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05.25.07
Why B2B Personalization Needs To Go Beyond Amazon
 By Mike Moran
Amazon has the best (and best known) personalized Web experience, but B2B marketers face challenges that Amazon doesn't.
After my post yesterday on the deepening of personalization across the Internet, I was asked to explain a bit more about what kinds of personalization techniques are in use at ibm.com. I've been away from ibm.com for several months now, but I am happy to talk about what IBM is doing to personalize their customers' experience. If you think that personalization techniques begin and ends with Amazon, read on.
IBM has focused in three major areas:
• Identity. Using Tivoli products, ibm.com allows customers to sign in and get access to material that requires authentication, such as extranet sites built expressly for their companies, or support information available to those with special service contracts.
• Recognition. Even without registering, IBM customers can be recognized based on their company's IP address. IBM can identify the company and personalize tasks and marketing messages based on the company itself, or its industry or other firmographic factors.
• Participation. For customers who frequent the site, IBM also allows individual customers to choose their favorite subjects to create a personalized experience. You can create a profile with your interests or tell IBM more about who you are, which is used to deliver information that is more relevant to you. IBM even places a button on pages that adds that interest to your profile while you are browsing.
In these ways, IBM is similar to many companies that want to provide a more personalized experience, but who have struggled to emulate Amazon's consumer-oriented experience. IBM and other B2B marketers deal with companies where several people make any purchase decision. And where half the visitors to its Web site are coming for support for existing products. And where purchases are far less frequent and contain fewer clues about what someone wants next. And where most of those purchases happen offline. B2B personalization is just plain tougher than what Amazon does, as wonderful as that Amazon experience is.
Amazon has done a great job at teaching the world how a terrific personalized experience can work, but the deepening of personalization that is occurring now depends on techniques that Amazon doesn't need. It's fun to watch B2B marketers try to deliver a great customer experience that breaks the consumer mold.
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