Chapter Eighteen: One to One Marketing
Vignette: Imagine that - a bottle of soda with your picture on it! In Chapter Eighteen, you have read how myjones.com has created an interactive community online in the process of a clever one-to-one marketing scheme.
Featured URL: http://myjones.com
Getting Personal in the Web Market
Since the mid nineties when the use of web browsers brought us a graphical interface so that we could see things on the Internet, researchers, educators and writers like Derrick de Kerckhove (Connected Intelligence: The Arrival of the Web Society, The Skin of Culture: Investigating the New Electronic Reality) and Nicholas Negroponte (Being Digital) have predicted ways in which society will be affected by the new cyberculture.
One obvious affect of being connected via the Web is the speed and efficiency in the exchange of information between buyers and sellers. Businesses take information about consumers and are quickly able to provide customized products to fit individual orders. Products can reflect personal tastes and specific requirements of customers. Much is being written about this trend. Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs by information age visionaries Tapscott, Ticoll and Lowy is one recent example. Marketers are advised to keep informed as to how strategies are constantly changing in this rapidly evolving e-marketplace.
Activity
1. After reading through the short articles found in the Resource section, create your own definition for "personalization" as it applies to one-to-one marketing.
2. Make a list of items that you would like to order based on your own personal needs. Include items that reflect your life style, your home environment, the fashions you enjoy wearing, the leisure activities you take part in, your career interests, your ideal transportation, the entertainment and sports that appeal to you.
3. Visit one of the Web Sites given in Resources and find three products you might order. List all of the details you would need to give on your order form to that company in order to personalize those products to fit you, your needs and desires.
Resources
Marketing Strategy Personalization Articles
B2B Personalization - http://www.clickz.com/b2b_mkt/b2b_strat/article.php/843541
Personalization Information - http://www.personalization.org/personalization.html
Personalization Key to Online Success - http://www.advisor.com/Articles.nsf/aid/LEEDH154
e-business.com - http://searchebusiness.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci532341,00.html
Personalizing Products and Services
About's Personalized Shopping page - http://onlineshopping.about.com/cs/personalizedprodu/
Customizable Products and Services - http://digichoice.com/
Shoes designed by you - http://customatix.com/
Custom designed jeans - http://www.ic3d.com/index_old.html
Customized beauty products - http://Reflect.com
Personalized travel planning site - http://VacationCoach.com
General Mills create your own cereal site - http://mycereal.com/store/site_info.asp
Once Upon a Name personalizes keepsakes - http://onceuponaname.com
Your original, personalized love song - http://www.starworks.ca
Promotional items - http://www.imprintstore.com
Best Personalized books for Children - http://www.bestpersonalizedbooks.com
As with all of the Web exercises, the exercise for Chapter Eighteen can be used as suggested or certain parts can be adapted to better suit your student population. You will want to estimate how much time is required to complete any part or all of the parts. It will be helpful to give students a suggested time frame for completing their assignments. It will also help to determine how much credit might be given for the assignment.
1. Personalized Product Search
Give students a list of search engines to use and ask that they locate other sites that personalize the product for the customer. You may want to have a discussion about search engines, indices, directories and the use of boolean operators to help with the search process.
2. Brainstorming
Students can work in small groups to brainstorm ideas for products and services that could be marketed on the Web using the personalization approach to the product or service. What ideas did they get from the sites found in the Resource section that could be used in marketing these products or services?
3. A Special Story
Based on the idea of the personalized books for children, have each student create a story they would like to have written and illustrated to commemorate some occasion that is important to them - i.e. - a wedding, the birth of a baby in the family, graduation from college, a special anniversary, a scholastic or sporting achievement, a favourite pet, a special interest or hobby. To take the activity further, have students develop a prototype page or two of the book.