The latest word from Don Peppers and Martha Rogers is that you don’t have to overhaul your company from the boardroom to the mailroom to get into one-to-one marketing.
Huh? Isn’t that a departure from their enterprise-wide philosophy?
Not really, said the pair, in New York last month to plug their book, “The One to One Fieldbook: The Complete Toolkit for Implementing a 1to1 Marketing Program” (Doubleday).
While they 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,” Peppers said. According to the Fieldbook, you can achieve “easy wins,” small, self-contained projects that don’t require board approval.
That wasn’t the only surprise during the one-to-one prayer breakfast. Though they all but invented target marketing, mail order catalogers are now in danger of being left behind, Rogers said. Most are focused on acquisition and conquest, not on how they relate to the customers they already have.
So who’s doing it right?
Banks, for one. 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 will find-on their home page-offers to destinations they’ve said they’d like to visit.
Our favorite example from the 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 everyone else.
Speaking of integration, readers will find two special supplements with this issue of DIRECT. One is our annual preview of Chicago & DM Days. The other is the first issue of TeleDirect.
This supplement will be written for end users. It will devote itself almost entirely to stories about actual applications, including some that veer away from traditional sales. In addition, each issue will feature an article by Mary Ann Falzone about call center management, plus bylined pieces on the role of databases, smart scripting and customer service.
Our beat reporter, Jim Emerson, can be reached at 415-821-4586.
Correction: We noticed too late that our story on Lester Wunderman in the CADM supplement has a couple of key words reversed. In commenting on the limitations of agencies, he said that they focus more on tactics than on strategy.
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