Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.
A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or use purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. The term most commonly refers to a person who purchases goods and services for personal use.
In marketing, market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers based on shared characteristics.
In economics and marketing, product differentiation is the process of distinguishing a product or service from others to make it more attractive to a particular target market. This involves differentiating it from competitors' products as well as from a firm's other products. The concept was proposed by Edward Chamberlin in his 1933 book, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition.
Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies leverage data analysis and digital technology to deliver individualized messages and product offerings to current or prospective customers. Advancements in data collection methods, analytics, digital electronics, and digital economics, have enabled marketers to deploy more effective real-time and prolonged customer experience personalization tactics.
Porter's generic strategies describe how a company pursues competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three/four generic strategies, either lower cost, differentiated, or focus. A company chooses to pursue one of two types of competitive advantage, either via lower costs than its competition or by differentiating itself along dimensions valued by customers to command a higher price. A company also chooses one of two types of scope, either focus or industry-wide, offering its product across many market segments. The generic strategy reflects the choices made regarding both the type of competitive advantage and the scope. The concept was described by Michael Porter in 1980.
A prosumer is an individual who both consumes and produces. The term is a portmanteau of the words producer and consumer. Research has identified six types of prosumers: DIY prosumers, self-service prosumers, customizing prosumers, collaborative prosumers, monetised prosumers, and economic prosumers.
Personalization consists of tailoring a service or product to accommodate specific individuals. It is sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals. Personalization involves collecting data on individuals, including web browsing history, web cookies, and location. Various organizations use personalization to improve customer satisfaction, digital sales conversion, marketing results, branding, and improved website metrics as well as for advertising. Personalization acts as a key element in social media and recommender systems. Personalization influences every sector of society— be it work, leisure, or citizenship.
Customised software is software that is developed specifically for some specific organization or other user. As such, it can be contrasted with the use of out-of-the-box software packages developed for the mass market, such as commercial off-the-shelf software, or existing free software.
The eCRM or electronic customer relationship management coined by Oscar Gomes encompasses all standard CRM functions with the use of the net environment i.e., intranet, extranet and internet. Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers through the use of information technology (IT).
Job production, sometimes called jobbing or one-off production, involves producing custom work, such as a one-off product for a specific customer or a small batch of work in quantities usually less than those of mass-market products. Job production consists of an operator or group of operators to work on a single job and complete it before proceeding to the next similar or different job. Together with batch production and mass production it is one of the three main production methods.
The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of consumer within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message.
Configurators, also known as choice boards, design systems, toolkits, or co-design platforms, are responsible for guiding the user through the configuration process. Different variations are represented, visualized, assessed and priced which starts a learning-by-doing process for the user. While the term “configurator” or “configuration system” is quoted rather often in literature, it is used for the most part in a technical sense, addressing a software tool. The success of such an interaction system is, however, not only defined by its technological capabilities, but also by its integration in the whole sale environment, its ability to allow for learning by doing, to provide experience and process satisfaction, and its integration into the brand concept.
Micromarketing was first referred to in the UK marketing press in November 1988 in respect of the application of geodemographics to consumer marketing. The subject of micromarketing was developed further in an article in February 1990, which emphasised understanding markets at the local level, and also the personalisation of messages to individual consumers in the context direct marketing. Micromarketing has come to refer to marketing strategies which are variously customised to either local markets, to different market segments, or to the individual customer.
Customerization is the customization of products or services through personal interaction between a company and its customers. A company is customerized when it is able to establish a dialogue with individual customers and respond by customizing its products, services, and messages on a one-to-one basis. CUSTOMERization means identifying and serving what you perceive as your optimal customers. Customerization requires a company to shift its marketing model from seller-oriented to buyer-oriented. The goal is to help customers better identify what they want. Customerization enables companies to have the ability to adapt personalization and one-to-one marketing initiatives for the digital marketing environment. Customerization uses a “build-to-order” mass customization process to deliver a product or service that fits the needs of the customer. It is a critical aspect of the emerging new marketing paradigm.
A target market, also known as serviceable obtainable market (SOM), is a group of customers within a business's serviceable available market at which a business aims its marketing efforts and resources. A target market is a subset of the total market for a product or service.
Custom-fit means personalized with regard to shape and size. A customized product would imply the modification of some of its characteristics according to the customers requirements such as with a custom car. However, when fit is added to the term, customization could give the idea of both the geometric characteristics of the body and the individual customer requirements, e.g., the steering wheel of the Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso.
Knowledge-based configuration, also referred to as product configuration or product customization, is an activity of customising a product to meet the needs of a particular customer. The product in question may consist of mechanical parts, services, and software. Knowledge-based configuration is a major application area for artificial intelligence (AI), and it is based on modelling of the configurations in a manner that allows the utilisation of AI techniques for searching for a valid configuration to meet the needs of a particular customer.
Toolkits for user innovation and custom design are coordinated sets of “user-friendly” design tools. They are designed to support users who may wish to develop products or services for their own use. The problem toolkits are developed to solve is that, while user designers may know their own needs better than do producers, their technical design skills may be less than those of producer-employed developers. For example, expert users of tennis rackets – or expert users of custom integrated circuits – generally know more than producers do about the function they want a product to serve. However, they are often not as good as producer engineers at actually designing the product they need.
The adaptive machine is a category of flexible industrial machinery characterized by the ability to intelligently adapt itself to the product to be produced, e.g. to move individual products through the manufacturing, assembly, inspection, packaging and other process stations required for to produce them.
