This post was originally published on Media Shower’s site.
Do you know what single act is more important than getting a new client? Keeping your clients. But how do you do that?
Tyler Williams, Sales and Marketing Operations Manager at Right On Interactive, says it’s all about where you put your focus. Tyler says your focus should always be on the entirety of the customer lifecycle.
Media Shower recently spoke with Tyler Williams about Customer Lifecycle Marketing to learn more.
Your website states that you “literally wrote the book on Customer Lifecycle Marketing.” What is Customer Lifecycle Marketing?
Right On Interactive was the first company to focus on the importance of the customer journey throughout the entire lifecycle. Customer Lifecycle Marketing (CLM) is the understanding of where your prospects and customers are in their relationship with your brand, in order to deliver relevant messaging and resources at each stage of the customer journey. With insights into different customer stages, marketers and sales teams know exactly how to best engage with these individuals to maximize their lifetime value. The journey doesn’t end as soon as a prospect turns into a customer. It’s a continuous process of winning new customers while retaining, up-selling, and cross-selling current customers.
How does this experience help businesses grow their leads?
A CLM platform provides visibility into who is engaging with your brand and who are the best-fit prospects in your database at each stage of the customer lifecycle. A CLM platform should track and score on email behavior, social media interactions, website page visits, sales team interactions, and much more! This visibility allows for simple, easy identification of which leads and customers are ready to buy and which may need additional nurturing. This allows sales teams to focus on leads that are truly ready to buy versus leads that marketing must spend more time nurturing.
Given the busy schedules of business owners, how can they be encouraged to maintain engagement throughout their customer journey?
You just have to remind them that maintaining engagement with prospects and customers is extremely beneficial for every business owner. For instance, interacting with your current and potential customers increases new business and improves retention rates. By engaging with new or existing customers, you are educating those that may be looking to buy, while reminding your most loyal customers why your business is so valuable to them. It’s the perfect opportunity to market your products or services more efficiently and in a way that you want your customers to view your company.
Maintaining engagement also creates an opportunity to upsell and cross-sell current customers. In the end, maintaining appropriate amounts of customer interaction contributes to the overall increase in your bottom line.
What pieces of advice could you offer a customer in this regard, even if they couldn’t pursue your services immediately? What would help them move in the right direction?
For those interested in utilizing a CLM platform, I would suggest the following checklist items:
1. Data: The starting point for CLM is data. The more data you have, the better; but you can start with simply names and email addresses. Beyond gathering data, it’s extremely important to keep your data up-to-date and relevant in order to effectively communicate and reach your audience.
2. Content Distribution: In order to reach, engage, and educate your audience, it is important for your company to create unique, educational content on industry best practices. Weekly blog posts as well as a strong social media presence are great ways to make your content available and easily accessible to your audience.
3. CRM Adoption: Having a place for your sales reps to enter contact data and maintain their sales pipeline is an important part of maintaining and keeping your customer relationships organized as well.
