"Customer Lifecycle Management"

An important facet in marketing is understanding your customer's lifecyle.

A business that employs customer lifecyle management will reap the benefits of long lasting, increasing revenue from repeat clients as time progresses.

Here's an outline to follow:

1. Target - Identify your target market
2. Attract - Attract customers through marketing your brand.
3. Engage - Engage and acquire clients by defining and refining the sales process.
4. Service - Give customers what they want in a timely manner, and make it the best of quality.
5. Time - Learn the yearly, quarterly, or monthly purchasing habits of your customer and adjust marketing programs 30-60 days before their purchase. (Look easily at when your customers purchased what last year.)
6. Retain - Keep your clients by providing great customer service, and by continuing to find Win/Wins.
7. Deepen - Provide new products and services to build revenue and deepen the relationship.


Create strategic plans for each part of the customer lifecycle seperately so you can remain focused. Where are your current customers in their lifecycle now? Are you taking care of their current needs?

Another great article (more in depth) on Customer Lifecycles:
Marketing.org
http://www.marketing.org/ArticleDetails.asp?AId=699