Know your customer Barbara Kahn, marketing professor at the Wharton Business School makes the case to focus on the customers who generate most profits. She talks about the banking industry where many customers with low balances and numerous checks written contribute to lowers profits. She makes the case that by keeping records of costs associated with each account banks can focus on those more profitable areas. Advertisers will need to utilize the Internet more for greater tracking of profitable business. All those billions of dollars invested in slick television advertising can now be skipped over faster than the quickest remote control couch potato can change channels.
Businesses have to know their customers and, most important, their customers' likes and dislikes.
This means we have to engage in Web marketing and database marketing. Make sure that you get permission from customers to use their names and buying habit data. Provide incentives and value for those that choose to give you that vital information. Obviously the role of the Internet is here to stay. The role of the Net will be largely what it was designed for, a great source of collecting information and communicating with others.