LTV: how to calculate customer lifetime value : Customer LTV is one of the most important indicators in marketing, helping to determine the buyer’s interest in the company’s products. It will be useful for anyone who wants to know their profits and understand in which direction the business should develop.

What is LTV, how it can help and how to calculate it – we tell in today’s article.

LTV: what is it

LTV (Lifetime Value) is a metric that reflects the lifetime value of a customer. It shows how much profit the client has brought for the entire time of interaction with the company: from the beginning of the first purchase to the last.

On the Internet, you can find many formulas for calculating LTV, but many of them are quite complex and can take a lot of time to calculate, especially for an unprepared person. For your convenience, consider the simplest option, which is suitable in most cases:

LTV = profit from a client – the cost of attracting and retaining him

What value should be considered good? As such, there is no norm – it all depends on your business. You can rely on the average of other companies in your field.

The final result will be a good benchmark for improving the efficiency of the company. This is especially true for those businesses where customers often make purchases: online stores, food delivery services, and so on.

In addition, LTV will help you understand how much your investment in customer acquisition and retention pays off. If you know the parameters for one client, then they can be easily applied to others. All this will allow you to effectively allocate the budget to attract and retain customers.

Why should count LTV

Above, we considered that LTV is an effective tool that allows you to determine the profit of a company from a particular client.

Along with this, it will help you:

Find loyal customers. You can develop a separate strategy for promoting goods or services for them.
Determine which audience should not be wasted time and money. For example, there are two clients – the first one made a one-time purchase for 100 dollar, and the second one buys goods for 300 dollar every month. On the one hand, the profit from the first client is greater, but after a while the income received from the second buyer will be much higher. Based on this, we can conclude that you need to spend all your energy on an audience that buys goods monthly, and not once.

Understand how much money you need to invest in attracting and retaining customers. Most often, without proper calculations, it is difficult to determine whether it is necessary to reduce or, conversely, increase advertising costs. For example, if LTV = 500 dollars, and expenses are 100 dollars, then you can allow yourself to spend several times more.

Find out which advertising channels bring in more valuable customers. This information should be taken into account when allocating the budget. For example, if LTV from advertising in social networks i.e FB is 300 dollars, and LTV from advertising in search engines is 500 dollars, then it is better to focus on setting up search engine campaigns and other similar tools.

Improve interaction with existing customers. The metric will show you how much more profit a particular buyer can bring. Based on this, it will be easy enough to build an effective strategy for customer retention.

How to increase LTV through email marketing

Newsletters are one of the most convenient tools that allow you to build and maintain relationships with subscribers. The longer a user stays with you, the higher their LTV will become.

At the same time, mailings can increase the average check, the frequency of purchases, and the “lifetime” of the client. Let’s look at a few ways to help you with this.

Method 1: Start a mailing list with recommendations

Users often leave abandoned items in their shopping carts that they forgot to pay for for some reason. You can send a reminder to the customer and convince them to make a purchase. This can be done using recommendations based on user preferences. Such mailing will help not only to get more orders, but also to increase the average bill.

You can also send recommendations after the user has already made a purchase. For example, a customer ordered some of the company’s products on December 8, and the goods will only be shipped on December 12. During this period of time, you can offer a selection of useful products that will be included in the same package. Thus, the client will save on delivery, and you will increase the average check.

Method 2: Sending a Purchase Reminder Email

This method will help you increase the frequency of purchases. It works as follows: you send a newsletter to your customers, in which you tell them that the goods they are interested in are running out. For example, if a user regularly buys children’s products, then the information that these products are running out will definitely stigmatize him. Most likely, he would rather order it so as not to be left with empty pockets.

Another option to increase the check is to offer the client related products. For example, a user bought a phone from you, and for this action you send a newsletter with accessories: covers, chargers, and so on.

Method 3: Customer retention through support

If you want the customer to always stay with you and not leave after the first purchase, you should take care not only about the quality of the product. It is important that the buyer is always satisfied with the purchase of a product or service.

For this you can:

to say that they are always ready to answer questions;
demonstrate how to work with the product using step-by-step instructions;
engage in interaction with the company through social networks.

Conclusions

LTV is the most important indicator in marketing, which allows you to increase the average check, the frequency of purchases and the “lifetime” of the client. To do this, you can use mailing lists, where product recommendations or instructions for improving interaction with the product will be provided. There is no ideal LTV value, it depends on the specifics of the business. However, you can take the average result among similar companies and build a marketing campaign to increase the indicator based on them.

Studies of the human brain’s response to specific products, their appearance and advertising content help marketers create the most effective advertising and predict what decisions the consumer will make. In this material, we deal with the concept of “neuromarketing”, which is a technology that combines the knowledge of cognitive psychology, neurophysiology and marketing.

What is neuromarketing

Neuromarketing is a direction that allows you to understand the motivation and preferences of buyers by measuring physiological and neural signals. Using specific procedures, neuromarketing helps you find out which product will sell best, which commercial will be more effective, or how best to place products on store shelves.

Neuromarketing research provides an opportunity to see the true reaction of the consumer. The fact is that participants in focus groups and polls can tell lies or embellish, sometimes without realizing it, because they want to seem better than they are, while subconscious reactions are always true.

Researchers record the reaction of the brain to a product or a marketing message and monitor the processes taking place in it without the participation of consciousness. This allows:

• identify customer needs on an instinctive level;
• increase the loyalty of potential customers;
• immerse the target audience in your offer;
• effectively promote the brand;
• increase sales of goods and services.

With the help of neuromarketing, product design is tested, A / B testing of advertisements is carried out, such studies also help to optimize calls for activity on the site and evaluate the impact of advertising images on neurons. Neuromarketing demonstrates the effectiveness of advertising in action and shows the direction for its adjustment.

How Neuromarketing Works

Marketing activities affect five main channels of human perception:

• the appearance of the product, its packaging, the colors used in the design – for sight;
• the sound environment in the store or the melody that sounds in the commercial – by ear;
• the smell in the store – for smell;
• what the product is like to the touch – to touch;
• also in the case of food, taste is taken into account.

The equipment used for research allows you to literally see the reaction to different stimuli: how attention was distributed, whether the person experienced any emotions from the interaction and how strong they were. Scientists monitor not only conscious reactions, but also those that the study participants themselves do not notice. This allows you to detect emotional responses to certain advertising materials, concentration of attention, style of behavior, receiving aesthetic pleasure by the test subjects, his stress reactions, associative array, etc.

All these processes are fleeting and deep in the brain, but they ultimately influence the impression and purchase decision.

Neuromarketing research is conducted with the participation of the target audience, after which the data is analyzed by marketers and neurologists, and as a result of this analysis, the true feelings of potential customers are revealed. Neurotechnologists are expensive specialists, so only large companies can afford neuromarketing research, ordering it from special laboratories or organizing it on their own.

As an example of the successful application of neuromarketing, we can cite a study by the world’s largest manufacturer of canned soups, the American company Campbell’s, due to which it was possible to significantly increase sales.

The study involved more than 1,500 people who were shown various packaging options for Campbell’s soup, while measuring biometric data such as skin moisture, heartbeat, breathing, etc. Based on the results, the company made changes to the design: for each type of soup, its color and picture on the label were determined, the plate was changed, the spoon was removed, and steam from the hot dish was added.

Another example is the experiment of the well-known online payment system PayPal, which, after conducting a study, completely changed its value proposition strategy. This brand turned to the neuromarketing company NeuroFocus in order to track users’ subconscious reactions to their product. Participants were hooked up to an electroencephalograph and asked to visit the company’s website.

Earlier in the ads, PayPal presented itself as a secure payment solution, believing that a “high security” strategy would appeal to online shoppers. However, it turned out that it was the one-click payment offer that really attracted visitors to the site, after which the company changed its brand message. As a result of the rebranding, the click-through rate increased by 400%.

Neuromarketing Methods

For neuromarketing research, the following methods and technologies are most often used:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) – using magnetic fields, the device allows you to detect changes in blood flow in the brain caused by increased neuronal activity. The more excited certain areas of the brain, the more blood flows through them. Thus, the emotional reaction, the level of involvement, the response is measured. Scientists show the subject a product, advertisement or packaging, the rush of blood to certain areas of the brain increases, on the basis of which it is possible to draw conclusions about what colors, design or advertising message should be left and whether this advertising campaign will be successful.

Eye Tracker is a device for eye tracking, which allows using the camera to fix how visual attention is distributed, where the eye moves, where it is focused. This makes it possible to understand what attracts the attention of the consumer, what is the speed of his reaction and the level of involvement. For example, you can find out how much the subjects pay attention to advertising signs, product packaging, what exactly they focus on on the site, etc.

Electroencephalography (EEG) – using electrodes and sensors that are attached to the subject’s head, an electroencephalograph records the electrical signals of neurons and shows in real time which areas of the brain are activated when advertisements, logos or the goods themselves are shown. This method allows you to measure the level of involvement and response, it is used in the study of cognitive processes, such as attention, arousal, emotions, excitement, memory, reward, sensory perception.

Advantages and disadvantages of neuromarketing

Neuromarketing is used in conjunction with traditional marketing methods. Companies conducting such research receive a number of advantages over competitors. These studies allow you to study the behavior of customers in much more detail than traditional marketing research, which gives a deep understanding of buyers.

Neuromarketing allows you to collect reliable data, get honest feedback, since the subjects have no opportunity to lie. If you just ask a person what he thinks about something, he can easily deceive or misrepresent his emotions. Neuromarketing opens up the depths of a person’s subconscious and allows you to get answers that research participants are usually not aware of.

Critics of neuromarketing point out that research results cannot guarantee that an individual consumer will behave in a particular way after a particular stimulus. It can be argued that a business does not need to know how one client will behave, it is quite enough to understand how the majority of the target audience will act.

The downside can be considered the high cost of research, which is why they are available only to the largest companies. However, small businesses can use the least expensive tools of neuromarketing, and they can apply the basics of behavioral economics in their advertising by studying the results of cutting-edge research and building null hypotheses for experiments based on them. In addition, neuromarketing is criticized for being pseudo-scientific and manipulative.

Perspectives of Neuromarketing

Major brands such as Walt Disney, Pepsi, McDonald, Netflix, M&Ms, HP, Hyundai, Ebay, Frito-Lay, and Campbell’s have been using neuromarketing research to their advantage for many years. And some popular brands such as Google, Coca-Cola, Microsoft and others have even formed their own neuromarketing departments. Despite this, neuromarketing still remains a little-studied area, although interest in it is gradually growing.

In the future, it is planned to combine virtual reality technology (VR headset) with an EEG device for collecting neurological data, which will reduce costs and facilitate consumer participation in neuromarketing research. VR systems can also be augmented with eye-tracking devices to determine where subjects are focusing their attention. And some experts predict the emergence of contact lenses for VR, with the help of which it will be possible to measure the size of a person’s pupil when watching ads.

Sterilization of dental instruments and materials is subject to stringent requirements. The most important thing depends on its quality – the safety of patients. Thanks to modern high-tech equipment, the necessary processing of tools, which was previously long and laborious, has become as simple and fast as possible. Today, autoclaving is considered the most advanced method of sterilization. It is used in various branches of medicine, including dentistry. In the article we will talk about what a dental autoclave is, how different types of this equipment differ from each other, and what criteria should be followed when choosing a device.

What is an autoclave and why does it serve in dentistry

An autoclave is a device for sterilizing instruments by high-temperature treatment. The impact is carried out by steam at a pressure above atmospheric. Compared to boiling, for example, this method is much more efficient because the temperature in the autoclave chamber is above 100°C. This method of sterilization ensures the destruction of various pathogens (subject to the requirements for different materials).

The design of an autoclave for sterilizing medical instruments is quite simple. The device is made in the form of a sealed thick-walled chamber equipped with a steam boiler, a thermometer, a pressure gauge and a safety valve. The principle of operation is also not complicated. The steam boiler boils water and turns it into steam, which is fed into the working chamber.

Due to tightness, the pressure increases, and the temperature rises proportionally to it. A manometer and a thermometer continuously monitor the parameters of the device. If their values ​​​​exceed the maximum allowable, the safety valve is activated, the device automatically turns off.

On the front panel of the device there is a display, where information is displayed during operation, and control buttons. With their help, the user can set the desired parameters (processing time, steam temperature), connect additional options or select one of the preset sterilization modes.

A modern autoclave for dentistry is equipped

with additional features, such as:

Pre-vacuum. The mode allows you to completely pump out air from small pores and hard-to-reach voids in tools. Thanks to this, 100% disinfection is achieved. The air remaining in the pores and thin tubes may contain microorganisms that are not always killed by high-temperature processing. The vacuum ensures that the hot steam is in full contact with the surface of the instruments and thus achieves the highest degree of sterility.

Vacuum drying. Tools and materials after processing must be not only clean, but also dry. The moisture remaining on them can serve as a breeding ground for pathogenic fungi and bacteria, so it must be removed. Thanks to the vacuum drying mode, the instruments are absolutely dry after autoclaving. This function is indispensable for the sterilization of textiles and porous materials.

Built-in printer  It is needed to record and document the results of sterilization. Some models do not have a built-in printer, but it is possible to connect an external printer through the appropriate connector.

Protection functions. In case of insufficient quantity or low quality of water in the steam generator when the tray is overloaded, the device will report the problem to the user.

Self-diagnostic programs. In some devices, test modes are provided to check the tightness in the working chamber and to control the quality of air removal.

An autoclave for medical instruments today can be considered an absolute must-have accessory for every dental clinic or office. Steam sterilization is a kind of gold standard procedure: a reliable, technologically advanced, multifunctional method. Of course, there are alternatives, but they are not as effective and do not solve such a wide range of problems.

For example, hot air treatment is not suitable for glass and small metal products (such as burs, channel fillers). Under the influence of excessively high temperatures – and in the chamber of the dry oven, the thermometer readings rise to 160 ° C and above – they lose strength. In addition, due to the lack of clear standards, the quality of air sterilization cannot be controlled. This method is now used only for materials that do not withstand moisture (ointments, powders, solutions), and is practically not used in dentistry.

As for other sterilization methods, such as treatment with ethylene oxide or formaldehyde, they are not safe at all. They are resorted to only in exceptional cases, when autoclaving for one reason or another is impossible.

Types of autoclaves

The main parameter that distinguishes autoclaves-sterilizers from each other is the device class assigned in accordance with the EN 13060:2004 standard. It defines the functionality and scope of the equipment.

Class N. It includes the simplest devices. Autoclaves of this type operate only in steam sterilization mode, they do not have the functions of vacuum drying and pre-vacuuming. They are suitable for processing smooth solid metal unwrapped tools. Products of complex geometry made of porous materials require a more advanced sterilization technology.

Class S combines devices with a vacuum drying function. Such autoclaves effectively handle the sterilization of smooth, all-metal packaged instruments. They can process products made of fabric, plastic and porous materials. But class S devices are not suitable for sterilizing instruments of complex configuration, with internal voids and channels. For example, it is not recommended to process dental handpieces in them.

Class B is assigned to the most high-tech devices. They are equipped with a full range of functions, including vacuum drying and pre-pulsing vacuum. This processing technology provides the highest quality sterilization, regardless of the material and configuration of the processed products. Class B autoclaves are suitable for all instruments, including dental handpieces.

Sterilization Chamber Volumn. The more instruments that can be loaded into the autoclave at the same time, the fewer processing cycles will be required and the faster the procedure will be. Naturally, the capacity should be selected taking into account the scale of activity: for an average dental clinic, a device with a working chamber volume of 12–23 liters is enough.

Number of preset programs. The more of them, the more convenient it is to use the device. The desired mode, for example “sterilization of smooth instruments in the package”, is set by pressing one button.

The presence of a built-in printer. It will allow you to quickly and easily create reports on the sterilization performed.

Ease of management. An easy-to-read display and clear button assignments are important features from an autoclave operator’s point of view.

External dimensions. Ideally, an autoclave for sterilizing dental instruments should be roomy yet compact. This is especially true if the size of the room is small.