4 ESSENTIAL STEPS IN LIFEVALUE MARKETING
The LifeValue Marketing discipline of understanding, prediction, selection and control is the process by which a company/organization will create the highest value by (1) investing its resources in interaction with identified groups that have the highest LifeValue and (2) maximizing that value by implementing a LifeValue driven strategic plan for each group.
This discipline is not based on one-time or short term financial analysis, but rather on long-term strategic projections about how value will be created for specifically targeted groups each year in a five-year plan. This process in the development of a comprehensive LifeValue Strategic Plan maximizes current income with the groups and marketing initiatives that provide the foundation for the production of the highest possible income in succeeding years.
The primary focus of LifeValue Marketing is to understand how high LifeValue is developed and sustained with different kinds of people within a specific marketing or fundraising context. The key to this methodology is to understand the future LifeValue of every customer/constituent and to create a strategic plan which shapes the interaction between the company/organization and the customer/constituent to develop the highest possible LifeValue.
The four essential steps in the process are understanding, prediction, selection and control.
1 - LIFEVALUE FOCUS:
People are the focus of LifeValue Marketing. Understanding people is fundamental to the selection process that maximizes LifeValue in a marketing plan. This is not about the manipulation of individuals, but rather the focused selection of the individuals and the communication plan that creates the highest value for the dollars spent on marketing. This is primarily about current and future value, not about financial analysis and income projections. Value is carried by people and the discipline of LifeValue Marketing maintains a focus on people, not simply on money.
LifeValue is first and foremost about people and how relationship interaction over time produces watershed milestones in that developing relationship. Value milestones are achieving objective behavioral goals that are essential in the process of developing high LifeValue.
2 - LIFEVALUE PREDICTION:
LifeValue Marketing does not stop with understanding the relationships that create high LifeValue. Understanding is not description alone, it requires the body of knowledge necessary to predict how and what value will be created by the marketing plan. Building the understanding necessary to predict LifeValue is based on best practices, normative data and most of all from the study of a specific organization's database of interaction with people over at least the past ten years. From this perspective, the nuances in an organization's database have unique value in understanding how LifeValue is begun, developed, sustained and maximized.
LifeValue Analysis focuses on the contribution of sources, communication channels, offers, initiatives and programs to the development of relationships with individuals with a specific profile. The actionable understanding of how high LifeValue is created by an organization's match of people, channels, programs and marketing initiatives is what allows an organization to develop a LifeValue Strategic Plan to secure its future. The LifeValue Multichannel Audit is the proprietary process by which STRATMARK arrives at a basis for the understanding and prediction necessary to formulate a unique LifeValue Strategic Plan for a company/organization.
3 - LIFEVALUE SELECTION:
Based on understanding and prediction, the LifeValue process is selective, focusing marketing resources on the prospects and constituents that fit the profile of specific cohort groups that produce high LifeValue. It is essential to select the right donor or group of donors and the right initiative at specifically the right time in the development of the relationship between the organization and the selected individual or individuals.
LifeValue Selection involves determining the relative value that a prospect or constituent will contribute to the organization's marketing initiatives over time. The targeting of prospects and constituents is a highly selective multi-channel process. Depending on the size of the marketing universe, a wide variety of demographic data, attributes and behavioral data can be used from many sources to help make accurate LifeValue Selections. Demographic and generational attributes may vary in predicted value but often constituents can be divided into meaningful clusters within cohort groups. Differences in propensity to use online vs. offline communication and other preferences can be important to the optimum channel mix in maximizing the value of constituent interaction.
The process of prediction and selection are combined in the process of targeting new prospects. Within the marketing universe available to any company/organization are a wide variety of people to target and communication channels to use to add new prospects to the database.
4 - LIFEVALUE CONTROL:
The primary focus of LifeValue Marketing is to understand how high LifeValue is developed and sustained with different kinds of people and to create a marketing program that controls how that value is maximized using the available resources and budget for marketing and fundraising.
Each group or subgroup included in the strategic plan must have a targeted plan to assure that the right combination and sequence of life-stage-appropriate marketing is initiated. This plan must include both the content and the mix of communication channels that will create targeted short-term and long-term values for each selected group and sub-group.
LifeValue Control is not an attempt to manipulate people. Instead it is an informed way that people are placed on the optimal path of interaction with the company/organization. The LifeValue Path which has the highest value often has a defined sequence and a series of life stages unique to that cohort group's relationship to the company/organization.
With today's limited marketing budgets it is essential that the groups and initiatives with the most NetValue and LifeValue become the focus of the strategic plan to maximize the result of the marketing activity.
