Why Is The Perfect Customer Lifecycle So Important?

Simply put, being aware of your perfect customer lifecycle and implementing unique experiences and systems will drive your business to new levels of sales. It does not have to be perfect but you just need to do it and do it better than your competition.

#1 Attract Traffic

There are many ways your company can attract traffic, but more importantly before you do that, you have to refine and define your message and audience. This allows you to pick the right medium and channel to use once your ready to step up you magnetic marketing perfect customer lifecycle.

An important factor to consider is determining how much to spend on activities that drive traffic such as content marketing, blogging, social media, pay per click advertising, and direct mail. You do this by calculating your lifetime customer value which give you the basis of establishing a budget to test campaigns with. At first there is a lot a trial and error to find your conversion ratios, but once you determine your high converting offer or activity you can invest more dollars into this area which will drive more traffic and that means more sales!

Driving enough traffic to produce the amount of sales you are looking for can be more expensive when starting your inbound marketing strategy from scratch, but if your company is well established and has developed content that is driving traffic through your website, social media, and other avenues, it will generally cost less to hone in on your conversion ratios.

Make sure to shock and awe your existing and potential customers.

#2 Capturing Leads

There are many Content Management Systems to choose from. The bottom line is that in order to capture leads you need to provide first a ton of value to your customers. Secondly you need to give them a way to engage or to “opt in” to such things as your e-mail newsletter, free guides, membership, or other compelling information.

When thinking about your lead capturing strategy, think about the world from your customers eyes and communicate your unique sales proposition in a story that they can relate to.

Some other ideas that will help you capture leads is to develop a long form sales letter or guide to use as a value gift you can give your customers to make their lives better in some way. You can and should go as far as to break that long form sales letter into a series of content pieces that can be sent over a period of time through a number of print and digital forms.

Be different and make it personal. Some good strategies include handwriting your offers and embedding that image in your e-mail or in your online and direct mail ads. Lumpy mail is another great way to capture and attract leads. When you get a lumpy envelope in the mail, isn’t the first thing you do is feel it and right away get curious about it? The rest of the mail goes in the trash but this one at least gets opened. Same thing applies with your e-mail marketing or ads.

#3 Nurturing Prospects

Here is where most people are either struggling to keep up or drop the ball completely. Nurturing prospects who are not ready to buy now is tough, especially with other clients ready and willing to do business with you immediately. Those clients have your full attention, but you also need to continue to make contact with those customers that are not quite ready to do business with. What is their business is up for grabs? Are you going to be the first person they think of? When you are top of mind and have provided valuable content to them over the years, even though they have never bought from you, you will win that new business 97.55% of the time.

#4 Convert Sales

Sales has become a dirty word in our world. We have been oversold to or we see ads everywhere we turn. It is enough to make some people vow NOT to buy from you. The companies that implement a sales process that educate, entertain, provide a value and a solution to our problems is great. We love when we drive down the road and see a sign in an antique store advertising that polka dot pink elephant we have been looking for over the past 10 years to fill that empty space in the corner of our den. Maybe that is just me but, I’m sure you can relate. Be the polka dot pink elephant for your clients and you will convert more sales.

#5 Delivery and Satisfaction

What’s worse than buying a box of strawberries, getting them home and thinking I am going to devour these, only to open them up and discovering a bunch of mold?? Nothing…that just sucks. The point is you can deliver your product but if your client is not satisfied you are not in a very good position to take them to the next step of the customer lifecycle, upsales. In fact you may very well be looking down the barrel of a customer refund, or at the very least being sued for food poisoning. Implementing follow up surveys and automated processes in your sales funnel is so important to continue to grow your sales.

#6 Upsell Customers

The famous, “If you act now we will throw in a second pair of shoes for 50% off” Arggg, my wife has fallen victim to this more times then I can count, but it works, and works in a big way. When you are in this stage of the customer lifecycle your customers are in buying mode, you have overcome all objections and have the ability to provided additional products or services that can improve their lives in a positive way.

Use this strategy with caution, as powerful as it can be, you can also become the used car salesman really quickly.

#7 Referrals

You got to love referrals, but some people do not feel comfortable asking for them. Why not automate the process and incentivize your customers for referring people to you? You can do it in a personal way where you do not come across as greedy. Hosting customer appreciation events are great for giving something back to your customers while opening the door for referral business. Discounts on services for referrals can work well, and always make your referral strategies a two way street. Go above and beyond by finding ways that you can help your clients and they will find ways to help you.