Digioh’s Dinner Party Strategy: Serving Up Smarter Lifecycle Marketing

Key Takeaways:

→ Rethink Traditional Campaigns: It’s time to play “poker” with informed bets, not “Go Fish” with safe, repetitive tactics.

→ Treat lifecycle marketing like a dinner party: Deliver value over time through personalized, timely interactions.

→ Know your customer’s real problem: Understand what customers really want to achieve beyond just buying a product.

→ Move Beyond Discounts: Re-engage customers by reminding them of brand value and new offerings, not just sales.

It’s time to face a hard truth: traditional lifecycle campaigns aren’t aging well. Too many brands default to familiar, comfortable tactics — sending another “blast,” recycling the same discount email, or over-optimizing for send volume. But playing it safe doesn’t engage modern customers. It breeds stale relationships, disengagement, and churn.

At this year’s Activate Summit, VP of Customer and Lifecycle Marketing at Digioh, Val Geisler, challenged marketers to rethink the game in the session Beyond Campaigns: Strategies for Sustainable Customer Engagement. Instead of sticking to what’s familiar, marketers need to make informed bets based on customer insights and data. Or, as Val puts it: Play poker, not Go Fish. 

“Most of us, if we’re willing to admit it, are playing that safe game of Go Fish in our life cycle campaigns…Playing poker instead of the same game you’ve played for years can completely change the relationships you build between your brand and your campaigns.” 

– Val Geisler, VP of Customer and Lifecycle Marketing at Digioh

Treat Lifecycle Marketing Like a Dinner Party

Customers today want personalized, relevant experiences, not generic blasts. Instead of shouting through a megaphone, Val suggests treating lifecycle marketing like hosting a great dinner party. This approach puts the customer relationship first, focusing on building connection and value over time.

The Dinner Party Sequence:

1. Greeting at the Door (Welcome Email): Think of your welcome email as greeting a guest at the door. It should set expectations warmly rather than pushing products. As Val pointed out, “You don’t greet your dinner party guests with a plate in hand and ask them to eat before their coat is off. So why are we doing that in emails?”

2. Appetizers (Education Emails): These offer pure value without an immediate sales pitch. They help customers feel informed and engaged, building trust along the way.

3. The Entrée (Main Offer): Once trust is established, the main offer can land with impact. A direct product pitch becomes more effective when it’s timed to the customer’s journey, not the brand’s calendar.

4. Side Dishes (Brand-Building Efforts): Along the way, brand-building efforts through user-generated content, social proof, and community moments function like side dishes, adding richness to the overall experience.

5. Dessert (Loyalty Offers): These shouldn’t come too early. Don’t pitch loyalty programs before they’ve even made a purchase. Let customers experience value first, then invite them to stay for dessert.

6. The Invite Back (Thoughtful Winbacks): Finally, thoughtful winbacks are designed to re-engage lapsed customers in a way that feels personal instead of transactional.

5 Tips for Successful Lifecycle Marketing

Here are five actionable strategies any marketer can adopt to strengthen lifecycle efforts.

1. Know the real problem you’re solving.

Customers don’t wake up wanting to drill holes. What they really want is to hang pictures. The “job to be done” must be understood before crafting messages.

Consider someone buying a drill bit. They’re not actually seeking the bit itself or even the act of drilling a hole. What they truly want is the outcome, and the drill bit is simply a means to an end. The Scotch brand realized this and began offering hanging solutions that didn’t involve holes in walls or messes. 

This is the essence of going beyond surface-level product features and digging into customer motivations. Conduct interviews, ask customers about their goals and frustrations, and find out what success looks like for them. These insights drive messaging that resonates on a personal level.

2. Make your brand shine with shiny object energy.

We’re all big kids at heart, drawn to engaging experiences. Brands should embrace this with what Val calls “shiny object energy.”

This might include spotlighting customers through user-generated content, encouraging community participation with hashtags, or inventing playful moments, like a brand-specific holiday. Creating these moments creates deeper engagement and builds brand affinity that extends beyond the purchase.

3. Build trust with transparency.

Too many brands avoid subscription reminders out of fear. But transparency builds loyalty. “You want to tell them before you’re going to charge them,” Val urged. 

When customers feel empowered to delay, skip, or cancel, they trust brands more. And that trust leads to long-term retention. Trying to trick customers into recurring charges only drives churn and erodes brand credibility. But transparency creates advocates.

4. Expand winbacks beyond discounts.

Discounts alone don’t rekindle loyalty. Val recommended using product updates, reviews, and value reminders to inspire re-engagement. 

It’s not just about offering 10% off. It’s about reminding customers what they loved about the brand, showing what’s new, and making them want to come back. A thoughtful post-purchase journey, not a single winback campaign, builds lasting customer relationships.

5. Reframe failure as a long-term game.

Annie Duke said it best in Thinking in Bets, and Val agrees: Perfection is a myth. Lifecycle marketing is about continuous learning.

“We are playing a long-term game, and the goal is to improve continually,” Val said. Marketers need to test, learn, and iterate. Progress beats perfection every time.

In other words, don’t wait for the perfect campaign. Get in-market, gather insights, and evolve.

What This Means for Modern Marketers

Here’s the big shift: modern marketers must replace campaigns with conversations. Stop optimizing for send volume and start optimizing for customer value. Think in dynamic flows, not static blasts. And remember: the customer journey begins at the first purchase, but it doesn’t end there.

Modern lifecycle marketing isn’t about managing a calendar of sends — it’s about building relationships that grow over time. Shifting from a campaign-first mindset to a customer-first approach transforms how brands engage, creating more meaningful, lasting connections.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the biggest challenges facing traditional lifecycle marketing today?

Traditional lifecycle marketing faces significant challenges because it often defaults to outdated tactics like generic “blasts” or repetitive discount emails, over-optimizing for send volume rather than customer engagement. This approach of playing it safe breeds stale relationships, disengagement, and churn, failing to engage modern customers who expect personalized, relevant experiences.

2. How can marketers evolve their lifecycle strategy to be more effective?

Marketers can evolve by making informed bets based on customer insights and data, shifting from “Go Fish” to “poker” in their strategies. This means treating lifecycle marketing like hosting a “dinner party,” prioritizing the customer relationship and delivering value over time through personalized, timely interactions. Key elements include understanding the customer’s real problem (the “job to be done”), building trust through transparency, and expanding win-back strategies beyond just discounts.

3. How do Iterable and Digioh help optimize lifecycle marketing?

Iterable and Digioh integrate to streamline lead generation and enable highly personalized customer engagement. Digioh helps capture valuable customer data from your website through various forms and quizzes, which automatically flows into Iterable, powering automated behavioral emails and personalized messaging. The integration also allows for custom email preference centers, helping to reduce unsubscribes. Learn more about the partnership here.

Ready To Serve Up Stronger Engagement? 

Iterable is proud to partner with innovators like Digioh, who help brands design personalized journeys that drive deeper engagement and loyalty. Together, we empower marketers to move beyond static sends and deliver the right messages at the right moments.