Modeling The Customer Lifecycle / Sales Funnel
If you understand how your customers behave as they research your products and those of your competitors, then you should be able to break their behavior down into a series of stages. These stages taken together are called the Customer Lifecycle. From your point of view, creating a Sales Funnel that addresses their needs at each stage of the lifecycle so that you can track their engagement and likelihood to purchase from you at any time is the basis of building an effective customer relationship management capability
Let's assume that are five stages in the typical customer lifecycle for your company. The goal is to build this understanding into your on-site content strategy so that customers can find what they are looking for and feel comfortable no matter what stage they are at in the customer lifecycle.
Not Aware
The prospect is aware of their need, but they have no idea yet that your company can help solve it. This is where your investment in the inbound marketing elements of content creation, optimization, and online promotion are critical. Prospects at this stage must be able to find you, and your job is to everything possible to get found. Getting them to your site is the task of Search Marketing.
Researching / Interested
At this stage, the prospect has converted into a lead, and opted in to receive more information from your company but they are not yet ready to speak to you in person. If you don't have content to share that allows them to opt-in while they continue to research on their own terms, then you will have missed this critical intermediate opportunity in the sales funnel. At this stage, your goal should be to try to learn more about them and their needs and assess their readiness to buy. A common and effective way of doing this is through effective Content Marketing, which involves producing, publishing and sharing valuable content such as articles and whitepapers with prospects that cause them to opt-in as a lead. The nature of this content depends on the stage in the customer lifecycle. Once they have opted-in, automated lead nurturing campaigns appropriate to their stage in the lifecycle can greatly increase the likelihood of converting them into a customer.
First-time Customer
The lead has now given you the opportunity to begin a relationship by converting to a customer. Making this as easy as possible, for example through webinars, demos and free trials that take all the mystery and potential remorse out of their decision, can help you make sure you get it right at this stage. Keeping the customer engaged by continuing to share valuable information with them that increase their involvement with your product and reinforces that doing business with your company was a good decision, can make repeat purchase more likely is critical at this stage. By adding CRM Integration to your website and business, you'll be better equipped to retain customers.
Repeat Customer
A regular customer gives predictably to your revenue model, and offers you the opportunity to engage with and learn from them in order to continually improve your products and services. If you continue to satisfy them, and surprise them with improvements, they will continue to buy and even upgrade. CRM Integration will make this much more manageable, and using Social Media Marketing effectively can increase engagement and community around your products and services, and give you a chance to listen to their needs and improve your service.
Customer Evangelist
A customer that becames an evangelist of your brand, a passionate promoter of your products and services, is the holy grail in your quest as a marketer. You have met their every need, delighted them. It feels like you're reading their mind. They will praise you online, give you positive reviews, and spread the word to their friends and professional contacts. While you can't simply buy this priceless boost to your marketing, you can play a role in trying to pull your customers through to this final stage in the cycle through getting right the combination of Content Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing and CRM Integration. And the place to bring this all together is on your website.
Whole New Web can guide from start to finish in modeling the Customer Lifecycle of your business and constructing a Sales Funnel that mirrors, then building and integrating all the tools you will need to seamlessly guide a customer through the entire lifecycle of their relationship with you.
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