The World Wide Web is the
Perfect Enviroment for 1to1

So why are you waiting?

By Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

Believing in 1to1 as an enterprise-wide marketing concept and actually implementing a 1to1 program are not the same thing, however. (It’s like straightening up your desk – being aware of the mess is one thing, cleaning it up is quite another.) Remember, there are four distinct implementation steps in any 1to1 program:

• The first step is identifying your customers at each and every point of contact.
• The second step is differentiating your customers based on their value to your enterprise, and on their needs from your enterprise.
• The third step is interacting with each customer, both more cost-efficiently, so you can afford more frequent interactions, and effectively – that is, you want feedback from a customer that will be useful in fashioning a stronger relationship with that customer.
• The fourth step is customizing some aspect of your product based on each customer’s needs, at least for the most valuable customers.

The more you can digitize and automate these steps, the easier it will be for your company to reinvent itself as a 1to1 enterprise. At the risk of stating the obvious, the Web is already a digital platform and almost all the processes associated with it are automated to one degree or another. So let’s take a look at how some of the best companies are using the Web to achieve 1to1ness.

If there were an Academy Award for best online 1to1 marketing, a leading contender would be American Airlines. Its Web site (www.AA.com) has the capability to build custom pages on the fly, creating the potential for each of the airline’s 32 million frequent flyers to have a unique experience when visiting the site. American developed the site in association with BroadVision Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. "This is the largest personalization effort on the Web," says John Samuel, American’s managing director of interactive marketing. "And we believe we are still very much in the early stages."

After logging in on the site’s home page with a discrete ID and PIN, members of American’s frequent flyer program (AAdvantage) can create profiles based on home airport, preferred destination, preferred destination types (e.g., family, beach, golf, Europe), hub airports, hotel and rental car preferences, preferred class of service and seating preference. You can also enter your credit card information, as well as the names of traveling companions and telephone numbers where you can be reached.

The next time you visit the site and log in, you will be greeted by name. Just under your name will be the total frequent flyer miles you have accumulated.  Based on data gleaned from this profile and from your historical business with American, you will be shown relevant news, information, special offers, and travel packages as you page through the site. If one of your regular or preferred destinations is San Francisco, special fares to SFO will be displayed when you click on the Net SAAver Fares button (if SFO is one of the destinations in the current week’s offer). You are also given the option of seeing every special fare currently available, but this can sometimes produce a long, unwieldy list.  If you entered "golf" as one of your preferred destination types, you’ll see the latest golf vacation packages and/or ways to earn AAdvantage miles while you play.

The site is fully transactional, so you can select an itinerary, price it and purchase tickets online with your credit card. The transaction itself then becomes part of the AAdvantage database, adding yet another link to the airline’s huge and continuously expanding feedback loop in cyberspace.

Viewed from a strictly 1to1 perspective, the site is a testament to the wisdom of marrying basic, customer-focused sales and marketing techniques to available high technology resources. There are ancillary benefits, too. "Prior to the Web, there was no cost-effective way to tell millions of customers about a special fare available only this weekend," says Samuel. "Thanks to the interactive capability of the Web, we now can do exactly that."

By now, it is hardly a secret that frequent flyers account for the vast majority of American’s revenue. By adhering to the rules of 1to1, the Web site does more than its fair share of heavy lifting to keep those frequent flyers happy.

Sometimes, however, there may be restrictions that prevent you from going all the way in your effort to achieve 1to1ness. You might find yourself in a situation where conditions beyond your control will force you to take a slower, more guarded approach to implementing the four required steps. That shouldn’t necessarily stop you from creating a great Web site that incorporates many 1to1 features.

A fine example of this is Nabisco’s highly entertaining, lavishly produced LifeSavers Candystand Web site (www.candystand.com), which features a remarkably rich variety of interactive games primarily designed to interest children and teenagers.

Developed by Skyworks Technologies of Maywood, N.J., the award-winning site contains more than 27 Shockwave games, as well as informational features and contest promotions. Candystand is divided into 11 sections, each dedicated to a particular LifeSavers brand.

Because it’s aimed at children and teenagers, however, the site is highly restricted in terms of its ability to collect information. Like the American Airlines site, Candystand attracts more than 300,000 unique visitors a month. But unlike American’s site, Candystand doesn’t generate hard customer data. "Our philosophy is to create an exciting online experience that reflects the fun and quality associated with the LifeSavers brands," explains Silvio Bonvini, senior manager of new media at LifeSavers Co. "For the production cost of about two television spots we have a marketing vehicle that lives 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year."

The innovative site offers LifeSavers a wonderfully efficient channel for collecting highly valuable customer feedback. Candystand includes a feature called "What Do You Think." Clicking on it brings up a list of open-ended questions that have generated 180,000 responses since the site launched in March 1997. "It’s instant communication that we pass along directly to our brand people," says Bonvini. "It’s not filtered by an agency or edited in any way. It’s verbatim feedback from consumers that we consider incredibly valuable." Based on comments collected from the Web site, LifeSavers brand managers were able to improve packaging in the case of one product and help argue successfully in favor of resurrecting the abandoned Wintergreen flavor in the Carefree sugarless gum line.

This kind of interactivity represents tremendously savvy use of the Internet’s inherent power. Let’s be blunt: The more you know about your customers, the smarter you’ll be in terms of marketing to them. Offering an open-ended online survey allows LifeSavers to do some highly intelligent marketing based on up-to-the minute knowledge of its customers. It may not be "1to1" marketing, by our exacting definition, but it’s very smart marketing nonetheless.

Yes, the restrictions – both voluntary and legal – hamper the site’s ability to deliver a completely 1to1 experience. "We are compliant with the strict guidelines set forth by CARU (Children’s Advertising Review Unit), which handcuffs our ability to capture as much information about consumers as we would like. We don’t use cookie technology and all the information we’ve gathered to date has been voluntary," says Bonvini. "It can be frustrating, because we have the perfect medium for a one-to-one relationship with our customers, yet we are limited in our ability to determine who they are."

Despite those obstacles, the site is an important marketing tool for LifeSavers. The company recently "debuted" the company’s new CremeSaver candy on the Web site, offering a free roll to the first 10,000 people who agreed to participate in a marketing survey. "Everything is being done online – except mailing the candy, of course. We expect an 80 percent response. If we had used traditional marketing tactics, the response probably would be 3 percent to 5 percent," says Bonvini. "And it would have cost a heck of a lot more."

Pretty impressive, especially considering the severe restrictions imposed on the site. Chances are, your business doesn’t face those kinds of limitations.

Looking out over the infinite expanse of cyberspace, the real question that emerges is: Why aren’t more companies taking full advantage of the Web to interact with their customers?

The answer isn’t cost. Thanks to Moore’s Law (technology permits us to squeeze twice as many transistors onto a square inch of silicon every 18 months or so), investing in Web technology has never been cheaper. So what’s the problem?

Two words cover it: Fear and ignorance. Some folks are afraid that the Web will prove to be some sort of fad (it won’t). Others simply aren’t aware of its potential (virtually unlimited). The range of possibilities lies waiting to be explored. One thing, however, already is certain: There’s really no excuse for not taking full advantage of your Web site’s ability to deliver 1to1 service to your customers.

Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., have co-authored two international bestsellers, Enterprise One to One: Tools for Competing in the Interactive Age (Currency/Doubleday, 1997) and The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time (Currency/Doubleday, 1993). Their consulting firm, Marketing 1to1 / Peppers and Rogers Group, is based in Stamford, Connecticut.