One of the things that our Digital Marketer Apprenticeship will teach you is how to supercharge your customer lifecycle. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that is just yet, we’ve laid out everything that you need to know below. To get the full Level 3 – Digital Marketing Apprenticeship course details sent to your inbox, simply leave your email address at the bottom of this page!
What is the Customer Lifecycle
The Customer Lifecycle is an overarching view of customer behaviours, created by a business based on their overall observations of all customers. A customer lifecycle doesn’t happen spontaneously – it is driven by business actions.
The 5 stages, broken down
- Awareness
When the customer first consciously notices your company. In today’s digital market, attention spans are short and scrolling fingers are fast. You will need to make your content stand out to drive awareness.
2. Consideration
Ok, you’ve got their attention. Now it’s time to make them consider your product. They may start to look into your value, or do some research that compares you to competitors. Have no fear, if you have great testimonials, perhaps a discount or two, and are authentic in your offering, you’ll be good to go.
3. Purchase
SOOOLD the man on the site. The purchase stage is the completion of monetary exchange between your visitor and yourself. Be wary that they can still choose to drop off at this point, so make sure to make that journey easy, breezy, beautiful.
4. Retention
Now it’s all about the relationship. How do you keep your customers engaged and coming back for more? Design your content around the aim of being current and interesting. Creating loyal customers is the fool-proof way to generate long term income.
5. Advocacy
Earned media is elite media. If you can encourage your loyal customers to leave gleaming reviews then you are going to capture more customers in the consideration stage. Consumers are more likely to leave comments and reviews if they are incentivised, so consider running competitions to boost your online advocacy.
AWARENESS, CONSIDERATION, PURCHASE, RETENTION, ADVOCACY
How do we measure the success of our customer lifecycle?
OK, there are some numbers involved, but it’s a pretty easy formula. Here’s our Digital Marketer cheat sheet (feel free to copy this and share it with your friends, colleagues, pets etc.)
Customer revenue per year x
Duration of the relationship in years
– Total costs of acquiring and serving the customer
= CLV
Some other values that you will learn on your Apprenticeship
Cost per acquisition
The cost to your business of gaining a new customer through the activities you did at the Awareness stage, including advertising and marketing.
Ad impressions and conversions
You can track your digital marketing and advertising in terms of how many people looked at an ad and how many have interacted with it and clicked through to your website or downloaded your app as a result.
Transaction value
How much are customers spending per purchase? Does this go up or down after the purchase stage as you go into the retention stage?
Transaction frequency
How often do your customers at the retention and loyalty stages purchase? Does the frequency stay constant, or does it increase or level off over time? Are there any obvious patterns year on year?
Engagement metrics
Customers who have reached the advocacy stage, and some of those at the retention stage, may be more likely to engage with your brand. How often do they open your emails? Do they follow you on social media, and if so, how often do they “like” or comment?
I want more terms and definitions
Conclusion? There’s no conclusion, it’s a cycle
The customer lifecycle is just one of the technical elements that you will learn to boss on your Digital Marketer’s Apprenticeship. If you want to find out more about what’s involved, head to our Level 3 – Digital Marketer page. Or click here if you fancy learning about a different apprenticeship standard.
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