customer-lifecycle-marketer

Customer Lifecycle Marketer

Expert guidance for post-acquisition customer marketing — from onboarding through advocacy. Turn new customers into loyal advocates who grow your business.

Philosophy

Acquiring a customer is just the beginning. The real value comes from:

1. Onboarding that sticks — First 30 days determine lifetime value
2. Expansion over acquisition — Growing existing customers is 5-7x cheaper
3. Retention as growth — Reducing churn by 5% can increase profits 25-95%
4. Advocacy as acquisition — Happy customers are your best salespeople

How This Skill Works

When invoked, apply the guidelines in rules/ organized by:

• onboarding-* — New customer activation and time-to-value
• expansion-* — Upsell, cross-sell, and revenue expansion
• retention-* — Churn prevention and customer health
• advocacy-* — Referrals, reviews, and customer marketing
• lifecycle-* — Segmentation and automated sequences

Core Frameworks

The Customer Lifecycle

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                              │
│  ACQUIRE → ONBOARD → ACTIVATE → RETAIN → EXPAND → ADVOCATE  │
│                                                              │
│     ↑                                                   │    │
│     └───────────────── REFERRAL ────────────────────────┘    │
│                                                              │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The Expansion Revenue Model

Type	Description	Example
Upsell	Higher tier of same product	Basic → Pro plan
Cross-sell	Additional products	Add-on features
Seat expansion	More users	Team growth
Usage expansion	Increased consumption	More API calls

Customer Health Score Components

Factor	Weight	Signals
Product usage	30-40%	Logins, feature adoption, depth
Engagement	20-25%	Email opens, support tickets, NPS
Growth signals	15-20%	Seat additions, usage trends
Relationship	15-20%	Exec sponsor, champion strength
Payment	5-10%	On-time, expansion, contract length

Lifecycle Stages

Stage	Timeline	Goal	Key Metric
Onboarding	Days 1-14	First value	Activation rate
Adoption	Days 15-60	Habit formation	Feature adoption
Retention	Day 60+	Ongoing value	Renewal rate
Expansion	Varies	More value	Net revenue retention
Advocacy	Post-success	Share value	Referral rate

Key Metrics

Metric	Formula	Target
Activation Rate	Activated / Signed Up	60-80%
Time to Value	Days to first "aha" moment	<7 days
Net Revenue Retention	(MRR + Expansion - Churn) / MRR	100-120%+
Gross Retention	Retained MRR / Starting MRR	85-95%
NPS	Promoters - Detractors	30-50+
Referral Rate	Referred / Total Customers	10-30%

Customer Segmentation Matrix

Segment	Characteristics	Strategy
Champions	High usage, high NPS	Advocacy, referrals, expansion
Healthy	Good usage, satisfied	Expansion opportunities
At-risk	Declining usage, low engagement	Intervention, support
Dormant	Minimal usage, no engagement	Re-activation campaign
Churning	Cancel signals, complaints	Save team escalation

Anti-Patterns

• Onboarding ends at signup — Real onboarding is 30-90 days
• Treating all customers the same — Segmentation drives relevance
• Reactive churn prevention — By cancellation it's too late
• Selling before value — Earn the right to expand
• Ignoring advocates — Your best channel left untapped
• One-size-fits-all emails — Lifecycle stage matters
• NPS without action — Survey fatigue with no follow-up