The goal of every business is to convert people into paying customers.
The customer lifecycle (CL) is a way of visualising the journey that a customer goes through from prospect. As a business owner selling a product or service, you must understand how the CL works and the steps that must be taken to take advantage of the inevitable CL that every new client will experience.
Table of Contents
Reach
The first stage is the point at which you first make contact with a potential customer, this could be from a Facebook ad, coupon, or a referral for example.
For this to occur you must be marketing in places where the right people will see this content and will become aware of your company. It’s important to have the right metrics in place to see if your efforts are paying off. You can measure your success with online tools such as AHrefs or google analytics.
However, most people will not convert into paying customers during this stage.
In this stage, you must aim to capture your potential customer’s attention and begin developing relationships.
Acquisition
In the Acquisition stage, you are sending people to your site in hopes of conversion. It’s important to understand that most people will come to a website with a specific desire or need. It is then your job to help them understand how your business can help them meet their needs.
You should have a process in place to guide them towards converting to a solution that will help them most.
This could include having CTA on your site for them to follow.
The acquisition process
The acquisition is a process of bringing new customers or clients. The goal of this is to create a systematic, sustainable acquisition strategy that can evolve with new trends.
You might acquire new customers through various channels such as; email, social media, events, PPC, recommendations, or natural searches.
Conversion
This stage is where your lead turns into a paying customer.
The best way to convert leads into paying customers is to focus on providing value and building relationships instead of simply selling products.
Customers should feel welcomed and valued therefore sales will occur naturally without you having to use pushy marketing strategies which can consequently drive people away from your site.
In the conversion stage of a CL, the customer has gone through the sales funnel- another principle that contains the following stages:
- Awareness
- Desire
- Interest
- Action
Retention
Now that you have a new customer, your goal should be to figure out how to keep that person as a recurring customer. This means finding ways to upsell and cross-sell to that person.
During this stage, you need to continue to build and maintain your relationship with that customer to maintain contact and continue to bring value to that person so they will think of you every time they need your product or service.
Customer retention should be a top priority for businesses as studies have shown that it is much more profitable for businesses to continue to sell products or services to existing customers than to new ones.
Loyalty
The ultimate goal of CL is to turn clients into a friend who regularly buys from you or recommends products to anyone who will listen.
Understanding the CL and how to find and keep loyal customers is crucial to the ongoing success of any business.
Now that each stage has been broken down and explained, use this knowledge to target your customers more effectively and market towards their needs.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the team at Dzines and we will be happy to help.
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