Adapt Your Marketing to The Customer Value
With modern marketing tools, it is possible for all companies, large and small, to carry out relevant marketing adapted to the life cycle of each client. The challenge for brands is:
- To maximize the value of life and the profitability of their customers,
- While building loyalty
- And turning them into ambassadors.
The relationship between brands and their customers is based on the notion of value; if a customer does not derive value from his relationship with a brand, he will gradually disengage and give up the ship at some point.
What Is Customer Value?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccs_xGmaeaQ
How does Value Flow over the Customer Lifecycle?
First of all, what the English call the “first value” is the moment when a simple suspect becomes “a lead” (ex: download your white paper), or even make his first purchase if you sell the low involvement products.
Then you have to grow that value to retain and keep a customer value in the long run; in fact, about 70% of your new customers will never redeem you. This is why we must exploit the “honeymoon” phase following the first purchase, and build at the customer “the habit” to use and/or buy your product.
Finally, to consolidate the loyalty (and profitability) of a customer, take him to the full value of your products/services so that these positive experiences are transformed into sponsorship, purchase of complementary products and/or use again. more entrenched in his habits.
With a segmentation & marketing strategy based on the customer lifecycle, you can reveal valuable insights and reveal growth opportunities. In this post, I’ll share with you how to adapt your marketing strategy to the customer’s life cycle, from acquisition to total loyalty.
Prospect: “Can we help you? “
In this first section, we will talk about people who have never bought anything from you yet. Your goal is simple: get them to a first purchase.
To this end, you will need to be helpful and ready to help in order to win the sale. This is the central theory in the give to get; if you want to get value from your customers (i.e. sales), you have to give them first!
In a store, when a customer is interested in a product, the seller then intervenes with the famous phrase “I can help you? “. Online, this materializes for example by
- The provision of a live chat,
- An email reminder following an abandoned cart,
- An email sequence of lead nurturing,
- Or remarketing advertising,
- etc.
And contrary to what you can believe, the key is not to find the best campaign idea, but first to understand all the reasons why people do NOT buy from you. The purpose is to highlight salient features that distinguish “customers” from “non-customers”.
- These data can be obtained for example by proposing an exit questionnaire to those who have not converted,
- Even to interview them directly by telephone or face to face if you have the possibility.
- And of course, you can also peel your Google Analytics reports by comparing the “Visit with conversion” and “Visit without conversion” segments.
New customer: “Thank you! “
It is generally accepted that a person who made their first purchase from your home in the last 90 days is considered a “new customer”.
After this first win, your goal is to get this new buyer back as quickly as possible to make his second purchase. The timing in this phase is crucial. To achieve this, the strategy consists of:
- Welcome your new customers (the easiest way is to start with a simple “thank you for your trust”)
- Understand what convinced them to trust you (why did you buy from us?)
- Define how different or similar they are to your existing clients (do you, too, be interested in this later?)
The most important thing with a new customer is to comfort them in their purchase, to make them “feel good” and recognized. This is a real opportunity to differentiate because many companies have bad messages of welcome, while their first e-mail should, on the contrary, amaze their new customers! You can also concoct a series of follow up emails to give them tips on how to use/maintain / wash / recycle your product.
If you sell online, you can also add a “key” for new customers, such as a handwritten note, a discount on the next purchase, a small gift, samples … The goal is to deliver “more” than simple product/service, but a real customer experience. For purchases more involved, or in B2B, it is possible that a sales consultant proactively contacts the new customer to ensure its satisfaction and answer any questions, or even offer him a first free course taking in hand …
Welcoming a new customer is also an opportunity to sow seeds for a future cross / upsell. To make cross-sell recommendations that matter, analyze the correlations that exist in your catalog: which other products buy the most customers who bought the product X or Y?
Active Customer: “We love you”
In this section, we are interested in people who have made at least two purchases in your home this year.
- The goal of any company is to maintain the relationship with this clientele,
- Encourage them to promote you to their surroundings (references, sponsorships …),
- And possibly buy other products they would not know yet.
To triumph at this stage, you will not have to relax your efforts and continue to delight your client in all situations. Indeed, the competition is fierce, and your interest is to remain “Top of Mind” in these loyal customers. Find the mechanisms that will encourage them to talk about you and/or explore categories of your offer with which they have never engaged.
Test several approaches, and measure the results to find out what works best. Typically, retention campaigns that work take the customer into consideration:
- Purchased products,
- Its “profitability” (value of customer life),
- His behavior,
- His degree of commitment
- And his perception of the brand.
- Inactive customers recently: “Remember us! “
A client who is “at risk” is a client who has been inactive for 90 days, or who simply shows a very low predisposition to buy back home. They are often those who are never contacted again, those for whom we give up all hope of sale … And yet, it is not necessarily because these people have recently bought nothing at home, they are angry with mark!
Of course, everyone buys at their own pace, despite an “average buying cycle” (some customers buy 2 big times in the year, others prefer 10 small orders) … However, it is generally accepted that We must not let a client become rotten: the sooner you go to the (re) conquest, the better for your sales!
The strategy here is to reconnect with these people and to explore their sources of dissatisfaction. Try to understand why these customers did not continue to appeal to you (and have no prejudices). A simple phone call or quick inquiry via email will do the trick.
Thus, you will know how to serve them better, and possibly give them a new reason to try again with your products.
Sometimes a simple raise works. Send your client a “we miss you” message, making sure you give the recipient a clear reason to return to your site or store.
It is possible to give a promo code, a maintenance audit or a free training if you operate in B2B … to make your offer even more attractive.
Inactive Customers for a Long Time: “We miss you …”
These are cemeteries clients (who no longer respond to any communication) or those who have not bought anything for a year or more.
Although the situation seems rather bad, you do not lose anything trying to reactivate these customers, giving them a real reason to redo a purchase with you.
After all, what do you have to lose? Some customers will see your offer, others will not, so what? The important thing is that you make a strong offer, an offer that you cannot refuse. This is even more important than any personalized recommendation/recovery that you can imagine.
You can adjust the value of your offer/discount amount based on the likelihood of the customer buying back one of your products, and its value of life (eg was it average above or below the average basket?).
And to maximize your chances of success, try to go through other channels: if it has been a year since your recipient has not opened one of your emails, no need to continue spamming his inbox. Try to edit it on Facebook with a custom audience, or even with a mail …
Conclusion
Marketing strategies based on the customer lifecycle must be used intelligently.
Of course, if you sell first price deodorants, it will be difficult to develop a very sophisticated marketing strategies around the customer lifecycle; the product is very low involvement, consumers may not be very motivated to engage with you, share information, be interested in what you have to offer them … But for many businesses, have a marketing strategy that takes into account the customer’s lifecycle helps boost sales and increase customer loyalty.
Before adopting the strategies, we have just seen together to your business, ask yourself these 3 questions:
- Who are the prospects/customers who seem profitable for the company in the long term (out of the question to launch life-cycle marketing programs if you know in advance that some segments are not profitable)?
- Does my company have something to offer that my customers are looking for and that could encourage them to maintain a long-term relationship with the brand (if you have nothing of value to offer except your products and promo codes, and that you will find yourself systematically in the position of “hard seller”, no need to start, it will not be enough to properly engage customers in a long-term relationship)?
- Do I have the tools and data that will allow me to create granular customer experiences, which really stick to the buying cycle of my customers (no need to mount ambitious marketing programs if today you do not collect data basics that will allow you to know at which stage of the life cycle each of your customers is)?