The Customer Engagement Cycle of Awareness, Acquisition, Satisfaction, Conversion, Retention and Referral plays a central role in most marketing strategies. However, two of these don’t get the attention they should. Let’s start with the four areas that are the most understood first.

Awareness: This is basically putting your brand out there. If no one knows who you are, you can’t really engage them.

Acquisition: This is getting people in the door or onto your website. It doesn’t guarantee a sale, but it’s still a big step.

Conversion: Simply put, this is making a sale. It may not be profitable, but it’s still a sale and kept them from buying elsewhere.

Retention: This is getting your customer to buy again.

Now let’s focus on the two areas that are the most important, but are also the most difficult to measure and control: Satisfaction and Referral.

Customer Satisfaction is more than just whether or not your customer was happy with the product or service they received. It’s about the entire experience they had with your company. Did they enjoy it? Was it easy for them to get in touch with you? If they had a problem, did you resolve it right away? Did they get their product or service in a timely manner? Did you make the entire process easy and painless? Were your employees nice to them throughout? Were incentives given to get repeat business?

Satisfaction breeds referrals. If your customers didn’t have a good experience with you, chances are good they won’t recommend others use your services. Word of mouth and social media are some of the best marketing vehicles out there. One unsatisfied customer can affect numerous potential referrals and upset your entire cycle. By keeping your customer truly engaged throughout the entire process, the more likely they will be to refer others to you.

All of these factors are important keys to a successful marketing strategy and business plan. But, if you focus on the satisfaction and referrals, the awareness, acquisition, conversion and retention will naturally fall into place.

Information taken from the article “The Missing Links in the Customer Engagement Cycle” by Kevin Ertell on retailshakennotstirred.com.