What Salted Pretzel Party Platters and Customer Lifecycles Have in Common

There is no shortage of odd pairings in this world. For example, who knew Cheetos and broccoli would go so well together? Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it. The point is just because something sounds odd when paired with something else, does not necessarily they do not go together.

That is precisely the case here as after bringing together six of the world's best Marketing Master Chefs to get their recipes for success - pardon the pun, we decided to title one particular recipe Customer Lifecycle: Salted Pretzel Party Platters from the Penn Foster Kitchen.

The Master Chef in this case is Sara Dellecave, lover of French fries and the Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Penn Foster, an online career school.

Sara and her team devised a plan that could scale to meet each contact’s needs and steer each one toward the right content. Because it was built on independent progression, this approach kept contacts intrigued and hungry for more information.

Here the directions:

1. Gather your ingredients. Select ripe and accurate data to determine contact trends. Penn Foster used data from their student study planner mobile application.
2. Knead three tracks. You’ll ask your contacts which path they want to take. Penn Foster created tracks for an extended plan, recommended plan, and accelerated plan.
3. Measure and add existing data to create a highly customized lifecycle communication stream that will support contact progression.
4. Bake in behavioral-based messaging with emails designed to keep contacts informed, engaged, inspired, and motivated.

The resulting "dish" kept students engaged and on track. The customized engagement led to an increase and acceleration in fulfillment in student exams. Penn Foster saw an increase in initial engagement across all four school groups. In addition, the team had a large improvement among mobile user exam rates.

Sara adds this Master Marketing Chef Tip: Let your contacts choose an engagement pace. This allows them to move through the lifecycle as quickly or slowly as they want. Combine with behavioral-based messaging for a winning combo.

Ok, now it's your turn to get cooking, literally. Download The Demand Gen Pro’s COOKBOOK 2. Get more tasty tidbits from Sara's recipe as well as the recipes from the other five Marketing Master Chefs.