Branding

Year 2000 was the year of gaining customers; this year, year 2001 is the year of keeping customers. After the wild spending of the last two years utilizing advertising in the form of e-mails, banners, demographic and behavioral targeting of advertisements, and various combinations, we all know how to get customers, but does anyone really know how to keep them?

Let me peak your interest. United Airlines, Citibank and others think they do. Pay attention because acquiring customers is a walk in the park compared to keeping them. Learn with me what these companies and others are doing on the Web to create customer loyalty and improve their relationship management.

Basic marketing principles will tell you that customer acquisition costs are high, and it's easier to keep current customers than acquire new ones. So it is said, but how is it done, and, more importantly, how should it be done on the Internet?

Before I answer how it's being done, let me answer why it's being done and relate it to the offline world.

We're all familiar with branded calendars, mouse pads and magnets; for example a refrigerator magnet with a local real estate agent's picture and phone number on it. Why do these exist? It's branding and direct marketing combined into one. The idea is simply to have your brand, or products and services, in front of the customer as often as possible. More importantly, in front of the customer when the customer is ready to purchase, or recommend you to another.

Let us break down the benefits to the customer. First, you have given him something he wants, such as a calendar or mouse pad. Second, he either uses the item routinely, such as a calendar or a mouse pad, or the item is in his line of site constantly, such as a magnet on the freezer between him and the ice cream. You want your brand and your advertisement in front of the customer at the right time, so a magnet for ice cream is perfect for the freezer door. I view the ice cream company's advertisement every night at 1 am (my little secret) and also when the ice cream container is empty and I need to purchase more. This is a customer retention tool in the offline world.

Now, what if you could change the advertisement on the magnet, such that every time I go to the refrigerator and I reach for cheese you show a cheese advertisement on the magnet, if I reach for apples, an apple advertisement? What if you could mail me an advertisement on the day I run out of ice cream, or you could place an advertisement to buy ice cream on my car windshield the morning after I run out of ice cream? Then you have the ultimate customer retention tools.

These customer retention tools and services exist on the Internet and there are those who are utilizing the Internet as the ultimate medium for customer relationship management.

What does a typical company currently do? An individual makes a purchase at its Web site and then the company obtains the customer's e-mail. Some companies send out newsletters. Unfortunately the same newsletter is sent to every individual regardless of what they purchased, their age, their gender, their geographic location or their current behavior. Customers are being flooded with newsletters and are starting to become irritated, even with a company they frequently do business with.

The summary of your basic online company is that they obtain a customer's e-mail after a purchase and periodically communicate with the customer via e-mail. Ho-hum, every one does that.

You need to be able to communicate with your customers when they wish to be communicated with. All customers are not equal so do not treat them that way. You also need to be in front of your customer as often as possible without irritating her. Why not give her tools and utilities she can use when she browses the Internet, and then communicate with her when she's in need of your product or service? This will entice her to return to you when in need of your product or service.

You need the Internet's version of a refrigerator magnet that changes according to the customer's needs. That's the idea behind branded toolbars and browsers that also have content the customer wants. United Airlines has announced it, and CitiBank's CitiPlaza is currently doing it; putting branded toolbars and other pervasive desktop objects delivering their brands and content the customer wants. These companies have given customers a tool to utilize the entire time they're on the Internet, whether they're at CitiPlaza's Web site or not, in need of CitiPlaza's products or services at the time they're on the Internet or not. The branded toolbar or browser can be passive and not irritate the customer.

A branded toolbar or branded browser is simply an application program that assists the customer in navigating the Internet more easily, and also provides real time content from the company providing the branded toolbar or branded browser. A sports' Web site would provide sports scores on the toolbar. That same sports Web site could send an advertisement, or an e-mail, for baseball caps when it sees the customer has been searching on "hats" at a competitor's Web site. Wow, wait a minute, read that again. I bet you thought a simple branded toolbar only provided three benefits: giving the customer an easier way to navigate the Web; providing content the customer is interested in to keep him using the toolbar; and placing the advertiser's brand in front of the customer constantly?

To the naked eye that's true, but the real value comes in the fourth dimension, a dimension only attainable on the Internet. The fourth dimension allows you to utilize customer retention tools in real time to learn and react to a customer's needs and desires in an effort to create the ultimate customer relationship.

When you utilize customer retention tools to place a pervasive desktop object on a customer's computer, much like CitiPlaza has, and collect e-mail addresses etc., you've now created touch points with the customer. A touch point simply is a way to reach your customer, through a banner advertisement on a toolbar sitting on the customer's computer desktop as he searches the Internet; a text advertisement; a full-motion audio and video advertisement; or an e-mail sent immediately upon your customer searching a competitor's Web site.

Once you've obtained the necessary touch points through the customer retention tools, you now need an interface to allow you to utilize those touch points effectively and efficiently while maintaining your customer's trust and confidence.

Do not purchase a suite of customer retention tools and services without the ability to utilize the touch points easily. A simple user interface should allow you to send an e-mail marketing campaign for women's clothes to women only, and an e-mail marketing campaign for men's clothes to men only. Or an advertisement for a windbreaker to men in Florida, and another advertisement for a ski jacket to men in New York who have searched the Internet for the word "ski" in the last five days. Also needed are reports on the response to the ski jacket e-mail campaign in real time, so you can evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign immediately. More advanced tools, such as an automatic e-mail to everyone who searched on the word "ski" in the last 30 minutes etc., also exist.

As you can see, what appears at first blush to be a simple branded toolbar or branded browser, both of which have incredible benefits on their own, are really complex customer retention tools and relationship builders. These tools are useful for retaining customers, solidifying customer relationships, providing marketing data and allowing for intense rich data mining.

Visit our wallpaper ads gallery to see another way companies and individuals are keeping their brand in front of their customers.

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