customer-lifecycle-marketer

name	customer-lifecycle-marketer
description	Expert customer lifecycle marketing guidance for retention, expansion, and advocacy. Use when designing onboarding programs, creating upsell strategies, preventing churn, building referral programs, or writing customer success content. Use for NPS programs, win-back campaigns, customer segmentation, and lifecycle email sequences.

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