In case you missed the first part of this series, I’m a huge advocate for using Lifecycle Marketing in all aspects of your business. You can check out the concepts here of Lifecycle Marketing on the Infusionsoft website, but basically it involves planning an intentional progression for each and every lead as they transition from prospect, to customer, to raving brand advocate.
I’ve been collecting brief perspectives from Lifecycle Marketing experts, and it’s been really insightful to hear how different people approach the concept. The following insights are from Scott Richins. Scott, in addition to being a friend of mine, was formerly the host of the Infusionsoft Mastermind calls and also of Infusionsoft University (he actually trained me).
GJ: Can you briefly explain why lifecycle marketing matters to small businesses?
SR: Lifecycle marketing gives businesses a holistic framework within which they can build their businesses. Many times customers don’t know what they don’t know, so lifecycle marketing gives them a set of benchmarks – a progression to follow – to ensure they aren’t leaving gaps in their customer experience.
GJ: What is the hardest part about lifecycle marketing?
SR: The hardest part is generally anything that isn’t front end of the funnel. Lead generation is what everyone wants to focus on; it helps bring in more money in a short period of time. However, a company’s long term success is often times based on the experience that the company’s customers have after they have made a purchase. (Tweet that)
Focus on your customer experience, after they decide to buy, and maximizing that. Look at it as an investment in your marketing.
GJ: What do most people misunderstand about lifecycle marketing?
SR: Lifecycle marketing is not typically best implemented from beginning to end. If you launch a great attract campaign but you have no way of following up and educating your prospects or of completing a transaction with them, then you may start strong but you’ll sputter shortly after launch.
I recommend you start closest to the cash. You likely already have some leads coming in, so start converting more of those leads into customer first. Get an offer campaign in place. Then turn immediately to the Wow stage to give those customers a memorable experience. Those are the most important two to get into place, because any leads that you bring in after that will receive a strong offer and excellent fulfillment.
After that, you’ll either implement a referral campaign (which is really just another form of lead generation), or shift back upstream to lead capture and education. And when you get version 1 done, go back and level up each area.
GJ: Talk about the relationship between Lifecycle Marketing and Infusionsoft (the company or the software):
SR: Lifecycle marketing is the synthesis of the tens of thousands of hours of learnings that have come from Infusionsoft (the company) helping tens of thousands of small businesses grow their businesses. And Infusionsoft (the software) is the best tool to use to implement lifecycle marketing in a business. Lifecycle marketing is all about shifting your messaging based on the behavior of your customers, and the campaign builder is the easiest, most powerful way to build behavior based marketing automation.
GJ: Why are you an expert on Lifecycle Marketing?
SR: I’ve had the opportunity to work with thousands of small businesses to help them implement lifecycle marketing into their businesses. Since 2011, I have either been consulting or training Infusionsoft customers around the world on how to apply lifecycle marketing principles into their business. My expertise in business process mapping lead me to be a part of the team that designed the campaign builder, after which I began to teach lifecycle marketing through various Infusionsoft training programs – Infusionsoft University, Virtual Academy, and Mastermind Webinar series.
If you’d like to get in touch with Scott, or have questions about anything in this post, feel free to comment below or use the details provided:
Name: Scott Richins
Company: Infusionsoft
Website: www.Infusionsoft.com
Twitter Handle: @ScottRichins
Free Lifecycle Marketing Course
If you are interested in learning more about Lifecycle Marketing, and how to use it to create calm, organized, and predictable growth for your business - then spend some time with the free Lifecycle Marketing video series from FUEL.
