Let’s be real: not every customer who subscribes to your business sticks around to renew. So, what’s the story with the rest? Were they unhappy with your service, or did you miss the chance to truly engage them with your product? That’s where subscription lifecycle marketing and management comes into the picture.
Subscription lifecycle marketing is important for reducing the churn rate and fostering customer loyalty. It helps improve customer experience, sustain customers, increase revenue, and adapt to market changes.
Now, how do we enable effective lifecycle marketing strategies for subscription businesses? For that, we must understand the important subscription lifecycle marketing stages and subscriber persona.
Ready to dive in? Let’s break it down!
The subscriber lifecycle is a framework that outlines the key stages and actions during a subscriber’s journey in your business.
Alright, let’s add a little personality to the mix. Meet Nancy—our imaginary customer. She’s curious about your product or service, and ready to explore what you offer. Let’s follow the customer journey:
Stage 1: Nancy discovers your service and is interested in it.
Stage 2: She buys the initial subscription plan.
Stage 3: Nancy explores the product or service.
Stage 4: This stage can have two sub-stages –
(i) Nancy likes your overall service.
(ii) She’s looking for better options (could be price, engagement, service, or something else).
Stage 5: She either leaves, continues to use, or returns to your service and renews the subscription.
Each stage revolves around our customer, Nancy, playing a key role. That’s why keeping customers engaged with your service or brand is crucial—ensuring they stay connected and don’t drop off along the way.
How does it happen? It happens through lifecycle marketing and management.
A customer’s lifetime and their lifetime value are two distinct concepts.
Customer lifetime refers to the average duration a customer stays engaged with your business.
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total revenue or value a customer generates for your brand during their engagement period.
So the time Nancy spends using your service is her customer lifetime, while the revenue or value she contributes to your business during that time is her Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
By now, it’s clear: the longer customers stick with your service, the more revenue they generate. That’s why the focus should be on boosting customer retention and, in turn, maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
Here’s a detailed breakdown of how lifecycle marketing can supercharge subscription-based services:
Personalized onboarding emails or tutorials can help users better utilize your service. You can use lifecycle marketing tools like in-app messages or tailored emails to guide users and enhance their experience with your service.
You must have used fitness apps that keep reminding you to hydrate on time, exercise, and more. That’s how they engage you with lifecycle marketing.
Retaining existing customers is far more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. How do we retain customers? By building a rapport with them and fostering long-term customer relationships.
We can sustain customers by updating them with regular lifecycle marketing communication and engagement.
This involves staying in constant touch with the customer through renewal e-mail, push notifications, and so on.
This one goes without saying. As we know, CLTV directly impacts revenue by emphasizing customer retention and repeat purchases. The higher the retention rate, the better the customer value, and higher the revenue.
A customer who engages with your service for a maximum time is likely to bring in more revenue too. They are more likely to make a purchase multiple services or subscriptions and upgrade to premium services.
Would you try to sell a high-end brand outfit to a customer who prefers low-cost brands? No. but how do you know their preference?
Simple: track content usage. Or feature engagement and send personalized recommendations or tips. Analyzing metrics like login frequency or content preferences helps tailor the service as per the user.
Why do customers or users unsubscribe? Is it price? Or service? Or, is it just a communication gap causing the drift?
Lifecycle marketing can help you set up churn prediction models. The churn prediction models will analyze behavior patterns, such as decreased usage or negative feedback.
Use these insights to create targeted campaigns aimed at addressing issues before customers cancel.
Keeping a customer in touch for a prolonged time means a happy customer base. Once, you’re able to hook your existing customers to your exceptional customer service, it’s easy to expand your business with ‘word of mouth’ or ‘customer loyalty’.
With the right lifecycle marketing and management, you can identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. It depends on customers’ shopping habits.
By tracking purchasing patterns, brands can offer relevant upgrades (upsell) or new products (cross-sell).
This can keep the customers engaged and satisfied, bringing better revenue.
Moving to the part, what are the stages of a customer lifecycle in which strategic management and marketing can help us? Can we track customers at every stage? Yes!
Let’s have a look at the key customer lifecycle stages of the subscription business:
In the first stage of the customer lifecycle, we focus on attracting new customers. We use strategies like discounts, free trials, personalized pricing, and targeted offers.
To acquire a new customer, we must ensure the awareness should spread in the right direction.
How do we ensure that? Targeting correct search queries and keywords for SEO content and advertisement copies is the key.
The onboarding process begins as soon as the customer subscribes to your service. The goal here should be to ensure that the customer has access to the tools and tutorials to use the service smoothly.
Customers must also be aware of the full potential of the service. They must know what are the different plans (upgrades and premiums).
Retaining customers requires a strategic approach. The efforts should start as soon as a customer is onboarded.
The goal should be communicating and engaging them in the service to foster engagement and loyalty with customers.
At Propel we provide customer lifecycle marketing solutions for multiple industries ensuring to prioritize customers.
Now, this is where subscription businesses either win or plan how to win the competition!
Stronger customers re-subscribing to your service or upgrading to premium plans suggests you have successfully acquired and retained your customers. Your services and customer support have done well. This can also build customer loyalty in the long run.
However, customers who drop at this stage, leave a scope of improvement in the lifecycle management and marketing strategy.
For that, it’s crucial to understand different subscriber personas and their perspectives.
Keeping track throughout the customer journey tells you about the customer’s personality. Learning about the customer persona helps you in customer segmentation. Now, there are mainly two types of lifecycle marketing subscribers:
You must have seen ongoing sales and promotions to drive customers.
Promo abusers use sign-up promos and subscription discounts but do not renew the subscription going forward. It’s hard to sustain these customers, forget about loyalty.
The reason could be subscription price, service quality, or engagement. Besides, not all reasons are solvable. Some reasons can be out of your control.
New customers or subscribers are users who have subscribed to the service by a friend’s referral or word of mouth, or organic search.
The more trustworthy the source of awareness – the longer the retention period. Longer retention increases customer loyalty – they can suggest the same service to others.
Now, how do we ensure we keep both promo abusers and new subscribers from churning?
Retaining subscription-based customers requires consistent engagement, education, and personalized strategies.
Besides you must tailor the strategies to your customers’ needs at every lifecycle stage. Here you go with effective customer lifecycle marketing strategies:
When you track customer lifecycle, you categorize their personas; just like we saw above. This is called customer segmentation. It helps you optimize the service better as per customer needs.
You can segment customers based on:
Source of awareness: Understand where they first interacted with your brand (social media, ads, referrals, etc.).
Intent: Identify their goals—are they trial users exploring or buyers with specific needs?
Engagement behavior: Track how often they interact with your product, emails, or support.
Overall customer experience: Map out where they are in the lifecycle—new, active, dormant, or churn-risk.
Actionable Steps:
Identify high-value customers who bring the most revenue or influence.
Align your marketing campaigns with these key segments to increase retention and CLV.
Educating customers is vital for ensuring they derive value from your product. An informed customer is more likely to stay engaged.
How to Educate Customers:
Use onboarding emails (email marketing), step-by-step tutorials, and FAQs to guide new users.
Host live webinars or Q&A sessions for advanced features.
Regularly share tips and tricks through newsletters or social media.
Personalized marketing initiatives create a stronger connection with your subscribers and keep them engaged.
Tactics for Personalization:
Leverage customer data to recommend features, products, or content they haven’t tried yet.
Send milestone emails (e.g., “You’ve been with us for 6 months!”) with curated recommendations. Send messages that resonate with them.
Address their pain points with targeted campaigns and optimized content.
Keeping customers engaged is crucial to retaining them. The more invested customers feel, the less likely they are to churn. How do you use content marketing to engage customers?
Engagement Strategies:
Use gamification: Add rewards, badges, or streaks for completing actions or achieving goals.
Push notifications: Alert users about updates, tips, or new features they’ll find useful.
Community building: Create forums, Facebook groups, or in-app communities where customers can connect and share experiences.
Customer retention doesn’t stop at the point of purchase—it’s an ongoing process. If you expect customer loyalty, standing by their side throughout the journey is crucial.
How to Stay in Touch:
Send post-purchase thank-you emails with helpful resources.
Celebrate milestones like anniversaries or usage achievements.
Share company updates and exclusive offers to make them feel part of your brand’s journey.
Resources tailored to your customers’ needs can help them solve problems and get more value from your product. Encourage customers to learn more about the brand and its services.
What to Provide:
Comprehensive guides and how-tos for commonly used features.
Blog posts or case studies relevant to their industry or use case.
Interactive tools like calculators, checklists, or templates to simplify their tasks.
When customers have the tools they need to succeed, they’re more likely to stick around.
Engaged and Satisfied customers can become powerful advocates for your brand. They can support your brand loyalty with product recommendations.
Referral Strategies:
Offer incentives: Provide discounts, rewards, or account credits for successful referrals through growth marketing channels.
Simplify the process: Use referral links or codes to make sharing easy.
Recognize advocates: Feature them in newsletters or social media shoutouts.
There you go – lifecycle marketing is essential for subscription-based businesses to reduce churn, retain customers, and increase revenue.
Here’s what matters most:
Improves Customer Experience: Personalized communication and onboarding ensure users derive maximum value from your service.
Boosts Customer Retention: Focusing on long-term relationships helps reduce churn and keeps customers engaged.
Increases Revenue: Retained customers often upgrade, renew, or invest in premium offerings, driving consistent growth.
Provides Insights into Behavior: Tracking customer actions helps refine strategies and deliver better-targeted campaigns.
Reduces Acquisition Costs: Loyal customers spread the word, decreasing dependency on paid acquisition.
Identifies Churn Risks Early: Predictive models and lifecycle insights allow for proactive interventions.
So for subscription businesses, it’s all about understanding the customer journey—from signing up to renewing. Tailor your marketing efforts to their needs, keep them engaged with helpful content, and address churn early. Don’t forget to use insights to upsell or cross-sell and boost satisfaction while growing revenue.
Rushabh Menon is a seasoned B2B growth and product marketing leader currently heading GTM strategy at Propel. With a strong foundation in strategic planning and execution, he is known for his analytical approach and commitment to impactful, data-driven marketing. An alumnus of IIT Madras and IIM Shillong, Rushabh brings valuable expertise in driving market expansion with a focus on continuous learning and improvement.
Got Questions? We Have Answers!
Subscription marketing focuses on attracting, converting, and retaining customers in a subscription-based business model.
Customer Lifecycle management helps businesses track and improve customer interactions at every stage, increasing retention and maximizing revenue.
CLTV measures the total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime, guiding decisions on acquisition and retention investments.
It refers to strategies aimed at keeping customers engaged and subscribed throughout their lifecycle to reduce churn.
Lifecycle marketing focuses on engaging customers at every stage of their journey—from awareness to retention. It uses personalized strategies like email campaigns, upselling, and loyalty programs to build relationships, boost conversions, and ensure long-term customer satisfaction and retention.
Propel specializes in customer lifecycle marketing, helping consumer brands boost retention & reduce churn with tailored strategies and our AI-augmented platform, AURA.
Book a call with our experts and get started today!
