To become a Digital Marketer, one of the key fundamentals of the apprenticeship is understanding the customer lifecycle management. This represents the different stages a customer will go through, whist interacting and building a relationship with your product. There are five customer lifecycle stages, which are reach, acquisition, conversion, retention, and loyalty, this is shown below.
I will discuss each of these customer lifecycle management stages, giving you a few basic tips and questions to consider. Understand your customer journey, will improve each stage, so giving a great customer experience and potentially a loyal customer.
Reach
At the reach stage, the customer will be searching for a product, brand or service to meet their needs or to solve a problem, so this is where the relationship with a customer begins and is also known as the Awareness stage as they are researching for a product and reaching out to you for more information. At this stage you need to make the customer aware of your product, by using the various digital channels, including rich SEO content on your website to bring it to the front end of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP’s) and through social media.
Key questions to consider, include:
- How can / or did the customer find your product – Search Engine or Social media for example?
- Do you have a marketing plan to regularly promote your product or service?
- Analyse what your competitors are doing and try and improve the experience.
Acquisition
At the acquisition stage, you now have an interested prospect who is considering purchasing your product or service, so you will need to stand out from your competitors and demonstrate your product or services are better than everyone else.
Key questions to consider, include:
- Does your website have rich content that will answer the customer questions?
- Having a blog section relating to your product and services can help with the rich content.
- Is your price competitive?
- Do customers have easy access to online help or customer services to answer queries?
Conversion
At the conversion stage, the customer has made the decision to purchase your product or service, but it is key at this stage to make sure you are providing a good customer service and it is easy for them to make the purchase, which will then help with customer retention.
Key questions to consider, include:
- Is the customer experience made as simple as possible without long winded forms to complete?
- Are there any barriers to stop the customer making a purchase?
- Do you offer associated products at checkout (like batteries for the product they may be purchasing), this will make the customers life easier when they receive the goods.
Retention
At the retention stage, you need to do everything possible to maintain a good relationship with the customer, so ask them directly how did you do? If it’s positive feedback, then great, you will probably keep them as a customer, but any negative feedback will let you respond directly to them and correct the issue – be proactive.
Key questions to consider, include:
- Personalise the customers experience – simply using first names makes contact more personal.
- Ask for feedback on what went well, but also what didn’t.
- Send newsletters (if they have signed-up to them), which will keep you at the front of their mind.
Loyalty
At the loyalty stage, the customer has become an ambassador to your brand, as they have made the purchase, are happy with the service and will be happy to spread the word to their friends, so you need to ensure you stay at this stage with the customer (through the previous stages) and use their loyalty to spread the word.
Key questions to consider, include:
- Ask them if they would be willing to write a testimonial or a blog about their experience with your company, a third-party recommendation goes a long way with other customers.
- Have a loyalty marketing program, where you offer promotions – could be as simple as free delivery or a percentage off next time.
Conclusion
By understanding customer lifecycle process, you will be aware of the journey customers take (and be able to map that journey) from initially being aware of your brand or product, through to purchasing it and eventually being a long-time customer, so take actions where necessary to improve the process, for which this all becomes part of your customer retention program.
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