{"id":321,"date":"2018-08-29T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/321-growth-academy-2023.local\/a-new-take-on-customer-lifecycle-marketing-from-the-traction-conference\/"},"modified":"2023-11-02T21:12:07","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T21:12:07","slug":"a-new-take-on-customer-lifecycle-marketing-from-the-traction-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/321growthacademy.com\/a-new-take-on-customer-lifecycle-marketing-from-the-traction-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"A new take on customer lifecycle marketing: from the Traction Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Last week, we filled our brains with great ideas, fresh perspectives and new insights at the Traction Conference in Vancouver. Kudos to the Traction and Boast teams. Not only was there a phenomenal lineup of speakers, but also plenty of opportunity to meet and reconnect with startups and scale-ups from across Canada and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But one woman bowled me over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, there were so many great women featured at Traction Conference that it\u2019s hard to pick one out. But Menaka Shroff<\/a> \u2013 the Global Head of Marketing, Devices and Mobility at Google Cloud \u2013 truly bowled me over with her session on customer lifecycle marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fresh perspective on customer lifecycle marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customer lifecycle marketing isn\u2019t new. It\u2019s a been around for ages under different names. In short, it\u2019s all about rethinking your customer relationship as moving through a series of steps \u2013 from well before they are looking, to when they start shopping around, while they are considering or evaluating your product, when they buy, while they are implementing, and while they are using your product \u2013 and hopefully while referring you to their friends and colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Menaka got me thinking about lifecycle marketing \u2013 in the context of growth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that a lifecycle approach to customer marketing makes sense when there are multiple touchpoints for growth. If you\u2019re a B2C company with a small transaction price, and a one-time buy, it\u2019s likely not your jam. But if you\u2019re selling a product with ongoing usage, where there are multiple opportunities for growth over time (think up-sell, cross-sell, referrals), then it can be a great driver of growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what\u2019s new about that?  As a marketer, I\u2019ve worked on up- and cross-sell campaigns for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Menaka got me thinking. Not just about how startups can think outside the box to build more of a growth machine around all stages of the customer lifecycle. But also about how few startups and scale-ups I know do a good job of marketing to existing customers as one of their growth strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why don\u2019t we focus more on customer growth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many startups we work with at 321 Growth Academy have seen some traction, but struggle to repeat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes that\u2019s because they don\u2019t have a well-oiled sales machine in place. Or, that their messaging and positioning is off, so their buyers don\u2019t \u201cget it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But sometimes it\u2019s because we tend to focus on the new. The shiny. The next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying that we should be happy to win a customer, then focus disproportionately on \u201cland and expand\u201d campaigns to farm new revenue from existing customers. But I am saying that mining opportunities with existing customers is an untapped opportunity for many startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as Menaka says, building a growth engine around all stages of your customer lifecycle can be a new or untapped source of growth opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some tips\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few things to keep in mind, as you build out your own lifecycle growth engine (thanks to Menaka):<\/p>\n\n\n\n