What is one to one marketing? In some small towns today, you could walk into the local mom and pop hardware store, be greeted by name, asked how your daughter's wedding is coming along and be given some advice about a problem you mentioned the last week you went in the store. This type of personalized service is nice, as it makes you, the customer feel like your life is important.

One to one marketing works on the same premise as the personalized service of a small store in a tiny town. Text message marketing is a perfect example of one to one. The difference is that is is applies to larger businesses with millions of customers. In the past, larger companies used customer segmentation to market effectively. This means that you and every other customer like you get the same message, the same offer at the same time. Unlike customer segmentation, where large groups of customers with similar behaviors are treated the same, one to one marketing uses individualized knowledge to tailor their marketing message and communications.

So - how does a company achieve one-to-one marketing? Technology plays a big part. Every single interaction must be recorded. This means the contents of every single complaint, every single call, every single e-mail and more. All content related to what a customer says or does is stored in a central location for easy access.

The next step is to apply individualization to every single communication. It can't just apply to marketing-initiated communications; it must apply to every communication within every single department, whether customer initiated or not. Individualization can mean that promotions are created on the fly to appeal to the customer's specific interests or modifying the product to meet an individual customer's specific needs.

Tools to use for one to one marketing Text Messaging: Text messaging is a great tool to use as most people keep their phone with them and enjoy receiving the most up to date information. You can use text messages to alert your customers when you meet a need they already said they'd be interested in. You can use text messages to alert your customers when a product they purchase goes on sale in their local geographic area. In any case, text messaging is the method of choice to immediately reach a customer when a certain event occurs and timeliness is of the essence.

Web 2.0 Web customization using individual pieces of information is fast becoming more popular. When a customer answers your call to action on your site, you can personalize the message the customer ends up seeing. But - it's much more than that. Analytics are used to understand the customer - what pages he views, what links he clicks on and how long he spends on specific pages. And, like social network pages, the relationships and interactions, like shared digital content, playlists, and blogs are targeted and customized for what your customer wants to see.

How traditional advertising produces diminished returns!

It used to be that once the marketing department found something that worked, they would use it repeatedly. This is because every time they used it, they would see success after success. This is no more. For marketing departments, it appears that the new slogan is this: "The more we do it, the less it works." The new business model of marketing campaigns is that it will work for awhile before it stops working. That's why businesses are adopting new methods like text message marketing.

The main reason for the change is still being studied, but there are some theories. One main theory is that clients are ever-evolving and marketing techniques must change as well. When it comes to customers, innovation and evolution is the name of the game.