Over at the Peppers&Rogers Group newsletter, we have a great marketing story about how giant Hewlett-Packard is slowly learning to treat its corporate customers as unique enterprises. Kudos to Stephanie Acker-Moy and her team.

Inside 1to1, the Peppers&Rogers newsletter: Personal Touch at Hewlett-Packard

Acker-Moy’s team started with email newsletters that tailored product, service, pricing, and training information for different classes of business. A large corporation sitting with a bank of HP servers received different information than a small business that just purchased HP office equipment. Each business had different purchase patterns and information needs, whether it was software updates, marketing materials, or product upgrades.

"Once we could identify the needs of each account we could identify opportunities for more product sales at those accounts," Acker-Moy says. "Our ability to cross-sell and up-sell increased with every personalized newsletter."

After its 2001 start, HP now emails 5 million newsletters across the globe and has the ability to customize each one automatically, using business rules and print on demand.

In 2004, HP took personalization to enterprise portals. This took the newsletter approach to a more interactive level. Instead of reading about a new product upgrade, customers could see a demo and even place an order. Links to other Web sites can also be customized, depending on the area of interest. For example, a financial services customer may get information about new laptops and a feature story on change management. An insurance company may be in the market for e-billing solutions and digital printing updates. In the U.S., 95 percent of all enterprise customers are covered via Web/email personalization.

The results have been dramatic. Since 2001:

• Customers that receive personalized, targeted e-newsletters are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to click through than with non-targeted newsletters.

• Enterprise customers with account-specific Websites log on 2 to 3 times as often as customers without account-specific sites.

• HP increased its annual call center cost savings by $400,000 per year (300 percent) because customers receiving e-newsletters now have their service questions answered by e-mail.

• Average revenue-per-existing-customer has tripled since HP went live with a customized Web site.