Review: Guide to One-to-One Web Marketing

People respond better when a communication has their name on it. If it speaks to their own special interests, their inclination to buy becomes even greater. In the past year we've seen a lot of movement towards personalization on the Web. The Internet World Guide to One-to-One Web Marketing is the first book to describe in detail the benefits of this approach and techniques which are being developed.

After acknowledging their debt to relationship marketing pioneers Regis McKenna, Don Peppers, and Martha Rogers, the authors outline the major tenets of marketing one-to-one, and then examine types of one-to-one interactivity possible over the Web.

At the core of the book are chapters devoted to exploring the major one-to-one marketing types: e-mail, website personalization, push technology, community, Web presentation and conferencing, and advertising and promotion. Then the book describes the ins and outs of traffic log analysis and database integration, comments on the tightrope marketers must walk with consumer and governmental privacy concerns, and offers a projection of what one-to-one marketing will be like in the future.

While spam has given e-mail marketing a bad name, the authors see lots of promise in relationship marketing via e-mail, the original "push" medium. They explain how to use "opt-in" mailing lists, and how to write effective direct e-mail copy and subject lines. Then they describe how mailing list servers work and provide URLs for free and fee services.

The chapter on "One-to-One Web Site Personalization" outlines one of the most difficult but rewarding approaches to personalization: database-enabled customer tracking allowing site owners to offer personalized information and cross-selling recommendations based on what they learn about the customer. The chapter provides tips on how much information to collect, examples of sites using various personalization techniques, and price ranges and features of available systems.

This book provides a good overview of what can be accomplished with state-of-the-art one-to-one marketing on the Web. Concepts gleaned here must then be mated with skilled programming expertise, however to take advantage of these powerful techniques. Internet World's Guide to One-to-One Web Marketing is an important contribution to an area that offers great promise to marketers.

Read more articles from Web Marketing Today, Issue 44, May 1, 1998