Why your Small Business should adopt the Lifecycle Marketing approach

Are you a small busines owner?  Are you doing EVERYTHING yourself?  Well this post is definitely for you!

It’s easy as a small business owner, to fall into a “I’ll do everything myself” trap, because you know and can rely on the quality of work you offer.  Subsequently I’m sure you then find yourself doing ALL the jobs that large organisations farm out to separate departments. And as a small business owner you are so focussed on “getting the job done” that you don’t think about the process, you just get on and do it.  Subsequently you then become involved in every single aspect of your business – Marketing, Sales, Invoicing, Financials, Logistics etc and nothing can function without you being involved!

Consquently all the processes that have been set up within your business are then typically stored in your head!  You know exactly what should happen when a phone call comes in, or when an email arrives!  Habits are then formed which become difficult to change – although not impossible. Subsequently every process within your business relies on you to make anything and everything happen!  And so the “round-in-circles” trap starts to happen!  You may have…

  • Lost Traffic – You spend money getting people to visit your website, but they leave without giving you any information. You can’t follow up with them.
  • Lost Leads – When leads do contact you, you have weak and inconsistent follow up.
  • Lost Clients – Your hottest prospects are your existing clients, yet how often do you get in touch with them? How often do you focus on upselling? Or even tap into them as a referral source?

Does this sound familiar? So how do you overcome this?

SIMPLE – adopt the Lifecycle Marketing Process.

What is Lifecycle Marketing?

Lifecycle Marketing is a simple framework created by Infusionsoft that you can use to design a marketing plan for your business that will help you attract customers, grow sales and deliver an experience that wows your customers. It’s time to fix your follow-up problems by developing your company’s Lifecycle Marketing.

Analyse Your Business

Before you can fix the problems with your current customer lifecycle, you must identify the problems. Take time to stop and think about how you go about doing business – literally!  How do enquiries come in? How do you deal with an enquiry? How do you communicate with them? Do you find yourself repeating the work you do time and time again?  Where do you spend most of your time? And what doing?

Let’s take a look in more detail.

AttractPhase 1 – ATTRACT

Target. Who are your ideal customers?
Attract Interest. Let’s be honest, most consumers will not be looking for your name or your brand, they are more likely looking for a solution to satisfy the needs that they have so will discover you by accident or by the great website you have.
Collect Leads.  As you attract more consumers to your business, you’ll want to make sure they don’t leave and forget about you. Give them something to take with them in exchange for their contact information. This is called a lead magnet, and can be anything of value, such as a free report, coupon or giveaway.

SellPhase 2 – SELL

Educate.  Consumers pay attention to brands when motivated to do so. The best way to earn their attention is through exceptional interactions and valuable education. To create valuable educational materials, you need to understand the needs and wants of your target consumers, outlined in the Attract phase.
Offer.  When you understand your target customer’s buying process, you can identify the optimal time for a special offer. By observing past customers’ actions, you’ll be able to create a buying process funnel. Then you can match your sales process to their buying process.
Close.  Closing the sale involves more than just an exchange of money or signed documents. Regardless of your business type, the close is the signal that the deal has been negotiated and you can now begin the process of delivery.

WowPhase 3 – Deliver and WOW

Wowing your customers is about providing more than what you promised and creating a delightful experience. While this may seem simple and obvious, the hustle and bustle of daily work causes customer delights to often get overlooked.

Offer More.  After providing an exceptional experience, you are in a position to offer additional products or services to your customers. Determining what to offer and when to offer it involves a bit of strategy.
Cross sell, Upsell and offer new products.
Get Referrals.  You’ll spend less money marketing to existing customers than attracting new ones. This is why it’s so important to wow customers from the start.
It’s important to anticipate their needs and deliver more than what you promised in either quality or quantity. Or, try recommending something new that satisfies their needs. Leverage your strengths, because that’s what will set you apart from your competition.

This is not as complicated as it sounds, it’s just making small changes to your business to define it more clearly. As a business we have already adopted Infusionsoft which has made a big difference to our business. Having tried and tested it we can highly recommend it for your business.  We would love to hear your thoughts, what do you think?