Once you've designed the experience you want to provide, you'll need three things to deliver it:

• Accurate customer data -- not just a few user clicks on your site but information from the site or ad that refers to the customers, keywords they searched, geographic locations or other "implicit" information. Better yet, if a visitor is already your customer, cross-reference the "explicit" information you have about him. The more you know about the people you're trying to engage in a conversation, the more effectively you can segment your traffic.
• Business rules to define each customer segment based on the available data and to determine how each should be treated and "spoken to."
• Offers, information and other creative materials targeted to each of these segments, applied consistently through every customer touchpoint.

A third of these elements are all too often neglected, whether due to out-of-sync business analysts and creatives, lack of coordination between advertising and web agencies or a simple lack of foresight.

The experience of Celebrity Cruises illustrates the value of having actionable offers ready to go for every audience segment. To better target its marketing, the cruise line defined relevant offers for each of its key customer segments.

Content from existing marketing materials was broken down into granular components, allowing marketers to quickly assemble communications to match the specific needs of each customer coordinated across direct mail, email and the website. The outcome: improved customer satisfaction, increased cross-selling and up-selling and reduced communications costs.