home / skills / ncklrs / startup-os-skills / customer-lifecycle-marketer
This skill guides onboarding, retention, and advocacy to turn customers into loyal advocates and scalable growth.
npx playbooks add skill ncklrs/startup-os-skills --skill customer-lifecycle-marketerReview the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.
---
name: customer-lifecycle-marketer
description: Expert customer lifecycle marketing guidance for retention, expansion, and advocacy. Use when designing onboarding programs, creating upsell strategies, preventing churn, building referral programs, or writing customer success content. Use for NPS programs, win-back campaigns, customer segmentation, and lifecycle email sequences.
---
# Customer Lifecycle Marketer
Expert guidance for post-acquisition customer marketing — from onboarding through advocacy. Turn new customers into loyal advocates who grow your business.
## Philosophy
Acquiring a customer is just the beginning. The real value comes from:
1. **Onboarding that sticks** — First 30 days determine lifetime value
2. **Expansion over acquisition** — Growing existing customers is 5-7x cheaper
3. **Retention as growth** — Reducing churn by 5% can increase profits 25-95%
4. **Advocacy as acquisition** — Happy customers are your best salespeople
## How This Skill Works
When invoked, apply the guidelines in `rules/` organized by:
- `onboarding-*` — New customer activation and time-to-value
- `expansion-*` — Upsell, cross-sell, and revenue expansion
- `retention-*` — Churn prevention and customer health
- `advocacy-*` — Referrals, reviews, and customer marketing
- `lifecycle-*` — Segmentation and automated sequences
## Core Frameworks
### The Customer Lifecycle
```
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ ACQUIRE → ONBOARD → ACTIVATE → RETAIN → EXPAND → ADVOCATE │
│ │
│ ↑ │ │
│ └───────────────── REFERRAL ────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
```
### The Expansion Revenue Model
| Type | Description | Example |
|------|-------------|---------|
| **Upsell** | Higher tier of same product | Basic → Pro plan |
| **Cross-sell** | Additional products | Add-on features |
| **Seat expansion** | More users | Team growth |
| **Usage expansion** | Increased consumption | More API calls |
### Customer Health Score Components
| Factor | Weight | Signals |
|--------|--------|---------|
| **Product usage** | 30-40% | Logins, feature adoption, depth |
| **Engagement** | 20-25% | Email opens, support tickets, NPS |
| **Growth signals** | 15-20% | Seat additions, usage trends |
| **Relationship** | 15-20% | Exec sponsor, champion strength |
| **Payment** | 5-10% | On-time, expansion, contract length |
### Lifecycle Stages
| Stage | Timeline | Goal | Key Metric |
|-------|----------|------|------------|
| **Onboarding** | Days 1-14 | First value | Activation rate |
| **Adoption** | Days 15-60 | Habit formation | Feature adoption |
| **Retention** | Day 60+ | Ongoing value | Renewal rate |
| **Expansion** | Varies | More value | Net revenue retention |
| **Advocacy** | Post-success | Share value | Referral rate |
## Key Metrics
| Metric | Formula | Target |
|--------|---------|--------|
| **Activation Rate** | Activated / Signed Up | 60-80% |
| **Time to Value** | Days to first "aha" moment | <7 days |
| **Net Revenue Retention** | (MRR + Expansion - Churn) / MRR | 100-120%+ |
| **Gross Retention** | Retained MRR / Starting MRR | 85-95% |
| **NPS** | Promoters - Detractors | 30-50+ |
| **Referral Rate** | Referred / Total Customers | 10-30% |
## Customer Segmentation Matrix
| Segment | Characteristics | Strategy |
|---------|-----------------|----------|
| **Champions** | High usage, high NPS | Advocacy, referrals, expansion |
| **Healthy** | Good usage, satisfied | Expansion opportunities |
| **At-risk** | Declining usage, low engagement | Intervention, support |
| **Dormant** | Minimal usage, no engagement | Re-activation campaign |
| **Churning** | Cancel signals, complaints | Save team escalation |
## Anti-Patterns
- **Onboarding ends at signup** — Real onboarding is 30-90 days
- **Treating all customers the same** — Segmentation drives relevance
- **Reactive churn prevention** — By cancellation it's too late
- **Selling before value** — Earn the right to expand
- **Ignoring advocates** — Your best channel left untapped
- **One-size-fits-all emails** — Lifecycle stage matters
- **NPS without action** — Survey fatigue with no follow-up
This skill provides expert customer lifecycle marketing guidance for retention, expansion, and advocacy. It helps design onboarding programs, upsell strategies, churn prevention, referral programs, and customer success content. Use it to improve activation, increase net revenue retention, and convert customers into advocates.
When invoked, the skill applies targeted guidance across lifecycle categories: onboarding, expansion, retention, advocacy, and segmentation. It uses proven frameworks — activation funnels, customer health scoring, expansion revenue models, and stage-based messaging — to recommend concrete actions, metrics, and campaign sequences. Output includes prioritized playbooks, sample email flows, segmentation rules, and metric targets.
What metrics should I track first?
Start with activation rate, time-to-value, and a customer health score. Then add net revenue retention and churn rate to measure financial impact.
How long should onboarding run?
Treat onboarding as a 30–90 day program focused on reaching the first "aha" quickly (<7 days) and then building habit formation through weeks 2–8.
When is it safe to push expansion offers?
Only after clear product value and consistent engagement — use health score thresholds and growth signals (usage, seat growth) before pitching expansion.