By Grant Dunning
What
is one to one marketing? Marketing experts Don Peppers and
Martha Rogers, Ph.D., define the one to one (1 to 1) marketing
as a process that helps a company identify its most valuable
customers, remembers everything it learns about each one,
and acts on that learning in all its dealings with that
customer. The goal, over time, is to focus on the most valuable
customers and to win a greater share of each valuable customer’s
business. In the book The One to One Future: Building Relationships
One Customer at a Time, Peppers and Rogers illustrate "There
is one way and one way only for any company to ensure its
financial security: by creating satisfied, loyal customers.
A satisfied, loyal customer is one who repurchases, again
and again, and recommends a product to friends as well."
How do we get our customers to repurchase, again and again,
and recommend friends? Forget about treating all customers
equally. Customers today want to be treated as individuals
and they all have different needs. The goal is to build
loyalty and profitability by giving customers what they
want.
Peppers and Rogers have five specific terms (the Five I’s)
that apply to the discipline of one to one marketing: Identification,
Interaction, Individualization, Integration, and Integrity.
Identification. Who are your customers, what are their
characteristics, habits, preferences, and so forth.
Individualization. Customers are different in two principle
ways: They have different needs from your dealership, and
they represent different values to your dealership. Understanding
the degree of differentiation within your customer base
is a critical step in planning your one to one marketing
strategy.
Interaction. The challenge is getting the information that
you need. It is difficult to treat a customer as an individual
with specific needs if you don't know what they are. The
solution is to create a system that allows you to interact
with your customer and to capture valuable information.
There are various ways that you can interact with your customers.
Mail surveys, phone surveys, response cards are all tools
that can help you capture valuable information.
While some people complain of being surveyed too often,
the majority of the population is willing to give you feedback
if you ask. Too many companies don't create a system to
get accurate feedback from their customers. In addition
to surveying, I recommend creating a system to capture customer
information from your sales staff.
Integration. The behavior of your dealership toward each
customer must be driven by your knowledge of that individual
customer. All of your customer information needs to be captured
in a format or database that you can use to market to your
customers on a one-to-one basis. One to one marketing cannot
be developed and implemented by yourself. Your whole staff
needs to understand the importance of your customers and
how to leverage the information that you have gathered.
Whether your staff member is a salesperson, cashier, or
service advisor - they all have the ability to build a relationship
with your customer.
Integrity. If you can’t gain, and keep, a customer’s
trust, the customer won’t be willing to share enough
information in a dialogue to sustain a one to one marketing
relationship.
If you can implement a one to one marketing strategy that
encompasses: (1) identifying your customers, (2) differentiating
them by what they need and by their value to you, (3) interacting
with them, (4) customizing your product or service to meet
their individually expressed needs, and (5) earning your
customer’s trust and loyalty, you will have an excellent
advantage over your competition.
Grant Dunning
President
The OCT Group
