Lifetime Customer Value

Disclaimer: Spike is not a metrics guy, nor does he play one on TV.

There were a lot of great nuggets from WOMM-U a couple of weeks back, but when Ted Wright asked, “What’s the lifetime customer value?” in his session with John Moore, that term got lodged in my noggin’. And obviously it’s still there.

There’s SO much talk about ROI around word of mouth marketing these days. And I’m really glad there are smart people out there dedicated to figuring it out. Ultimately, I see a new standard emerging that has an entirely different set of metrics than impressions, eyeballs and butts-in-seats. It has a lot more to do with the squishy side of marketing, like your net promoter score, customers collaborating with R&D, and even sentiments like love. Scary, I know.

So when it comes to the concept of Lifetime Customer Value, these new set of metrics force us to go beyond - way beyond - how many products that person buys from you in their lifetime. It’s also how many times they recommend you and people act on that recommendation. It’s how many new product ideas they bring to you (and how many you implement). It’s when they choose to buy a little extra from you in the hard times because they know you really want to keep all your employees.

Look, I know we are all held accountable for ROI and generating revenue. But more and more people are realizing that word of mouth is for that AND a lot more. The metrics are falling into place. Because, as Justine likes to say, “you can’t measure love on a 10-point scale.”