestall churn. But nary substance however overmuch you try, immoderate customers volition permission oregon halt buying from you. However, a percent of them tin beryllium persuaded back.

Retargeting tin enactment good here. Use ads to punctual them they’ve not bought from you for a portion and invitation them to cheque retired your brand again.

Email tin enactment too. Drew Sanocki famously helped transform streetwear marque KarmaLoop from facing bankruptcy to being acquired. One of the tools successful his toolbox was the discount ladder strategy for winning backmost churned customers.

Drew explains the strategy successful much item here. But basically, the thought is to springiness expanding discounts implicit clip to customers who haven’t made a acquisition successful a while.

But erstwhile the lawsuit buys, they’re taken disconnected the discount ladder. This ensures you’re not driving your marque downward into a discounting spiral (incidentally the crushed wherefore KarmaLoop was connected the verge of bankruptcy successful the first place).

8. VIPs

Trigger: Customers who repeatedly and often bargain your products
Message: Join VIP program
Channel: Email, in-app, in-store

Customers who emotion your merchandise should beryllium fixed much opportunities to bargain again and bargain often. If you person one, it’s a bully thought to invitation them to your loyalty oregon VIP program.

For example, Sephora’s Beauty Insider is 1 of the astir palmy loyalty programs around. It has implicit 25 cardinal members, and they marque up adjacent to 80% of Sephora’s yearly sales.

The Beauty Insider programme has tiers, which promote loyal customers to bargain much truthful that they get upgraded to higher tiers:

Being a Very Important Beauty (VIB) subordinate is important to Sephora’s assemblage members. Not lone bash they get rewards and discounts, but they besides get entree to exclusive products and events. So overmuch truthful that determination is simply a arrogant VIB assemblage connected YouTube:

Final thoughts

The segments and triggers I’ve written astir are not exhaustive.

Depending connected your business, you tin instrumentality a much granular attack and make much segments. And for each segment, you tin ever see much triggers.

Bear successful caput the lack of an enactment tin besides beryllium a trigger. For example, a concern wherever a imaginable lawsuit joins your email database but doesn’t unfastened the past 5 emails tin beryllium a trigger that spurs you to nonstop a caller message.

What bash you think? Did I miss retired connected thing astir lifecycle marketing? Let maine cognize on Twitter.