How to Create the Best One-to-One Marketing Strategies for Your Company

One-to-one marketing is about building relationships that put your clients/customers at the heart of everything you do. It is the epitome of customer-centric marketing. Quality communication is the cornerstone of a successful one-to-one marketing strategy. It establishes trust and helps to eliminate misunderstandings. That also includes having a deep understanding of their transactional data, demographics, social graphs and data collected using the latest digital tools to identify their best prospects. By using predictive modeling, you can put the right message, in front of the right people, at the right time to maximize your return on investment.

Start by establishing a learning relationship with your customers. That way, through every interaction, you can modify and improve your ability to meet their needs.

It’s all about re-framing the way you think about your relationship with your customers. For example, here are some questions to ask yourself in order to put the focus on them:

What does your customer need and how can we help? Vs. What can we sell to our customers?
What kind of relationship does your customer expect to establish? How can we be more involved? Vs. How do we get them to buy more?
What value do your customers need to see before they’ll purchase? Vs. How can we make more money from our customers?

Implementing a one-to-one marketing program means getting as close to personalization for each customer as possible. If you are just starting out, your business may not be set up to address everyone’s needs uniquely right away, but little by little you can get there. Every step towards personalization and customization sets you one step above your competition.

4 Steps to putting together a one-to-one marketing plan:

Identify: Identify your customers. Get to know them.
Differentiate: Customers represent different levels of values and have distinguishing sets of needs. Separating each of these into buckets will help you focus your efforts and map out an appropriate one-to-one marketing strategy.
Interact: Improving cost efficiency and the quality of your interactions is crucial to one-to-one marketing. Better insight helps build a more accurate picture of your clients and their customers. Every interaction should take place in context with all of the other interactions. If they called yesterday, be able to pick up where that conversation left off. TIP: Directing your customers to more automated customer interactions helps cost efficiency.
Customize: Treat the customer differently based on what you have learned from interactions, sales, marketing…etc. Then adapt accordingly to meet their needs and behavior.

Results can be a challenge to measure when there are so many channels to communicate. Create strategies that align with your customer’s shopping journeys in a scalable, meaningful way. When companies leverage data analysis and digital technology, they are able to deliver more individualized messaging, services and product offerings. Advancements in data collection technology have made it possible to measure results and customize creative in real time. Technology is able to pair 1^st party data such as demographics with 2^nd party data like social media participation.

“Data. Party of three…”

1^st party data: This is the most relevant and accurate kind of data because it is collected directly from customers. This information is most often collected on websites, at the point of sale, email or text messages. Highest ROI

2^nd party data: This is first party data that has been purchased from another company. It can be beneficial for two non-competing brands to partner with each other and share data sets if they complement each other. Middle ROI

3^rd party data: These are the bottom of the barrel kind of data sold by big data collection companies. The chances of it being unique to your business or useful are slim. It can be costly, but it’s readily available and far reaching. This kind of data is easy to get, but you have to be careful because it often breaches data regulations. Lowest ROI

Database management platforms, customer relationship management platforms, beacon technology and IP address targeting.

Database Management Platforms: Centralized computer system for merging, integrating and collecting data. These are essential to giving relevant, timely, engaging and personalized messaging that resonates with your customer’s unique needs and wants.

Customer Relationship Platforms: These are used to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. They have the goal of improving business relationships, improving customer retention and driving sales growth.

Beacon Technology: Beacons use Bluetooth technology to reach the mobile devices of people on the go. Potential customers are looking at their cell phones for over two hours a day. Beacon Technology allows retailers to customize messaging based on things like proximity to a store.

IP Address Targeting makes match-back reporting more efficient. It quickly gives quality feedback on what is working and what isn’t so that you can adjust your one-to-one marketing strategy accordingly. It allows you to compare and analyze targeting segments with new sales and return on investments. It also measures impressions, clicks, click-through rates and conversions.

Once you have collected the data, you’ll start to understand your customers unique set of challenges and opportunities. This will help you put together performance driven solution plan that involves clear calls to action and simple paths to purchase.

Relationships evolve over time. The longer they are, the richer they become. The insights gained from knowing the way a customer operates and having a deep understanding of their history, goals and expectations are the human element that bridges the gap between business and data. It's something we call Humanalytics. This offers an unbeatable level of convenience and customer service. You’ll be more efficient, be able to anticipate challenges, recognize opportunities and deliver more personalized results.

5 Ways to open up the lines of communication:

Listen
Be responsive
Ask the right questions
Make the most of meetings
Combine communication methods

The Future:

There can be a lot of gray areas where these steps overlap each other, but this can be a good general checklist for putting together a successful one-to-one marketing strategy.

identify your customers
differentiate them
adapt your behavior to address each one’s needs

With the evolution of technology, mobile apps, social media, the internet and mobile platforms – one-to one marketing is constantly evolving. What are some of the ways that your business opens up the lines of communication? We would love to hear what steps you take to make the best connections with your customers, providing them one-to-one marketing communications. Join us in the conversation below. Or, if you you have questions, drop me a line at mmorin@yaffe.com.

Michael Morin – always looking for ways to make better connections