The Eng@ged Customer: The New Rules of Internet Direct Marketing

Reviews are edited by Kay Ann Cassell, Associate Director, Programs and Services for the New York Public Library's Branch Libraries and Marina I. Mercado, an adjunct professor of business at Mercy College and an information technology consultant.

The Eng@ged Customer: The New Rules of Internet Direct Marketing

Brondmo, H.P.; Forward by G.A. MooreHarper BusinessNew York2000

Keywords: Direct marketing, Electronic mail, Consumer marketing

With the creation of the Internet, customers have gained greater control of the marketing relationship than possible before. Given this shift, The Eng@ged Customer aims to teach the reader how to successfully use direct marketing on the Internet to create e-mail strategies that produce profitable customer relationships and dialogue. It covers the building blocks of "customer centric e-marketing". It illustrates the basics of how to design an e-mail program that understands and manages customer contact and collects critical information, provides insight to help avoid the perception of spamming,identifies areas that will be impacted in an organization using "customer-focused"Internet direct marketing, and stresses the need to define, measure and track the success of one's direct marketing program.

The author, Hans Peter Brondmo, explains how to get customers "eng@ged"using e-mail, stressing the need to be methodical and patient. Each chapter builds on this major theme, as well as illustrating for the reader who is doing what and how in the industry. The author guides the reader from crawling toward the creation of an e-mail marketing strategy, to striding confidently into a developed customer communication base, and, finally, running profitable customer relationships that listen to and learn from the customer. The author's best example is his analogy of "forays into the dating world". "Once you decide you want to start going out, you have to figure out how you're going to meet people. Will your friends set you up or will you use a matchmaking service?… Regardless of how you actually meet, there's a great deal of truth in the old saying that you only get one chance to make a first impression. The first time your company communicates with a potential member or customer is the first opportunity you have to establish your brand image in the customer's mind. Are you going to be pushy and loud or demure and shy? The tone and approach of your initial communication will determine who chooses to engage with you and on what grounds."

The layout of the book makes it easy to identify the chapter or chapters that would be most useful to the reader if one did not have the opportunity to read the entire text. The book is organized into four parts: "Part I: Using E-mail to engage your customers", "Part II: Taking a strategic approach","Part III: Implementing customer dialogue", and "Part IV: Looking ahead". Parts I and IV thoroughly outlines how e-mail marketing will impact one's company and Parts II and III provide useful insight for anyone responsible for implementing and operating an e-mail marketing program. Throughout the book the strategy of creating a customer-centric view is repeated and reworked.

The Eng@ged Customer goes deeper into exploring customer relationships than similar texts. As more and more companies explore the possibilities of Internet direct marketing, a vast collection of opinions and strategies will continue to emerge. Presently, the author's book has few competitors. Books such as Internet Direct Mail: The Complete Guide to Successful E-Mail Marketing Campaigns (Roberts et al., 2000), E-Promotions: The Value of E-Mail Marketing (Giannoni, 2000); E-Service: 24 Ways to Keep Your Customers – When the Competition Is Just a Click Away (Zemke and Connellan, 2000); and Loyalty Marketing for the Internet Age: How to Identify, Attract, Serve, and Retain Customers in an E-Commerce Environment(Sindell, 2000), are all worth reading; however, Brondmo provides an exceptionally thorough coverage of e-mail marketing from planning to vendor selection to analysis.

Beyond the obvious invaluable roet admap the book provides to readers in the business community, The Eng@ged Customer would be a useful text for any academic marketing or communications department reading list. The author illustrates how different the rules for marketing on the Internet are. Today's customers are more in control to opt-in and opt-out of a marketing relationship. However, Brondmo points out that the business fundamentals that have historically been used to market products and services to customers offline can be employed to engage customers online. The methods used to gather and interpret customer activity are being transformed. Students enrolled in economic or business related programs will need to understand the changes that are occurring in customer-to-business and business-to-business communications.

Heather Grove HannanHead of the Prince William Campus Library of George Mason University

References

Giannoni, G. (2000), E-Promotions: The Value of E-Mail Marketing,INter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC.Roberts et al. (2000), Internet Direct Mail: The Complete Guide to Successful E-Mail Marketing Compaigns,Ntc Business Books, Lincolnwood, IL.Sindell (2000), Loyalty Marketing for the Internet Age, Dearborn Trade, Scarborough, Ontario.Zemke and Connellan (2000), E-Service: 24 Ways to Keep Your Customers, AMACOM,London.