Lifecycle Management. Relevant to marketing automation?

If you're in the world of marketing automation, you're probably familiar with the concept of Lifecycle Management. But for those who are new to the game, let's break it down.

Lifecycle Management is managing a customer's journey from the moment they first engage with your brand through their experience as a customer and beyond. The goal is to create a positive and seamless experience every step of the way, ultimately resulting in customer loyalty and advocacy.

So, what does this have to do with marketing automation? Well, everything. Marketing automation software allows for the automation of various touchpoints throughout a customer's lifecycle, which makes it much easier to manage this process at scale.

Let's take a look at a few examples.

First, there's the lead nurturing stage. This is the period of time between when someone first expresses interest in your brand and when they become a customer. With marketing automation, you can set up a series of emails to automatically send out to these leads, providing them with valuable information and moving them closer to a purchase decision. This helps to build trust and keep your brand top-of-mind with your potential customers.

Next, there's the customer onboarding process. This is the critical period after someone has made a purchase, where you want to ensure they have a positive experience and are set up for success. Marketing automation can help by sending out welcome emails, providing educational resources, and even surveys to gauge customers' feelings about their experience.

Finally, there's the post-purchase experience. This is the stage where you want to keep the customer engaged and happy in the hopes that they will become loyal customers or even advocates for your brand. Marketing automation can help by sending personalised messages, targeted promotions, birthday messages or other special offers.

So, how can you make the most of Lifecycle Management in your marketing automation efforts? Here are a few tips:

• Map out your customer journey in detail so you understand what touchpoints need to be automated and when
• Use personalised messaging and segmentation to ensure that your messages are relevant to each individual customer
• Monitor your customer feedback closely and adjust your automation strategy as needed
• Don't be afraid to get creative! Use random facts or personal anecdotes to make your messages more engaging and memorable.

Lifecycle Management is an essential concept in the world of marketing automation. By utilising automation tools to manage every step of the customer journey, you'll create a more positive and seamless experience for your customers, ultimately leading to greater loyalty and advocacy for your brand.

Awareness

You know the problem or need – e.g. your current marketing activities are failing or not delivering the number of leads needed for your business.

Research

You now need to find out what is available – what is essential for you. Is it price or service or some unique element that you must have?

Comparison

Now that you know what is essential to you, you compare the options and decide on the right solution. Maybe it is a trial or downloading a whitepaper to examine the finer details.

Purchase

This is the big one. You now need to decide who to buy from. Is the company a good fit? Are you looking for ongoing help or want to buy and be left alone?

Lifecycle Management: #Awareness

This part of the process is lead generation. You are the experts in your business. You live and breathe your business and understand more about it than your visitors. You want to be aware of this and offer high-value information your visitor will download in exchange for their email address. Once the form has been completed, email marketing comes into play during the stage:

• The Welcome email
  • These are opened more than any other type of email, and their reception is critical because it establishes your relationship with your new subscriber. The importance is to lay out exactly what they should expect, both content and frequency.
• Engage with us on social media.
  • Encourage your new subscriber to engage with you further through social media. If the welcome email is received well, subscribers are more likely to share the content with their friends and colleagues, thus increasing the number of new subscribers.
•  Introduce other Information
  • Your new subscriber is at the awareness stage and probably looking for more information, so it is essential to direct them to our resources, like whitepapers, eBooks and your blog.

Finally, the plan is to progress the new subscriber from the awareness stage to the Research stage. Every email should encourage subscribers to dig deeper, and your lifecycle management comes alive when they do.

This is an example of an awareness stage offer. At the bottom of this screen, you will see a box titled “Download the complete guide to email marketing”. Go ahead and download a copy for yourself.