Traditional marketing efforts focus on defining the customer experience lifecycle through the marketing funnel—i.e., the steps that guide a potential customer into becoming a loyal paying customer. However, people’s consumer relationships are more complex now, signaling a need for a new understanding of the customer life cycle.
This new life cycle emphasizes how consumers engage with brands in a continuous and cyclical manner, going from exploring to buying to engaging back to exploring. Read on to learn more about this paradigm shift in client lifecycle management.
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Trade Show Customer Life Cycle Stages
This understanding of the customer life cycle can be broken into four distinct customer journey stages that feed into each other:
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Discovery
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Exploration
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Purchase
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Engagement
Successful organizations are ones that pursue their best prospects to maximize returns, so your marketing scheme should focus on cultivating their journey through the customer lifecycle phases.
Discovery
Trade shows are all about discovery, with hundreds of potential customers walking past your booth. Trade show visitors are there for a specific purpose, so you need to tailor your presence to meet their objectives and goals. The key to attracting attention isn’t just grabbing whoever walks by. Pinpointing your best prospects helps identify your brand and differentiate yourself from the competition, making them more likely to engage in discovery with your products or services.
Exploration
Trade shows are the perfect opportunity to give potential prospects a means to explore your offerings. This can be in the form of brochures, video presentations, and, the best option in our opinion, hands-on demonstrations. At the very least, your marketing spiel should contain an overview of your product, why it fits their needs, and how the product reflects your unique brand identity. This step of the consumer lifecycle process leads to purchasing.
Purchase
The next step of the customer life cycle is moving them to make a purchase. Your trade show booth can contain a private section for one-on-one customer sales. The trick to getting sales at a trade show is to work your prospective clients beforehand through things such as digital marketing, email blasts, and even direct mail advertisers. However, you should never be pushy about sales. All you need to do is sufficiently demonstrate how your product solves their problems and let the marketing do the rest.
Engagement
Engagement is a continual process that diffuses into the entire marketing life cycle—it doesn’t stop after they make a purchase. Engagement can take many forms, such as post-sale follow-ups and customer nurturing through loyalty efforts. Engagement should lead to more customer discovery, which starts the marketing cycle over again.
Your No. 1 Source of Trade Advertising
Companies rely on their marketing for creating a lasting impact and boosting their online presence. Contact Oser Communications Group online or call today at (520) 721-1300 if you have any more questions about the customer life cycle or lifecycle marketing strategies for trade show advertising!
