Lifecycle Marketing and Touchpoints

Social and mobile changed things, didn't they?

At minimum, each channel added a level of complexity.  Back in the day, we used to manage catalogs.  Then we added e-commerce, and after that, a ton of e-commerce micro-channels.

So it was bad enough in 2007 ... and then we tossed social and mobile into the mix.

This causes complexity ... we want to optimize our marketing investment, and that's hard to do when you don't know how a chain of events truly contributed to a purchase.  Worse, we don't have a good understanding of how customer activities, managed over the lifecycle of the customer, yield loyalty.

So, our next series will focus on a methodology for plotting, on a map, customer touchpoints.  The map will illustrate the lifecycle the customer follows.  On a simple, two-dimensional plot, you'll get to see how channels fit together.

A few caveats.

1. There really isn't a true customer lifecycle.  We're doing this because the vendor community pushes us in this direction.  The reality is that the customer orbits areas on the plot, each purchase pushes the customer in a different direction.  The reality is that we need facts to tell us what is actually happening.
2. I'm using a small number of channels here.  You can do this with hundreds of micro-channels, if you wish.  I'm using a small number of channels so that you can accurately see what is happening.
3. The methodology isn't easy.  If you don't like statistics, you'll want to hire me to do this for you.

With that in mind, we'll spend a few days showing you how the methodology maps touchpoints, yielding the customer lifecycle.