Leveraged perfectly, 1 on 1 marketing has the potential to bolster the value of your customer base. The idea is simple: 1on1 marketing is all about the willingness and ability to change your behavior toward an individual customer based on what the customer tells you and what else you know about that customer.

Surprisingly, too many companies have jumped onto the 1on1.marketing bandwagon without proper preparation. The mechanics of implementation are complex. It’s one thing to train a sales staff to be warm and attentive, but it is another to identify, track, and interact with an individual customer and then reconfigure your offering to meet that customer’s needs.

So, is your company ready to implement a 1on1 marketing program? In most part, the answer depends on the scope of the program. For some companies, being ready simply means being prepared to launch a limier initiative. Substantial benefits can be gained from taking steps- even small ones- toward one-to-one marketing Iin specific functional areas.

For others, this is all about being positioned to implement an enterprise-wide program. To help assess the type of program you should commence with- and determine what you need to get ready-there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind.

Before factoring in the correct scope of your company’s 1 on 1 marketing efforts, you should understand the rationale for undertaking a one-to-one initiative and the basic components of such a strategy.

There are four key steps for putting a one-to-one marketing program to work: identifying your customers, differentiating among them, interacting with them, and customizing your product or service to fit each individual customer’s needs. You need to factor in all these for the success of your internet marketing 1on1 campaign.

While these implementation steps overlap considerably, they are roughly in order of increasing complexity and increasing benefit for a company. Identifying and differentiating customers are both largely internal ‘analysis’ steps while interacting with your customers and customizing products and services are external ‘action’ steps, visible to the consumers.

It is common for many managers to dismiss the possibility of digital marketing 1on1 since they feel it is an unattainable goal. And yes, it’s true that there are a host of reasons to think twice before launching a full-scale program. Nevertheless, 1on1 digital marketing is something you should consider as part of your business must-do programs.