Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing? (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)

This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint 99107, originally published in January/February 1999. HBR OnPoint articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. The idea of one-to-one marketing (also called "relationship marketing") is simple: accommodating a customer based on your knowledge of that customer, as well as the customer's input. This Manager's Tool Kit, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, partners, and Bob Dorf, president, of Peppers and Rogers Group, a management consulting firm in Stamford, Connecticut, includes exhibits designed to help managers understand one-to-one marketing and provide guidance for those who may be interested in implementing their program. One-to-one marketing promises to increase the value of your customer base by establishing a learning relationship with each customer. The customer tells you of some need, and you customize your product or service to meet it. Every interaction and modification improves your ability to fit your product to the particular customer. Eventually, even if a competitor offers the same type of service, your customer won't be able to enjoy the same level of convenience without taking the time to teach your competitor the lessons your company has already learned. Although the theory behind one-to-one marketing is simple, implementation is complex. Too many companies have jumped on the one-to-one bandwagon without proper preparation--mistakenly understanding it as an excuse to badger customers with excessive telemarketing and direct mail campaigns. The authors offer practical advice for implementing a one-to-one marketing program correctly. They describe four key steps: identifying your customers, differentiating among them, interacting with them, and customizing your product or service to meet each customer's needs. And they provide activities and exercises, to be administered to employees and customers, that will help you identify your company's readiness to launch a one-to-one initiative. Although some managers dismiss the possibility of one-to-one marketing as an unattainable goal, even a modest program can produce substantial benefits. This tool kit will help you determine what type of program your company can implement now, what you need to do to position your company for a large-scale initiative, and how to set priorities.