Customer lifecycle management is one of the main pillars of an online store's profitability. 

E-commerce is not all about impulse buying, and the work does not end once the user has made their first purchase. Beyond achieving sales, it is all about creating a relationship with your customers that will allow you to become their preferred point of reference when it comes to their needs. 

From the moment a user arrives at your online store until they make a purchase decision, they typically go through different stages. In order to manage the communication process with the customer during each of them, at Webmefy we rely on a marketing automation platform such as Klaviyo for our clients, an essential tool for attracting, raising awareness, acquiring, and retaining customers. 

What are the stages of the customer's life cycle? 

Like any other relationship, e-commerce commercial relationships go through different stages. From the first contact with the brand to the moment a purchase is made and a long-term relationship is established. 

In any e-commerce marketing strategy based on a sales funnel, the different phases of the customer life cycle must be considered as a basis for establishing effective communication processes to ensure customer loyalty. 

These are the phases of the customer life cycle: 

• Awareness: at this stage, the customer becomes aware of their need and is driven to seek a solution, such as the purchase of our product. 
• Consideration: the customer compares different options before making a purchase decision. Factors such as content marketing or e-mail marketing strategies can help them consider the overall brand value proposition. 
• Purchase: this is the buying phase, where the customer makes his decision to purchase the product we offer. Factors such as customer support and the user experience and the reliability of the online store influence the final result. 
• Retention: during this phase, we apply techniques for customer retention, which encourage them to maintain their relationship with the brand by gaining access to more information or purchasing new products on a recurring basis.
• Advocacy: this is the last phase of the customer's life cycle when we have not only achieved customer acquisition and retention, but also converted them into an ambassador of our brand and they recommend us to their friends, leave a positive review, or speak well of our store on social networks. 

Using e-mail marketing through Klaviyo is essential for your brand to be able to accompany the customer throughout this process. 

It is not about applying one-time actions to try to influence an impulse purchase, but about building a long-term relationship that allows the customer to continue paying attention to us, to buy new products, to interact with us, and to recommend the brand. 

How does Klaviyo help you in building relationships with your customers? 

Email continues to have a decisive impact on the creation and monitoring of the sales funnel in online stores. It can be accessed at any time of the day from mobile or tablet devices, it is not an invasive communication tool, and there are solutions like Klaviyo that allow you to automate the marketing flows at every stage of the customer lifecycle. 

Klaviyo is an email marketing tool for automating communication flows, specially designed for online stores. It has a highly intuitive and easy-to-use interface and can be easily integrated with e-commerce platforms such as Shopify while allowing you to import customer contacts. 

Klaviyo's features allow you to deliver personalized emails automatically to each customer group according to the stage of the journey they are in. You can also offer sign-up forms to increase your contact list, perform A/B tests to compare and evaluate the performance of your emails, as well as perform purchase predictions based on the customer's behavior to increase the chances of a sale. 

With Klaviyo, you will be able to implement different actions depending on the phase of the sales cycle in which the customer may be. 

1. Customer welcome emails 

You can automate emails welcoming new sign-ups by presenting new product offerings and focusing on the needs of the potential customer. 

These contents are focused on customers who are in the Awareness phase and are looking for information about your products. We want to generate a positive first impression, connect with the customer to keep their attention, and redirect them to the store. 

2. Email templates for content

With automated email campaigns, we can use Klaviyo to offer content that helps the registered user or subscriber who is in the consideration phase, by showing them the advantages of our value proposition and helping them to take a step further, such as adding a product to their shopping cart. 

You can use Klaviyo's multiple templates to deliver your email copy in an attractive and customer-oriented way, according to your objectives. 

3. Shopping Cart Abandonment Emails 

During the checkout phase, users may delay the decision for multiple reasons. Reducing the shopping cart abandonment rate is key to increasing the profitability of your online stores. With Klaviyo you can send automated emails within a timeframe to encourage the customer to complete their purchase or provide them with incentives in case of indecisiveness. 

4. Customer retention emails 

Every customer retention strategy involves following up with the customer after the purchase. Klaviyo also allows you to schedule emails for those who have already purchased at least one product. By automating these emails, you can cross-sell complementary products, invite the customer to join a loyalty program, or create new incentives to drive a second purchase. 

Moreover, you can apply techniques that will facilitate the post-sale process, helping your potential customers to become ambassadors of your brand by recommending your products on your website or by sharing them on their social networks. 

5. Emails to recover lost customers 

Second purchases do not always happen. Therefore, you need to have an email marketing strategy for the recovery of lost customers, known as "win-back" campaigns. 

Customers who buy a product once and do not interact with your brand again for a long time need to receive, within a reasonable and non-invasive timeframe, a win-back flow campaign that accentuates your value proposition and reminds them that you are still there, or even offer them a coupon or discount to returning as a customer. 

As a consulting firm specializing in Klaviyo for e-commerce, we at Webmefy would like to invite you to discover with our help how to implement a specific email marketing strategy that will help you build lasting relationships with your customers in your online store. Let us know how we can help you.