HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 1

WORKBOOK

How to Build a
Lifecycle Strategy
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 1

Introduction
Customers expect more from brands than ever before. They want
companies to engage with them on their terms and schedule with a
seamless experience across every digital and physical interaction.
In fact, 88% of customers agree the experience a company provides
is as important as the product or service it offers. Companies that can
build loyal relationships while driving efficiency and value are in a better
position than their competitors.

That’s where “lifecycle marketing” comes into play. It’s not another
buzzword — it’s a powerful strategy that can transform your relationship
with your audience. Whether you’re a seasoned marketing pro or just
starting out, this workbook will help you navigate the process of building
customer-led journeys so your customers can organically engage with
your brand throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 2

Defining the Lifecycle

What is a lifecycle marketing strategy? It’s a technique that categorizes types of
customer interactions, matches the appropriate marketing content, and serves it
up on the right channel — all in a series of connected journeys. A lifecycle strategy
is well thought out and designed in advance, so in a customer’s moment of need,
their experience with your brand is seamless, helpful, and timely. We divide the
lifecycle into four main groups: grow, onboard, engage, and retain.

Grow
This relationship phase can include both awareness and
acquisition. It involves making prospects aware of your
existence and solutions and invites them to connect
with your brand.

Onboard
In this stage, you are past acquisition, and your prospect
is now a customer. What’s left is for you to establish the
relationship and set the stage for future communications.

Engage
The goal of this phase is to maintain the relationship and
prioritize servicing your customers’ needs, nurturing their
connection with your brand.

Retain
This phase focuses on building loyalty. Your aim is to
identify opportunities to grow the relationship and
add more value to the customer’s experience.
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 3

Part 1

Developing a
Lifecycle Strategy
The goal of a lifecycle strategy is ultimately to scale journeys across channels
to create a customer experience that’s:

• Connected: providing seamless communications from one organization

to deliver a unified experience for the customer across sales, service,
and marketing
• Personalized: showing the brand knows customer preferences and past
behaviors, so any transaction can move quickly and efficiently
• Relevant: responding to customers in real time, when they’re ready to
make a decision, at the exact moment they want

However, no two customer journeys look alike. Customers are unique, with
individual preferences and paths to purchasing. It should be customers
leading journeys — not marketers. We want customers to have a flexible,
semi-self-guided experience. The challenge is that it’s never a straight line
from awareness to acquisition. We need to build a messaging ecosystem to
strike this balance correctly.

As marketers, we need to focus on key moments important to customers

and align them with their target KPIs. This approach ensures we create
positive customer experiences while growing marketing programs. Before
we build those journeys, we need to develop our lifecycle strategy. In this
workbook, we start with three steps: defining “SMART” goals, uncovering
the moments that matter, and classifying the journey types.
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Step 1

Determine
“SMART” Goals
Start with big business goals from the top down, and then outline how you’re
going to solve for those in each stage of your customer lifecycle. A high-level
goal will direct the development of your journey because it helps you focus your
efforts, especially when collaborating with many stakeholders. We recommend
making them “SMART,” meaning:

• Specific: make your goal easy to understand and use concrete action verbs
• Measurable: identify the factors involved and set measurements for them
• Attainable: make it challenging, but possible
• Relevant: keep it aligned to the greater goals of the organization
• Time-bound: ensure achieving your goal stays at the top of the priority list

Use the worksheet provided in the link to define your “SMART” goals and map
them across each stage of the customer lifecycle. Refer to the examples below
for guidance.

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example

Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Goals Increase net new Drive a 10% Improve email Improve repeat
customer inquiries decrease in click-through rates purchase average
by 12% in Q4. customer service by 18% by EOY. from 1.2 to 1.5
calls by Q2. by June.
Increase new basket Drive decrease in
size by 6% by EOY. Drive 80% mobile call center inquiries Generate 25,000
app downloads related to shipping loyalty program
from new customers and delivery by 9% sign-ups by January.
by Q3. by Q3.
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 5

Step 2

Uncover the
Moments That Matter
Now that we have our goals identified, let’s uncover moments that matter.
These are key interactions across the customer lifecycle that affect their decision
to purchase, renew, or grow their relationship with your brand.

Let’s look at different types of moments that matter through the lens of an
example we’re all likely familiar with — buying new auto insurance:

• I want to know: I want to see what options are available for auto insurance,
so I do online research
• I’m ready to buy: I narrowed down my options and I fill out a form to speak
with an insurance agent
• I’ve made a purchase: I open an account, download the app, and
set up payments
• I have an issue: I get into a traffic accident and need help addressing
the issue
• I need something else: I like my experience, so I evaluate options to
add home insurance

As you go through this next exercise, consider what data you have access to that can
help inform these moments (for example, common customer-service ticket topics).

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example
Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Moments Saves cart/wish list Tracks shipping/ Repeats visits Engages in

That Matter delivery loyalty program
Requests Sets up service
information Downloads app appointments Refers a friend

Opts in for Opts in additional Engages Shares on socials

messaging channels in marketing
Gets credit
messaging
Requests a quote Registers product
Reviews products
Clicks retargeted ads
Attends an event Has a problem/
Shares content
return Joins loyalty
Completes
program Engages in a
a purchase
community

Signs up for
subscription
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 6

Step 3

Classify the
Journey Types
Knowing which moments matter to your customer at each stage will ensure
you’re giving them the experience they want. This ultimately leads to building a
successful journey that is connected and personalized.

At this part of the lifecycle development process, you can evaluate existing
journeys and potentially create new journeys. The goal here isn’t to scrap
everything you’ve already built, but to formalize the lifecycle stage categorization,
making it easier to identify areas of opportunity in your current program.

For each lifecycle stage, identify at least one customer journey that you currently
have or need to develop to support a moment that matters. See examples below.

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example

Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Relevant Demo request Welcome series Promotional Reactivation

Journewys campaign
Web sign-up Product education Win-back campaign
Content/product
Text enrollment Local store Advertising
recommendation
promotion retargeting
Electronic receipts system
Account setup Loyalty welcome
Lead education User education
Profile completion Loyalty birthday
Keyword search Upsell/
Purchase cross-sell strategy Loyalty points
Ad click-through
completion
Loyalty program Loyalty rewards
Search
App download
abandonment Birthday/ Loyalty anniversary
Product registration anniversary offer Customer reviews
Back-in-stock status Referral program
Wish list

Replenishment

Card abandonment

Post-purchase
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 7

Part 2

Building the
Journeys
Now that our lifecycle strategy is fully designed, we can begin to build the
journeys. This involves mapping out lifecycle phases, defining goals, identifying
key customer moments, and outlining relevant journeys.

What’s next? We’ll take all these inputs with us as we move into the next part
of this process, where we will get more granular. We’re going to select a single
journey for each phase, keeping in mind this process can be applied to every
journey in your lifecycle.

Before we open Journey Builder, let’s focus on the four key pillars of any
successful journey: audience, data, content, and channels. Understanding
these pillars and planning them ahead will ensure that your drag-and-drop
process maps closely to a strategy. This approach will make planning the
journey’s architecture the quickest and easiest part of this whole process.
(Yes, we did just make that claim — and you can hold us to it!)

In each of the next and final steps of this workbook, we’ll dive further into
these important elements.
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Step 4

Define the
Audience
The more targeted your audience, the more successful your journey will be in
achieving your goal. As you go through this exercise, ask yourself:

• What audience will help you achieve your goal?

• Who does this journey apply to, and who does it not apply to?

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example

Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Audience New contacts New customers Subscribers who Customers who

who’ve searched who have purchased have shared their have reached 1,000
our website for hiking boots birthday with us loyalty points
“hiking boots”
and abandoned
their search
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 9

Step 5

Identify the Relevant

Data Points
Marketers know it’s important to use data to segment audiences and personalize
their message. For this phase of the journey development process, evaluate what
data you have access to and can use. Maybe you’ll identify areas where you wish
you had more data. In such cases, you can begin to put that in scope with IT or
your analytics team. However, our advice is to focus on what you can control — the
data currently available to you. Keep that in mind as you ask yourself this question
for the next exercise:

• What data do you need about your audience to personalize their journey?

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example

Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Data Geolocation First name Customer birthday: First name

month and day
Social audience Last name Last name
category First name
Email address Email address
Owned-site Last name
Purchase data Loyalty account ID
search history
Email address
Address location Loyalty status
Coupon code
Loyalty points
Redemption flag
Historical
Historical purchase data
purchase data
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 10

Step 6

Designate
the Content
Now that you know who you’re talking to (your audience) and more about them
(relevant data), it’s time to evaluate what you want to say to them — your content.
Content can mean various things, but in this context, focus on the message
content and any supporting content you’d like to include in the messages. To help
guide you in this exercise, ask yourself the following questions:

• What content do I already have?

• What content is still needed?
• What kind of content delights and helps my audience?

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example

Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Content Hiking boots Welcome message Happy birthday Referral offer

social promo with product video email with offer message

Personalized Interactive email Happy birthday gift Referral bonus

blog content by with product sent on birthday offerings
geolocation survey request
Final happy Referral offer
Local hiking Discount for next birthday reminder reminder
meetup invitation purchase email
Personalized web/ Personalized web/
app content blocks app content blocks
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 11

Step 7

Assign the
Channels
The further down this process you get, the more straightforward the exercise
becomes. All that’s left to do is select the channels you want to include in this
journey. As you choose, ask yourself, “Which channels will be most effective?”

Workbook Exercise Go to worksheet →

Example

Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Channels Social (Instagram, Email Email In-app push

Facebook, notification
SMS or WhatsApp Push
Snapchat)
Email
SMS
Website/Blog
Web: marketplace
Website
App module
App
Personalized web/
app owned ads
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 12

Workbook Exercise
Grow Onboard Engage Retain

Goals

Moments
That Matter

Relevant
Journeys

Audience

Data

Content

Channels
HOW TO BUILD A LIFECYCLE STRATEGY 13

Conclusion

Go Forth and
Enjoy the Journey
We’ve explored building a customer lifecycle strategy — and, in the process,
the art of nurturing customer relationships. A marketing journey is enriched
by meaningful moments of customer connection, and every touchpoint
contributes to the customer journey.

Remember: successful lifecycle marketing goes beyond immediate gains.

It’s about crafting enduring relationships, from initial awareness to loyal
advocacy. If you view every interaction as a chance to add value, you will
constantly learn, adapt, and refine your approach. Customer expectations are
high and constantly evolving, so we have to rely on malleable frameworks that
can stand the test of time.

We hope this workbook serves that purpose for you. Thank you for embarking
on this journey with us. Now go forth and enjoy your journey.