Though they all but invented target marketing, mail order catalogers are now in danger of being left behind, according to one-to-one marketing gurus Don Peppers and Martha Rogers.
That’s because many MO firms are focused on acquisition and conquest, not on how they relate to the customers they already have, said the pair, in New York yesterday to plug “The One to One Fieldbook: The Complete Toolkit for Implementing a 1to1 Marketing Program.”
“Very few have an effective Web site,” Peppers said. “Lands’ End is a disaster.”
So who’s doing it right?
Banks, to name one example. The best of them have stepped away from the “productization mania” of the `80s, and are now organized by customer segments. It’s particularly true overseas.
And banks aren’t the only ones: The Economist recently did a survey showing that 18% of companies now organize around groups of customers, and that 50% will do so by 2002.
And when it comes to Web sites, few firms are doing a better job than American Airlines. Customers registered on the site (http://www.americanairlines.com) will find–on their home pages–offers to destinations they’ve said they’d like to visit. And those offers will be timed for when their kids are off from school.
But the best news delivered during yesterday’s Q&A is that you don’t have to overhaul your company from the boardroom down to the mail room to get into one-to-one marketing. That, in fact, is the subject of “The One-to-One Fieldbook.”
The volume tells you how to achieve “easy wins,” small, self-contained projects that don’t require board approval.
Isn’t that a departure from the old enterprise-wide argument?
Not really, Peppers answered. While he and Rogers still urge firms to integrate their operations, their consulting experience has taught them that “companies have to be able to do this in bite-size chunks,” he said.
“There’s a five-to-10 year transition to become a true one-to-one enterprise,” Rogers added.
Published by Doubleday, the book is supplemented by an unusual service. You can go onto the Peppers and Rogers Web site (http://www.1to1.com) for spreadsheets and checklists.
Our favorite object lesson from yesterday’s session? That of the pet company that asked its customers a key question: “Do you give your pet a Christmas present?”
Turns out that’s the most critical variable. Pet owners who answer yes have a lifetime value three to five times higher than that of anyone else in the database.
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