I strongly agree with Austins first comment that messaging is a contingency.

Your examples are good ones. However, I can easily imagine Amazon having some threshold at which they’ll send you a message, such as 3 months without any activity or something.

But your point is well taken…this sort of messaging isn’t the core value proposition. This is tactical stuff for specific times in the lifecycle. Thanks for pushing further with this.

I think we’re pretty much on the same page. Maybe some examples?

My grocery store doesn’t email me a week after I’ve purchased milk and bread to remind me that I might need more.

Twitter doesn’t remind me to check tweets or to post tweets. (Though I can *ask* it to nudge me.)

MySpace, Livejournal, and Facebook don’t remind me to sign in and see what my friends are up to. But I do.

Amazon doesn’t remind me to buy another book. But I do anyway.

Defining “lifecycle” messaging as “contingency” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It just means it’s a contingency based on customers who have fallen through the cracks.

Framing it this way is important because perhaps the best way to catch those people isn’t an email. Maybe it’s a billboard. Maybe it’s physical mail. Maybe it’s encouraging their friends to do the reminding for you. (E.g. in twitter I can nudge people to post something.)

That you need contingencies, I totally agree. But executing the primary experience is still more important. Once that’s covered, then how you affect contingency scenarios should be a wide-open field.

The same is likely true for products. If you can identify patterns in the average user’s interaction with your products, you can craft your message to meet any particular situation. Maybe they “plan” to get your new product or upgrade a current one, but just haven’t gotten to it. This has nothing to do with the customer experience, but everything to do with life getting in the way.

Another thing I’ve found is that you don’t usually get it right the first time. It takes a few tries to get the messaging and the timing right. Like any direct marketing campaign, tweaking to find what works and what doesn’t is always the best way to go.

Great post!

~Graham

But, it seems to me that *any* situation will be leaky, meaning that no matter what you build the experience won’t be 100% perfect. People will drop off no matter how good your experience is, as all experiences are different.

I would argue that those great experiences are the ones that recognize the ebbs and flows of activity, and does whatever it takes to remind people of the good experience they’re getting.

In other words, the ideal case as you describe just doesn’t exist. In practical terms, if there is a way to improve the experience, whether or not it’s called branding or happens to be a reminder email, it’s adding value, is it not?

However surely if all online applications adopt this process, it will become saturated and lean into the spam category.

I think taking advantage of usage cycles, will have to keep evolving to stay unique and appropriate.

Really, good lifecycle messaging should happen with the brand messaging. When the customer is done with their book, the experience should have been pleasing enough, the brand promise should’ve have been clear enough, that they automatically think about going back for that next step. (Or for other services, going back for the next step in the cycle.)

If your lifecycle messaging strategy depends on *sending* messages, then you’re experience needs work. Messaging is a contingency.