The term “Customer Lifecycle” is defined as the visual representation of the different stages that a customer goes through in his or her relationship with the brand, from the first interaction to the post-purchase stage, which covers the entire loyalty and brand advocacy journey.
The Customer Lifecycle is an important starting point for analytical activities related to one’s audience: in fact, it provides a real-time snapshot of it that allows one to know how many customers are within a particular step, but more importantly, to understand which customers are within it, in order to evaluate possible marketing personalisation actions to increase their engagement.
The customer lifecycle allows for a complete and comprehensive view of each individual user’s behaviour: how the purchase of a product occurs, and what marketing strategies to apply to improve and condition their entire buying process.
The customer lifecycle is therefore a key resource for any team and can be managed either by CRM software or Customer Data Platform.
Knowing your company’s Customer Life Cycle allows you to optimise and create ad hoc marketing strategies in order to improve it to increase performance in terms of conversions or purchases.
Metrics used to create the Customer Life Cycle
The metrics used in the implementation of the Customer Lifecycle are:
- daily traffic;
- the conversion rate;
- the average expenditure per order;
- the profit brought in by each customer as a result of a purchase.
Again, as is the case with CLV, there are numerous technology solutions in martech that provide marketers and strategists with a representation of the Customer Lifecycle of their audience users.
Difference between Customer Life Cycle and Customer Journey
Very often the concept of “Customer Lifecycle” is confused with that of “Customer Journey.”
In reality, these are two concepts that reflect two different perspectives.
If the Customer Journey can, in fact, be defined as the reconstruction of the customer’s journey and its many interactions with the brand (from acquaintance, to product purchase and loyalty) carried out from its own point of view, the Customer Lifecycle changes perspective and offers a mapping reconstructed by the company itself.
It is, in fact, the company that defines the different steps in which the customer can go (anonymous user, lead, first-time purchase customer, VIP customer…) and, at the same time, the activities necessary so that each user can be accompanied to the next step, in a path aimed at his or her loyalty.
As is readily apparent, the Customer Lifecycle has enormous value in that it allows the value of a customer to be increased over time, optimising the cost of acquisition.
