academy

CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE
MARKETING
HOW TO BUILD AN AWESOME SALES & MARKETING MACHINE

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 1

WHO IS THIS EBOOK FOR?
It is intended for ecommerce marketeers, Heads of Ecommerce or anyone
running an ecommerce store.

WHY SHOULD YOU READ IT?

You will learn the fundamentals and tactics behind becoming a lifecycle
marketeer. Acquire the knowledge necessary to increase revenues and customer

their development.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 2

 ALL-IN-ONE ECOMMERCE ANALYTICS
FOR RETAILERS.

GET A DEMO LEARN MORE

ECOMMERCE REPORTING CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

360 View of your customers Target by engagement and
and products. transaction history.

CLV ANALYSIS MERCHANDISING

Optimise your marketing Improve your product mix,
by lifetime value. from views to conversion.

REALTIME DATA CONVERSION FUNNEL

Identify roadblocks along
online store. your path to conversion.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 3

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Written by EDWARD GOTHAM
Ed manages client relations and consulting at Ometria
as the Head of Ecommerce. He delivers results,
utilising a data driven mindset, across all areas of

topics such as UI/UX optimisation.

Designed by DJALAL LOUGOUEV

Djalal is a technology entrepreneur and a co-founder

of Design and product management.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 5
THE 5 STAGES OF CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT 7
CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE DEVELOPMENT 9
Acquisition > Activation > Retention

ENDING NOTE 19
Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 4
ONE INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER

This ebook explains the fundamentals of customer lifecycle marketing from

ecommerce store.

Customer Lifecycle Marketing machine. Let’s get going!

Customer lifecycle marketing (CLM) starts with creating the right thought process.
I see too many retailers focused on optimising around conversions per website
visit rather than the whole lifecycle. The key to success in CLM lies behind
optimising for Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and not conversion rate (CR) or
revenue per visit (RPV). This is not to say that conversion rate does not have its
place - it’s a very important metric in the right scenario.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 5

However the hierarchy is what is important. CLV trumps all others as a metric for

therefore optimising over the course of a customer’s relationship with your brand
rather than at one point in time.

This leads on to the concept of the customer lifecycle machine, which is made

Retention. These elements nurture and guide the behaviour of your visitors and

revenues based on maximising CLV. Throughout this process your visitors and
customers will go through various stages of development, and understanding
these stages is essential to creating the right sales and marketing machine. Before
that, let’s have a quick break to see how important CLM is!

THE IMPORTANCE OF CLM

25% to 40% of the total revenues of the most stable businesses come from
returning customers. (Sumall)

Repeat customers drive 3-7 times the revenue per visit than one-time buyers.
(500friends)

The above quotes focus on repeat customers. Why? Because this is one of the

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 6

 THE 5 STAGES OF CUSTOMER
CHAPTER

TWO DEVELOPMENT
These are the core phases of evolution that will occur as customers are guided
through your Customer Lifecycle Machine from a visitor to a loyal customer. Not
everyone will advance through each progressive stage, many people will drop

individual step.

LEVEL 5
Loyal Customer
RETENTION &
LOYALTY
LEVEL 4
Repeat Customer

LEVEL 3
Single Purchase Customer
ACTIVATION
LEVEL 2
Lead

LEVEL 1
LEVEL 1
Prospect ACQUISITION
Prospect

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 7

 THE CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE STAGES

PROSPECT

purchased from your online store or given you any other personal details.
I like to refer to this group as prospective customers, it’s good practice to
think of all your visitors as opportunities.

LEAD
Leads are prospects who have performed a micro conversion, such as
signing up to your blog, and giving you some personal information in the
process. The most important information to gather is the email address.
You can then use this to market to them after they have left your site,
optimising the customer-prospect conversion rate through nurturing.

SINGLE PURCHASE CUSTOMER

REPEAT CUSTOMER
Individuals who have made more than one transaction with you but are yet
to become loyal customers.

LOYAL CUSTOMER

stores. However as a guideline I like to say loyal customers are those that
have completed more than 3 transactions, have been a customer for more
than 6 months and have performed a transaction in the last x months. The
x months should be relevant to your average sales cycle.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 8

C H A P T E R
CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE DEVELOPMENT:
THREE THE SALES & MARKETING MACHINE
Ok, we have covered the main stages of customer development, so now we can
look at the system that guides and optimises the transition of your customers
through each stage. The customer lifecycle machine is made up of three core

ACQUISITION >
ACTIVATION > Converting Customers

RETENTION >

OUTBOUND ACTIVATION

NURTURE
INBOUND
NEL
FUN
F UN
NEL

ACQUISITION

RETENTION &
LOYALTY
NURTURE
REA

ONLINE ASSETS
RN
CHU
CTIV
ATIO

PRODUCT
N

VIRAL LOOP

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 9

ACQUISITION

GOAL To acquire the highest quantity of relevant visitors, who are new to

Relevant visitors refers to individuals who are likely to be interested in your

which will be calculated by comparing the cost of customer acquisition (CoCA)

per channel in relation to customer lifetime value (CLV). This target will be
manipulated based on a business’s current business model.

If you are early stage and going through rapid growth you may be able to

customers until you reach a certain scale.

ACQUISITION TACTICS
Acquiring prospects relies on a well structured marketing strategy that targets

Research, Intent). I recommend utilising highly targeted marketing tactics in each

INBOUND
Blog, Ebooks, Free tools, Social, SEO, PR, Videos, Email

OUTBOUND
Paid search, PR, TV ads, Paid Radio, Paid Print, Telemarketing.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 10

 PRODUCT
Product acquisition tactics revolve around building virality into your

but it can be incredibly rewarding. Take Diamond Candles as an

example. Their product spread virally through word of mouth due
to the free diamond ring you received with every candle. The friends
of customers often commented on the rings and were subsequently
made aware of diamond candles.They made their product into a
marketing tool. A viral loop directly related to buying a product....you
can’t really ask for much better.

ONLINE ASSETS

helped them to grow very quickly and get a big lead over their
competitors.

IMPORTANT METRICS & ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES:

Segmentation

Cohort Analysis

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 11

ACTIVATION
GOALS Primary Goal - To convert prospects and leads into customers
Secondary Goal - To convert prospects into leads by gathering
personal information such as their email, gender etc.

After new users have arrived on your site it’s all about activation, which is the
process of turning prospects and leads into customers. Many people think
that you need to activate visitors into customers straight away with a macro
conversion - i.e. a transaction - however I advocate using a more long term
strategy. It’s important to understand that many people need to be nurtured into
customers, and you will need to foster engagement through micro conversions
before going straight for the sale. For example people may need to learn the value
behind your products and brand before converting. Try to focus on encouraging
micro conversions that you know increase the likelihood of a prospect eventually

customer behaviour data.

It is also very important at this stage to obtain someone’s email address so that
you have the ability to market to them at a later stage. Without that information
you have no way of individually targeting those individuals again until they come
back of their own accord - which of course many will never do!

ACTIVATION TACTICS:

EMAIL

CONTENT MARKETING

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 12

 FIRST PURCHASE DISCOUNT / FIRST PURCHASE FREE SHIPPING

TIME LIMITED OFFERS

HIGHLY TARGETED LANDING PAGES BASED ON ACQUISITION CHANNEL

IMPORTANT METRICS & ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

Prospect-Customer Conversion rate (CR)

Prospect-Lead CR

Lead-Customer CR

CLV

Customer segmentation/Behavioural Analysis

Cohort Analysis

RETENTION & LOYALTY

GOALS
purchase’ value. You want to know the value customers give you over
their whole lifecycle, not just at one point in time.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 13

TO IMPROVE AVERAGE CLV YOU WILL NEED TO NURTURE AND ENCOURAGE YOUR
CUSTOMERS TO LEVEL UP THROUGH YOUR CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT STAGES:

CONVERT SINGLE PURCHASE CUSTOMERS INTO REPEAT CUSTOMERS

Find the behaviour which caused previous customers to become a
repeat customer and optimise your site for it.

CONVERT REPEAT CUSTOMERS INTO LOYAL CUSTOMERS

Cluster together the customer behaviour which was condusive to
converting repeat customer into loyal customer and further optimise
your site for it.

MINIMISE CHURN

an inactive customer as someone who hasn’t purchased in a time

frame that is 25% more than your average sales cycle. However if you

customer once they have churned. It’s even more expensive to gain
a new customer - It costs 5-6x more to gain a new customer than to
keep an existing one.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 14

RETENTION & LOYALTY TACTICS:

IMPROVING AVERAGE CLV

Segment your customers by behaviour and create highly targeted marketing

buyer persona. There are some personas that are relevant to the majority of

HERO CUSTOMERS
Your top 1% of customers can generate as much revenue
as the bottom 50% combined. (RJmetrics).

1-2% of customers by CLV.

Have a high level employee phone them personally.

Invite only events.

Add handwritten notes to their purchases.

Prioritise their orders when stock picking, to ensure they receive them
promptly.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 15

 EVANGELISTS

communities. Give them the tools necessary to promote

your brand in order to encourage and easily facilitate word
of mouth marketing.

ECONOMICAL CUSTOMERS
These customers have a tendency to only purchase when

discounts too often, or too regularly, so as to prevent your

customers become conditioned to always wait for the next
deal. Having said that, there will always be price sensitive

selection of people so you can obtain better margins from

your less price sensitive customers.

BIG BUT INFREQUENT SPENDERS

These individuals have a very high AOV value but purchase
infrequently. It is likely these individuals have a lot of
disposable income. Send special promotions based on
their purchase behaviour to try and gain a larger share of
wallet.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 16

 NEW CUSTOMERS

when they are most impressionable. Utilise welcome/

follow up emails, how to guides etc.

and customer service and brand development - a mix

of highly targeted personalisation and promotions with
helpful, interesting, and brand-building content. You need
to continually optimise throughout the buying cycle and
take care of your best customers.

It’s all about customer segmentation. The ultimate goal would be for all your
customers to be hero customers! However this defeats the point, as we know your
hero customers are the top 1-2%. Therefore the goal is not to optimise for only

which make up your repeat and loyal customer base. Many customers will never
become heros or evangelists, but enough will if nurtured properly. Optimise your

which funnel them towards your goals.

IMPORTANT METRICS & ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES:

Again this will vary wildly based on your individual business, however I’ve listed
some key metrics below.

CLV (By persona/development stage)

Single Purchase Customer to Repeat Customer conversion rate

Repeat Customer to Loyal Customer conversion rate

% monthly churn

Recency

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 17

 Frequency

Engagement (Micro conversions)

Share of wallet

Cohort Analysis

Customer Segmentation

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 18

ENDING NOTE
Thanks for reading. We have now covered how the sales and marketing machine
functions. We welcome your feedback, as well as any ideas you have for creating a
customer lifecycle marketing machine that we may not have covered here. Please

SHARE THIS EBOOK:

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 19

 ALL-IN-ONE ECOMMERCE ANALYTICS
FOR RETAILERS.
GET A DEMO LEARN MORE

ECOMMERCE REPORTING CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

360 View of your customers Target by engagement and
and products. transaction history.

CLV ANALYSIS MERCHANDISING

Optimise your marketing Improve your product mix,
by lifetime value. from views to conversion.

REALTIME DATA CONVERSION FUNNEL

Identify roadblocks along
online store. your path to conversion.

Ometria Academy: Customer Lifetime Marketing 20