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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Lifecycle Communication Specialist

💰 $ - $

MarketingCustomer ExperienceCommunicationsGrowthCRM

🎯 Role Definition

The Lifecycle Communication Specialist is a cross-functional marketer focused on guiding users through the entire customer lifecycle — from acquisition and onboarding to retention, re-activation and advocacy — by developing data-driven, personalized messaging and automation across email, push, SMS, in-app and CRM channels. This role is responsible for campaign strategy, message design, audience segmentation, testing and measurement to drive engagement, reduce churn and maximize lifetime value (LTV). The ideal candidate blends marketing automation expertise, creative copywriting, analytics and product collaboration to deliver scalable lifecycle programs.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Email Marketing Coordinator
  • CRM / Marketing Automation Specialist
  • Customer Onboarding or Growth Associate

Advancement To:

  • Lifecycle Marketing Manager
  • CRM Manager / Growth Marketing Manager
  • Head of Lifecycle or Retention Marketing

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Marketing Manager
  • Customer Experience Manager
  • Growth or Performance Marketing roles

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop and own end-to-end lifecycle messaging strategies for onboarding, activation, adoption, retention and winback that align with business KPIs (conversion, activation rate, retention, MRR/LTV).
  • Design, build and optimize multi-channel automated campaigns (email, SMS, push, in-app messaging, and CRM journeys) using marketing automation platforms such as Braze, Klaviyo, Iterable, Salesforce Marketing Cloud or HubSpot.
  • Create and maintain detailed customer segmentation and persona-based targeting strategies using behavioral, demographic and product usage signals to personalize the customer experience and increase engagement.
  • Write clear, compelling, on-brand copy and CTAs for subject lines, preview text, email bodies, push notifications, in-app messages and landing pages that improve open rates, click-through rates and conversion.
  • Plan and execute A/B and multivariate testing on subject lines, content, send time, frequency and channel mix; analyze results and iterate to continuously improve campaign performance.
  • Monitor and analyze campaign performance and lifecycle metrics (open, CTR, conversion, activation, churn, retention cohorts, revenue per user) and produce weekly/monthly performance dashboards and executive summaries.
  • Build and maintain program logic, journey maps, triggers, suppression lists and data flows within the marketing automation platform to ensure scalability and deliverability.
  • Partner closely with product management and engineering to instrument events, define attributes and ensure reliable data and event tracking for accurate targeting and measurement.
  • Collaborate with data analysts to run cohort and funnel analysis, calculate LTV and churn impact, attribute campaign influence and inform prioritization based on ROI.
  • Implement deliverability best practices including list hygiene, IP warming, DKIM/SPF configuration, suppression rules and engagement-based sending strategies to maximize inbox placement.
  • Own lifecycle playbooks and documentation (journey blueprints, creative briefs, audience definitions, SOPs) to enable repeatable, auditable campaigns and cross-team alignment.
  • Coordinate with design, brand and localization teams to produce asset variations and adapt messaging for international markets while maintaining brand voice and compliance.
  • Manage campaign operational calendar and cadence planning to balance frequency, relevance and regulatory compliance (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, TCPA).
  • Execute win-back and reactivation campaigns with tailored incentives, personalized offers and timed sequences informed by loss reasons and lifecycle stage.
  • Identify revenue opportunities inside the lifecycle by implementing cross-sell, upsell and expansion programs tied to usage signals and customer intent data.
  • Facilitate rapid experimentation by writing test hypotheses, defining success metrics, launching experiments and documenting learnings to scale successful tactics.
  • Troubleshoot campaign execution issues (data mismatches, suppressed sends, API failures) and coordinate with engineering to resolve root causes.
  • Train and enable cross-functional stakeholders (sales, success, product) on lifecycle capabilities, audience definitions and how to request/adapt campaigns.
  • Drive personalization at scale through dynamic content, template modularization, and integration with CDP/CRM systems to surface user-specific details and recommendations.
  • Analyze churn drivers and lifecycle leaks, recommend product or experience changes, and influence cross-functional roadmaps to improve retention.
  • Maintain an experimentation backlog and prioritize tests and campaigns by expected business impact, effort and data confidence.
  • Ensure all messaging adheres to brand guidelines, legal requirements and accessibility best practices (alt text, semantic HTML, clear CTAs).

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc analytics requests and exploratory data analysis to answer business questions about user behavior, campaign attribution and lifecycle trends.
  • Contribute to the organization's customer data strategy by advising on event taxonomy, identity resolution and CDP integrations to improve segmentation accuracy.
  • Collaborate with engineering and product teams to translate lifecycle requirements into implementation tickets, ensure event instrumentation, and validate data pipelines.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies with cross-functional teams to prioritize lifecycle work, address technical dependencies and ship campaigns on schedule.
  • Assist with vendor evaluation, selection and management for marketing automation, SMS providers, content personalization and analytics tools.
  • Provide monthly performance reviews and strategic recommendations to senior leadership, highlighting high-impact opportunities and recommended roadmap adjustments.
  • Support localization and internationalization efforts by coordinating translations, regional compliance checks and market-specific testing.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Marketing automation platform expertise: Braze, Klaviyo, Iterable, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, HubSpot or similar — building journeys, segments and triggered flows.
  • CRM and CDP experience: Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Segment, Tealium, mParticle or similar for audience definition and identity stitching.
  • Email deliverability and ESP best practices: DKIM/SPF, DMARC, IP warming, list hygiene and engagement-based sending.
  • Strong analytics and SQL proficiency for cohort analysis, funnel measurement, and ad-hoc queries; familiarity with BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake or similar.
  • A/B and multivariate testing design and analysis; understanding of statistical significance and test powering.
  • HTML/CSS for responsive email templates and ability to work with frontend developers on in-app messaging.
  • Data visualization and dashboarding: Looker, Tableau, Metabase, or Google Data Studio for performance tracking.
  • Event-driven lifecycle instrumentation: defining and validating product events, user attributes and event schemas.
  • SMS and push channel experience, including compliance (TCPA), opt-in/opt-out handling and character optimization.
  • Personalization and dynamic content implementation using templating languages and data attributes.
  • Familiarity with product analytics tools: Amplitude, Mixpanel or Pendo to map user journeys and usage signals.
  • Experience with behavioral segmentation, RFM analysis and propensity modeling to prioritize outreach.

Soft Skills

  • Strong copywriting and storytelling skills with a knack for concise, conversion-focused messaging.
  • Analytical mindset with the ability to turn data into actionable insights and prioritize based on impact.
  • Cross-functional collaborator who can influence product, engineering, design and customer success without direct authority.
  • Project management and organizational skills to manage multiple campaigns, timelines and stakeholders.
  • Customer-centric thinking and empathy to craft messages that resonate across lifecycle stages.
  • Comfortable presenting to senior leaders and translating technical results into business recommendations.
  • Creative problem-solving and a bias for experimentation and iterative improvement.
  • Detail-oriented with a focus on accuracy, deliverability and regulatory compliance.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, Data Analytics, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Marketing, Data Science, Communications, Business Analytics, or related discipline; certifications in email marketing, marketing automation, or analytics (e.g., Braze, HubSpot, Google Analytics).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Marketing
  • Communications
  • Data Analytics / Business Analytics
  • Computer Science (for event instrumentation)
  • Behavioral Economics or Psychology (helpful for messaging strategy)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5+ years in lifecycle, CRM, email or growth marketing roles with demonstrated ownership of automated campaigns and measurable business impact.

Preferred:

  • 3–5+ years managing lifecycle programs or CRM with hands-on experience in at least one major marketing automation platform.
  • Proven track record improving retention, activation or reactivation metrics via lifecycle programs, A/B testing and personalized messaging.
  • Experience working with data engineers/product teams to implement event-driven tracking and maintain data quality.
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