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Why would a company spend money to market just one person?

Between the Internet, terabyte-sized databases and customer’s shopping histories, it is no wonder why bigger companies are directly marketing individuals. These colossal companies have the infrastructure, man-power and budget to do so and they have been doing it for years.

Does anyone really think that the CVS Extra Care Card is designed to give customers discounts and sales to people for free? They are giving you the discounts in exchange for the most import marketing tool in the world, personal information. They now know who you are, what you buy and when you buy it.

Now big companies and start up organizations alike are trying to test the “1 to 1 marketing” waters. It is a scary concept for someone who has owned his own company for 25 years or has marketed the same way for the last five years. Most people don’t understand what steps need to be taken in order to be successful marketing over the internet. What do I want to accomplish? How do I reach that goal? How much is this going to cost me? Where do I even start? These are the questions that first need answering.

First, get a consultation with an industry expert. This should always be the first step in marketing in any media. You wouldn’t start a radio commercial campaign without talking to someone who knows how to write, direct, record, and produce commercials, would you? And you probably would like to speak with someone to find out what radio stations your demographic listens to and even what time they are listening, right?

After speaking with an expert, you may come to find out that you have a lot of the necessary building blocks in place to successfully market your company to individuals. Now you will have an idea of what you want to accomplish and where you want to start.

Second, determine how you are going to reach your goal. There are typically three schools of thought. 1) Hire an outside agency that specializes in 1 to 1 marketing to handle the day to day activities for you. 2) Run the campaign in-house yourself or with your own people. 3) Collaborate with an outside agency as a consultant/supplement to your in-house operations.

If you think that an outside agency is the way to go, get all of the details ahead of time. These agencies can vary greatly in experience, industry and, most importantly, price. Also, make sure they understand your goals and don’t make you a cookie cutter campaign that they do for everyone of their clients.

If you think about doing it yourself, at least speak with an expert to get an idea of how much time, money or man hours it will cost you to accomplish your goals.

For smaller companies a collaboration to start is most likely the best choice. It is cost effective and customizable to your budget or goals.

If you want to learn more about 1 to 1 marketing through cross media marketing click here for an article by Gib Basset that is very helpful.