When I started my lifecycle marketing internship at Right On Interactive in June, I had relatively little marketing experience and had a lot to learn about the company, its clients and the industry. Terms like “lifecycle marketing” and “3-D scoring” were completely new to me. However, in the past two months, a lot has changed. I soaked up a lot of information from my experience here at Right On Interactive, and I have created a lot of content from that knowledge. Here are a few of the things that I learned this summer:
Successful marketing is about more than winning new clients.
Retaining your current customers is vital to success, and customer experience is important to retention. On average, loyal customers are worth 10 times more than their original purchase (SalesForce Desk). Customer experience directly impacts profitability. A January 2012 study found that Amazon had the best customer satisfaction rate (91.7%), as well as the highest sales growth at 20% (Institute of Customer Service). Amazon’s great aptitude for customer experience has helped them achieve the success they have.
For more information on customer experience, check out 21 Reasons Why You Should be Focused on Customer Experience.
A three-dimensional approach to scoring means a better understanding of your prospects and customers.
For most marketers, lead scoring is based on the prospect’s profile attributes and how they match the organization’s ideal profile definition. At Right On interactive, this is only the first phase of lead scoring, or what we refer to as 3-D scoring. We also utilize engagement scoring, which indicates a prospect’s level of interest based on their past activity and engagement with your brand. Engagement measures:
- Email Responses
- Web Activity
- Sales Engagement
- Purchase History
- Social Conversations
The last piece of the 3-D scoring methodology is lifecycle stage. This takes into account where a contact is in their journey with your brand. This determines what message they should be receiving and who should be sending it to them. By taking into account the lifecycle stage, profile and engagement scores in a comprehensive view of a contact, leads and customers alike can be scored from a more effective three-dimensional perspective.
For more information on 3-D scoring, read Lead Scoring has evolved have you?
Content should align to where your customer is in their journey with your brand.
By formatting your content to where a customer is on their journey with your brand, you can increase their engagement and potentially shorten the sales cycle.
Most marketers are concerned with acquiring new customers when they should be focusing on the entire customer journey. What’s important to understand is the customer journey does not end when you “win” a new customer. Marketing, along with client success and other client-facing teams, should continue to nurture customers after acquisition to further build the relationship and increase engagement.
For more information on the customer lifecycle, check out Marketers: Focus on the Customer Lifecycle.
Customer Relationships and Client Success
In the business world, forming lasting customer relationships is critical to success. These long-term relationships are far more profitable than acquiring new customers, as shown above under customer experience. Though business has become less personal since the technology boom, these relationships still drive a lot of business. People are still more likely to buy from brands they like and trust. This is why loyal customers are worth so much more than new customers.
Good client success managers must engage with their customers to build relationships and become trusted advisers. Building customer loyalty this way can reduce churn, increase revenue, and influence new sales. This why B2B marketers have started looking beyond closing new leads and looking towards increasing the value of customer relationships over time.
For more information, see B2B Client Success Management.
Right On Interactive
The aspects of lifecycle marketing and lead scoring I described above are just some of what I learned this summer at Right On Interactive. It really is an awesome company and I really enjoyed working here! If you’re interested in learning about opportunities to work at Right On Interactive, check out our careers page. It truly has been a great experience.
