Lifecycle marketing 101

Most agencies are still doing one-off marketing. We make websites! We make banners! We make ads! And even worse, companies are hiring them to do it. So you think maybe the marketing managers and brand managers hiring these agencies are thinking about integrated marketing and working these pieces into their user lifecycle. Not so. They're paying another company to produce web analytics that don't tell them anything valuable. And the agency isn't helping them! They are making decisions about whether to continue a website or campaign based on them. And the agency is letting them! They're leaving out email and letting an entirely different department make those marketing decisions. And the agency isn't stealing that business!

Selling is not a one time act. You don't knock on a person's door and convince them to buy something that they've never heard of before. Doesn't happen. They first have to read about it, hear about, see their neighbor using it, and be asked to buy it (maybe many times) before they even consider it. That's the acquisition phase.

Once they've considered it, you're in very valuable territory and this is where most marketing strategy breaks down. You have a captive audience that wants to know more (even if they aren't aware of it). All you have to do is push them past that point to convert. That's the conversion phase and it's the most crucial and the most difficult.

After that, a lot of marketing strategy disappears. We sold a widget, yay! Let's celebrate! Why stop there? Why not sell a hundred more widgets to the same person, or better yet, get THAT person to sell a hundred widgets for you by being your evangelist? That's the retention phase. All together, it's the user lifecycle.

The user lifecycle is a living growing thing that changes constantly for each customer. A marketing strategy has to be able to tailor it's approach at any given moment based on the feedback (analytics) about the consumer's behavior. Banner analytics change the website, web analytics informs email and other CRM pieces, data from those emails in turn feeds changes to the website, and the revised website dictates the content of the next round of banners. It's all interconnected. It's not easy so think BIG and start SMALL.