Segmentation by Customer Lifecycle Stage

There are 5 steps before a potential customer actually becomes our customer. These steps are lead, qualified lead, opportunity, customer and evangelist. Let’s explain all these one by one:

Lead: They are leads that have never been contacted yet. We have never contacted these people and neither they have. At this point, we only have their contact information as email or phone number. They are ready to be informed about our company and our products. We can send them emails about our products/company.

Qualified Lead: This stage is when we contact our leads, and those leads become qualified leads. At this stage, we communicate with leads and separate them as whether they are interested in our products or not.

Opportunity: Now at this stage, our qualified leads become opportunities. These are the people who we have made an agreement with and they are about to buy our product. For example, you may have sent them a price offer letter, and they have been considering and they probably will buy our product. At this point, these people are in opportunity stage.

Customer: This is the stage that we want our leads to become. Now they are our customers which means that they have signed the contract/buy the product.

Evangelist: These are our star customers. These are the customers who always suggest our product/service to their friends and family.

This is the segmentation by lifecycle stage and this process always proceeds the same way.