What Is One-to-One Marketing? Strategies To Drive Growth

In person, a great salesperson greets existing customers by name, remembers their preferences, and suggests new items that complement past purchases. These satisfied customers return knowing they’ll receive a personalized shopping experience.

Stronger customer satisfaction can boost sales, too: 60% of consumers purchase from a brand based solely on the service they expect to receive. But, as an ecommerce business owner, how can you recreate these warm and knowledgeable customer relationships online?

One-to-one marketing aims to achieve this personalization at scale, helping you build lasting relationships with customers you may never meet face to face. Learn how to make every shopper feel like a regular when they’re clicking through your website.

What is one-to-one marketing?

One-to-one marketing is a targeted relationship marketing strategy that uses detailed customer data to create highly personalized experiences for individual customers. While broader personalization might group customers into segments, one-to-one marketing takes this a step further, treating each shopper as a unique “segment of one,” accounting for unique preferences and needs.

This strategy relies on marketing automation tools and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to gather, analyze, and act on individual customer information. By building deep, personalized relationships with each customer, one-to-one marketing maximizes the relevance and impact of every interaction. For one customer, this might look like the perfect laptop bag suggestion for a recently purchased computer, but for another, this might be a loyalty discount on their birthday.

Components of one-to-one marketing

One-to-one marketing aims to make individuals feel understood, valued, and catered to—even as your business scales to serve more customers. The process involves three core components that work together to create a tailored experience for each customer:

Segmentation

Segmentation divides your customer base into distinct groups with similar behaviors or characteristics. One-to-one marketing builds on this concept by creating micro-segments, potentially down to individual customers. This “segment of one” approach ensures each customer receives marketing messages and discounts that feel uniquely tailored to their interests and needs. Individual marketing can make each interaction with your brand more relevant and appealing, increasing customer loyalty.

Your fitness equipment shop might segment customers into yoga enthusiasts and weightlifters, then craft targeted social media ad campaigns for both. Yoga lovers would see new mats and blocks, while lifters would get ads for dumbbells and weight benches. Drilling down further, the brand could send personalized emails to individual yoga lovers who’ve purchased mats but have yet to purchase blocks.

Personalization

Personalization adapts marketing messages and experiences to align with individual customer preferences and behaviors. With one-to-one marketing, personalized interactions become hyper-specific. It uses real-time data and predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs and provide timely, relevant offers—before the customer realizes they want them. This results in shoppers feeling recognized and appreciated for their unique tastes and history with your brand.

For example, your online fashion brand could display a Just for You section on its homepage, featuring new cocktail dresses for a customer who recently browsed evening wear and has a history of purchasing formal attire. This section would look entirely different for every shopper based on their style and past purchases.

Customization

Customization lets customers tailor their experience with your brand to match their specific needs. One-to-one marketing elevates this concept by offering increasingly granular customization options, allowing shoppers to fine-tune their preferences to specific product features, color variations, or uses.

Your ecommerce eyewear store might offer a customizable email newsletter subscription. Customers could select their preferred email frequency and specify details like frame shape, face shape, color preference, and favorite brand. Each newsletter you send would reflect individual customers’ exact tastes.

How one-to-one marketing can impact your business

A 2023 report revealed that only 30% of brands use deeper insights to personalize their customer experience. Many companies stick to broad marketing strategies because they’re straightforward, less technically demanding, and require fewer tools. But investing in one-to-one marketing often yields significant benefits:

Improved customer experience

Shoppers expect brands to know them on a personal level. A 2021 report found 72% of consumers expect businesses to recognize them as individuals and understand their interests, and 67% expect relevant product recommendations. One-to-one marketing delivers on these expectations by creating custom-made experiences for each customer. When existing customers feel genuinely understood, they’re more likely to stick around and spend more over time, boosting customer loyalty and customer lifetime value (CLV).

Higher marketing ROI

About 44% of marketers believe customer-, journey-, and campaign-level insights help boost their overall return on investment (ROI). One-to-one marketing allows your brand to tailor marketing efforts to individuals. Typical marketing campaigns—like billboards and TV commercials—cast a wider net, making it more challenging to connect with customers on a personal level.

Increased revenue

Companies that excel at personalization generate 40% more revenue than their average competitors. This difference comes from one-to-one marketing’s ability to present the right message to the right person at the right time. Personalized marketing campaigns don’t just improve conversion rates, they can increase repeat purchases and open up new revenue streams. By treating each customer as an individual, brands unlock the full potential of their customer base.

An example of effective one-to-one marketing

Renu Therapy, a producer of premium cold plunge tubs, understands the importance of one-to-one marketing. Founder Bill Bachand called early adopters after every purchase. He also had direct conversations with potential customers at trade shows to build community and develop product options, models, and features.

“I called every customer to say, ’Hey, thanks for the order,’” Bill says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “I just got to know a little bit about them. I really like that: getting to know my customers and why they are buying a cold plunge.”

As a result of this personal touch, its high-end cold plunges gained popularity among entrepreneurs, actors, and athletes. Now a multimillion-dollar company, Renu Therapy has a dedicated team to call each customer personally.

How to build and implement a one-to-one marketing strategy

1. Set specific goals
2. Collect first-party data
3. Sort and segment your data
4. Interact with your customers across channels
5. Refine and iterate based on results

Even if you already use personalized marketing tactics, moving to one-to-one marketing requires a more focused strategy and deeper customer understanding. Here’s how to approach this:

1. Set specific goals

Clear and measurable objectives are the foundation of an effective one-to-one marketing strategy. For customer acquisition, you might aim to increase new customer conversion rates by 15% through highly targeted, personalized campaigns. On the retention side, a goal could be boosting customer lifetime value by 20% by creating marketing campaigns based on individual purchase history and preferences. These goals shape your personalized marketing strategy, informing how you interact with customers and which metrics you’ll use to measure success.

2. Collect first-party data

Third-party cookies are becoming less reliable for tracking user behavior across websites, with major browsers phasing them out due to privacy concerns and regulations like GDPR. First-party data, collected directly from your customers through their interactions with your brand, offers a more accurate and reliable alternative. Collect customer data from website visits, purchase history, email engagement, and customer service interactions. To build trust when collecting customer data, prioritize transparency and consent. Communicate how you’ll use the information to improve their experience.

Katherine Oyer, founder of the baby clothing brand Francis Henri, uses customer data to drive business decisions. Starting as an ecommerce store, Katherine expanded to in-person selling, by using insights from online interactions and pop-up shops to refine her marketing strategy and product offerings.

“I have loved having both Shopify the ecommerce and [the] POS. Combined inventory is incredible for the team. To have everything in one place, to look at the analytics, is fantastic,” she says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast.

This abundance of data allows her to zoom in, observing order trends for the entire lifetime of a customer.

“I can look at customers, and I’m almost seeing their kids grow,” she says. “I’m seeing newborn clothing, and then I’m seeing one-year-old, then two-year-old. Every season, they’re ordering a big chunk of things for a bigger kid.”

Katherine also emphasizes the value of one-to-one marketing.

“The customer experience is so important for me—we send a handwritten thank you card in every package,” she says.

3. Sort and segment your data

After you collect customer data, organize it into comprehensive customer profiles using CRM systems or customer data platforms. Include as many data points as possible—like purchase history, browsing behavior, and customer feedback—to create a holistic view of individual customers.

You can track customer interactions across multiple channels to identify patterns and preferences that inform your marketing decisions. For example, your outdoor gear store might use analytics tools to track a customer’s purchases of hiking boots, tent browsing history, and feedback on camping equipment. You can then tailor product recommendations and create targeted campaigns for their next adventure.

4. Interact with your customers across channels

Personalized interactions across multiple touchpoints create a customer experience that feels cohesive. Start with a few key channels and gradually expand your reach as you refine your strategy. Here are some channels to consider:

• Website. Display dynamic content and personalized product recommendations on your homepage to visitors based on browsing history and past purchases.

• Email and SMS. Send targeted messages with personalized offers, product updates, and cart abandonment reminders.

• Social media advertising. Use custom targeting and lookalike audiences to deliver highly relevant ads that reflect each customer’s interests and purchase intent.

• AI agents and chatbots. Implement conversational AI and chatbot tools on your website to provide instant, personalized customer support and product recommendations based on real-time interactions.

• In-store experiences. For retailers selling both in person and online, use mobile apps or loyalty programs to connect online and offline data, offering personalized in-store promotions or assistance.

5. Refine and iterate based on results

Analyze your one-to-one marketing efforts regularly to identify what’s working and what needs improvement. If personalized emails aren’t boosting open rates or click-throughs, experiment with subject lines, content structure, or send times. If sales aren’t increasing as expected, reassess your segmentation strategy and the relevance of your offers.

A/B test different personalization approaches to see which tactics resonate most with your audience. Keep tweaking your approach, and be ready to pivot when needed.