Customer Lifecycle Messaging – Create Loyalty with Targeted Messaging for Each Stage

Customer lifecycle messaging uses contextualized data to craft targeted marketing, sales, and service texts for customers. It integrates with channels like social media platforms, instant messaging apps, email, web chat, and SMS to deliver a 360-degree experience across the buying journey.

With customers spending so much time in digital channels, messaging is a great way to reach the audience. It’s fast, convenient, and accessible to a wide cross-section of people. Furthermore, armed with lifecycle data, you can send customers the exact information they need based on their journey so far.

In this article, we explain what is a lifecycle messaging strategy and how to craft good customer lifecycle messaging. Read on to learn the eight benefits you can expect from this approach and the best tools to use.

What Is Lifecycle Messaging?

The success of lifecycle messaging hinges on your definition of the customer lifecycle. Typically, the end-to-end experience of a customer with your company – from the very first moment they come to know about it to when they make a purchase – is divided into four parts:

These lifecycle stages, known as the AIDA model, were proposed by American businessman E. St. Elmo Lewis many years ago. Messaging based on these four stages takes advantage of the cognition-affect-behavior phenomenon in human psychology to inspire action using the right stimulus.

Importantly, the customer lifecycle doesn’t end with a purchase, and great brands know how to keep customers engaged even in the post-sales stages. This ensures customers return to you time and time again, increasing their lifetime value, and also refer your brand to others.

Lifecycle Stages

When you formulate a lifecycle messaging strategy to connect with customers after a purchase, keep the following lifecycle stages in mind:

By factoring in where a customer is on this lifecycle, you can craft the perfect message that will inspire them to take action – for example, open the product page, check out an abandoned cart, renew a service, participate in a promotional campaign, or share their experiences on social media.

The best lifecycle messaging tools will also help you segment customers based on their current stages and automate the messaging process over the channels they frequent.

Why Is Customer Lifecycle Messaging Important?

Lifecycle messaging is also useful because it reaches out to customers in a format they are very familiar with – i.e., chat.

Research shows that 90% of marketers feel chat and messaging-based solutions create an all-around better experience for both customers and businesses.

Since so many people spend a lot of their time on their phones, on social media, and checking emails, it makes sense to have a customer lifecycle messaging strategy that’ll reach them at their most conversion-friendly moments.

There are several reasons why small businesses and big brands alike invest in lifecycle messaging:

1. Provides Instant Responses to Customer Queries

With a lifecycle messaging strategy in place, customers are sure to receive instantaneous or near-real-time responses to their queries.

For example, let’s say a prospect asks you on WhatsApp if a product is in stock. You’re prepared for such queries and send out an automated response, immediately, confirming the product’s availability or letting the customer know when it’ll be back in stock.

The research we previously cited shows that nearly 1 in 3 customers appreciate the ability to receive an instant response via chat. Without a long wait time, customer experience improves, and eventually, so does your revenue.

2. Adds a Human Touch to Entirely Digitized Customer Experiences

A traditional brick-and-mortar store has experienced sales professionals scattered around the floor to look after your needs, anticipate any issues, and step in to solve them. This isn’t possible in a digital environment, and frustrated customers are very likely to switch to a competitor.

Customer lifecycle messaging helps you stay in touch with a buyer, user, or prospect all through their interactions with your company. Even if they aren’t making frequent transactions, personalized messages keep them engaged, ask about their issues, and share information, just like a real salesperson.

What’s more, lifecycle messaging algorithms are able to figure out exactly when a customer might be facing problems or feeling the desire to make a purchase. These algorithms will automatically trigger a communication, enabling that sense of anticipatory service.

3. Increases the Chances of Marketing Messages Being Read

Another reason why customer lifecycle messaging is so important, is because of the sheer visibility it provides.

Let’s say you invest in search engine ads or put up banners on your websites. The customer has to look up the perfect search query to see your ad in the first place. If they don’t visit your website, the banner will go unnoticed.

In contrast, a lifecycle messaging strategy will insert highly optimized communication into channels with incredible reach and visibility. For instance, tools like Freshchat work on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram DMs, which are more likely to be seen by your audience.

4. Makes Customers Feel Valued and More Likely to Return

For example, when a new customer signs up for a service or makes their first purchase, you can send them a quick thank you text via SMS. The communication isn’t incentivized and doesn’t ask the customer to do anything – its only purpose is to make them feel appreciated.

5. Create Memorable Experiences (Which is Good for Your NPS)

Well-crafted lifecycle messages can build a lasting impression on customers. For instance, you could send a message telling customers how much they saved on your last annual sale, thereby encouraging them to participate in this year’s campaign. The personalization makes the message extra memorable.

Spotify Wrapped is a great example of this. Every year, the company lets customers compile and visualize analytics on what they heard the most, and this results in a unique Wrapped report for each and every customer.

While it’s not directly linked to revenues, campaigns like these inspire loyalty among your customers and influence how they rate you in terms of the Net Promoter Score (NPS).

6. Lowers customer acquisition costs by holding on to your existing users

Customer acquisition costs are typically higher than retaining an existing one, and according to research by Shopify, it costs small businesses with less than 4 employees a sizable $58.64 to get each new customer. So, it’s in your best interests to retain as many of your existing customers as possible.

This is where a customer lifecycle messaging strategy can help. It enables continuous engagement and re-engagement by checking in with customers, reminding them about your brand, sharing personalized promos, and making them feel valued.

Many people who were on the verge of churn – i.e., switching to a competitor – will be motivated to make another purchase simply because you sent the right message at the right time.

7. Prevents dissatisfaction or disengagement from setting in

Customer lifecycle messaging is particularly useful when the customer is about to decide whether to take action A or action B, also known as “moments of truth” in marketing. A good example is when a customer decides to abandon a cart they have laboriously assembled over a long time.

Lifecycle messaging can detect these changes in sentiment and identify which stage the customer is in. Accordingly, it will send a message to remind them where they dropped off.

You can also personalize the communication, asking customers to share their grievances or purchasing roadblocks.

Post-sales messaging also helps you monitor the customer experience and look for signs of dissatisfaction. For instance, if the customer responds with a 4 or 5 out of 10 on a survey, you can immediately jump in with a re-engagement message.

8. Expands your presence across new channels

Customer lifecycle messaging strengthens your presence on popular digital channels like social media, messaging platforms, and email.

Research shows that social media and email are the top two priorities for marketing investments, and lifecycle messaging helps you make the most of this reach.

You can not only contact new prospects and drive visibility for your brand, but you can also renegade prospects who have lost interest and inspire them to make a purchase.

Social media is a highly visual medium and a great place to showcase your product(s) and brand identity. Meanwhile, messaging platforms are versatile, frequently used, and an accessible way to reach customers in different locations and time zones.

A lifecycle messaging strategy helps you take advantage of the unique benefits each of these channels has to offer, which is why it is so important for marketers.

How to Craft Good Customer Lifecycle Messaging

According to research by FreshChat, 40% of customers expect businesses to be available on a channel of their choice, and 64% would prefer to have brands message them on social media. This means that you need to craft effective messaging that’s tailored to customer needs while supporting automation.

Here are the steps to achieve this:

1. Create and Visualize the Average Customer Journey

Customer journey refers to the path a person follows from their first interaction with your brand to the purchase and, finally, until they abandon the brand in favor of a competitor or simply stop buying the product.

Customer journeys include channels, touchpoints, moments of truth, and interaction data.

By visualizing the average customer journey, you will be able to break down clear stages in the customer lifecycle. In the digital world, journeys aren’t always linear and may involve several channels working at once.

That’s why you need to use a powerful tool when mapping out this journey.

2. Enrich Customer Journeys Based on Segments

Once you have an average journey in place, you can go ahead and enrich the map with customer segment data. Remember, the outcomes of customer lifecycle messaging depend on personalization, and accurate customer profiling and segments let you personalize more deeply.

For example, the journey for buying the same product may differ across age groups. Two customers from the same age group may have come to know about your product at different touchpoints.

Customer journeys also depend on user habits, such as channel preferences and daily mobile phone usage. This will give you a wider selection of journeys so you can accurately understand the lifecycle stages of diverse customers.

3. Select Your Channel Mix

The next step is to analyze customer needs and preferences so you can arrive at an optimal channel mix. Expanding to new channels doesn’t just involve installing a new app or a CRM software integration.

You also have to ensure that sufficient time and effort is invested to maintain a consistent channel presence.

Start with a relatively small mix of 2 or 3 messaging channels. This must include email, which is a commonly accessed channel for most customers, and social media messaging.

Choose a CRM tool that supports multiple lifecycle messaging channels, and some will even provide you with ready templates.

4. Acquire and Train a Lifecycle Messaging Team

While customer lifecycle messaging involves a lot of automation, it also requires talented individuals who will steer your strategy. They must also bring solid copywriting skills, as the content of lifecycle messages can make a big difference to the customer experience.

For example, check out this messaging notification from a food delivery company where the customer has been browsing the app for a while without making a purchase.

Effective messaging requires strong copywriting skills as well as a marketing team that can interpret customer lifecycle data correctly to identify the best messaging triggers. So, you need to invest in training and, if needed, hiring to craft good customer lifecycle messaging.

5. Implement a Powerful Messaging App with Plenty of Automations

Customer messaging apps like Freshchat, LiveChat, Verloop, Zoho Desk, and Drift make it easier to execute your lifecycle messaging strategy. Look for an app that includes the following features:

Next, configure the solution so that it automatically sends your well-crafted messages to customers at the right time, as you previously determined during journey analysis. For this, the tool should have a sophisticated automation feature.

Does Lifecycle Messaging Strategy Matter?

Lifecycle messaging is crucial for companies trying to build a deep, lasting connection with customers. It tells your buyers and prospects that you’re there for them and are genuinely interested in their motivations and current context.

It also makes things easier for marketing teams by reducing the burden of other more labor-intensive channels, such as telephone calls and video conferencing.

You can harness lifecycle messaging to:

1. Drive conversion

Reaching customers at the right moment on the customer journey ensures that you can “nudge” them along the conversion pathway.

For high-value purchases, you can send smartly worded and informative reminders every month so the customer does not drop off. You can use lifecycle messaging to send personalized promos and discounts so the customer can derive maximum value from your brand.

Messaging is also a great way to share product and service updates, such as new feature announcements or product restocking, which may inspire customers to convert. And, at their core, messages act as a 24/7 reliable channel to foster customer trust – a prerequisite for conversion.

2. Guarantee retention

Lifecycle messaging strategies also matter after the customer has completed a purchase, especially if you want to build loyalty, and the brand is a partner to them on this journey.

A regular and consistent messaging strategy reassures customers that the brand is always around to cater to their needs.

Dissatisfied customers may reply to your message instead of leaving a bad review. They will continue to engage with your campaigns and launches shared via messages, driving retention.

3. Grow customer lifetime value

Another reason why lifecycle messaging matters is its ability to increase your earnings per customer.

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is an estimate of the average revenue a customer will generate throughout their lifespan as a customer, which includes purchases, renewals, referrals, social sharing/influencing, and the value derived from reviews.

Through constant engagement, a good lifecycle messaging strategy will increase the value customers generate for your company. Highly engaged customers are likely to buy more. They may also refer their friends and family.

Through messaging, you can also increase participation in loyalty programs and membership plans that bring in a steady source of income.

Best Tools and Software for Targeted Customer Lifecycle Messaging

Some of the best apps you can use for targeted customer lifecycle messaging include:

1. Freshchat

Launched in 2017, Freshchat is a customer lifecycle messaging software from SaaS company Freshworks. It allows you to connect with customers on various touchpoints, including messaging apps like WhatsApp, Instagram DM, and Facebook Messenger, as well as email, SMS, and even voice.

Freshchat enables automated, AI-driven, and live chat conversations with customers at different stages of the buying journey. Its use cases include marketing, sales, as well as support, and it lets you tailor conversations as per the target customer segment.

Its generative AI assistant – Freddy – makes life easier for marketers and customer service agents by generating automated summaries, reports, and cursed responses.

Freshchat is free to use forever for up to 10 agents. Paid plans start at $19/agent/month, which includes advanced features like file storage, live translations, and analytics.

2. LiveChat

LiveChat is a lifecycle messaging app that focuses primarily on the marketing and conversion end of CX. It integrates with your CRM and enables conversational commerce through 200+ integrations. It supports a variety of messaging channels as well as email and SMS.

LiveChat lets you add on an AI chatbot for an additional fee. You can customize the chatbot to respond to queries on your website and also fetch data from multiple sources when compiling a response. LiveChat AI can target customers at the marketing, sales, or support stages of the lifecycle.

Apart from artificial intelligence, LiveChat offers a number of APIs that you can integrate with your own solutions. For instance, the Customer SDK lets you build a chat widget from scratch while the Reports API lets you integrate chat data into other business intelligence reports.

LiveChat has no free version, and the paid plans start at $20/agent/month.

3. Verloop

In addition to chat, Verloop also understands voice recordings that customers send and responds accordingly.

Verloop’s live chat feature fetches data from other apps like CRM, so your human agents can promptly respond to customer queries. They can filter conversations based on status, satisfaction scores, dates, etc., so they can personalize their messaging approach.

Verloop supports a number of channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, app notifications, and website chat. The solution is custom-priced, and upon requesting a demo, we received a quote of $49/month.

4. Zoho Desk

Like Freshworks, SaaS company Zoho also offers a customer lifecycle messaging tool called Zoho Desk. As the name suggests, the software is mainly a service desk solution, assisting customers on the post-purchase stages of their journey. It supports WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, and Telegram, among other channels.

Zoho Desk generates contextual reports on incoming and outgoing messages so that agents can personalize customer communication based on data.

Zoho Desk also works as a phone-based help desk software. Pricing starts at $14/agent/month.

5. Drift

Drift is a conversational CX platform that harnesses AI, machine learning, and customer data to drive conversions.

The Drift Engage feature uses AI intent scoring to personalize conversations so you can convert AI traffic faster, while Site Concierge is a webchat feature that tailors digital experiences based on visitor data.

You can also use Drift to automate customer support through self-service conversations. While its primary focus is artificial intelligence, you can route conversations to a live agent as well.

Pricing for Drift starts at $2,500/month.

TL;DR: What is Customer Lifecycle Messaging and Why it Matters

Customer lifecycle messaging is an effective way to build and sustain a one-on-one relationship with a prospect or customer by speaking to their unique needs at different stages of the buying journey.

Research shows that 66% of customers would quit a brand if their experience wasn’t personalized. Conversely, 86% said that personalized experiences significantly increase their loyalty to a brand. Lifecycle messaging uses contextual data to tailor customer conversations.

Another benefit of this strategy is that it reaches customers on their favorite channels, such as social media platforms and WhatsApp.

Unlike paid digital ads, they are far more geared to engage and convert. After conversion, brands can continue to engage with customers via chat, keep them updated on the latest announcements, and provide support via convenient messaging channels.

Advancements in AI have made customer lifecycle messaging even more sophisticated by blending intelligent automation, customer intelligence, and human expertise. The best lifecycle messaging tools like Freshchat, LiveChat, Verloop, Zoho Desk, and Drift use AI to craft perfectly targeted messaging.

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