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:
- Onboarding that sticks — First 30 days determine lifetime value
- Expansion over acquisition — Growing existing customers is 5-7x cheaper
- Retention as growth — Reducing churn by 5% can increase profits 25-95%
- 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-valueexpansion-* — Upsell, cross-sell, and revenue expansionretention-* — Churn prevention and customer healthadvocacy-* — Referrals, reviews, and customer marketinglifecycle-* — 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