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Real Time Marketing or Real Time Advertising?

Thursday 26 June 2014, 1:06PM

By Touchpoint Group

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The term ‘Real Time Marketing’ has been hijacked by brands using social media to associate themselves with big events such as the Super Bowl, or the Oscars – often with limited success.

True Real Time Marketing is an opportunity to trigger a message to a particular customer, at a particular time, with a specific sales opportunity. It’s data driven. It’s clever technology rather than clever creative. It delivers results, not media coverage. And it’s marketing, not advertising.

Done right, it can drive incremental revenue in a cost effective way.

Before you embark on this process there are two things you’ll need:

  • A technology platform that works in real time
  • The ability to personalise and trigger automated actions

Both of these things are standard with a quality, up-to-date marketing automation platform.

Next you’ll need to identify the opportunities that can deliver tangible results without impacting on the customer experience. Here are some tips:

  1. Know what you want to achieve: Don’t get caught up in what the technology can do. Focus on developing a program that meets specific business objectives.
  2. Understand the possibilities: What data are you already collecting that can trigger an opportunity? It could be an abandoned shopping cart, a repeat purchase or a sales confirmation.
  3. Think about what you can offer: Cross reference the ‘Action’ with what you know about the customer to personalise an offer, increasing the chance of conversion. Abandoned shopping cart? Present a limited time offer to complete the transaction. Repeat purchasers? invite them to sign up for a purchase reminder or your loyalty program, or give them a discount on a complementary product. Sales confirmation? Offer a discount off their next purchase, or incentivise them to write a review. 
  4. Plan your delivery: Work out the best channel to deliver each message to each customer. The more automated this process is, the more manageable and cost effective the program will be long term.
  5. Involve your technology provider: Talk to your platform provider - they know the technology inside out and can advise the best way to deliver what you need to achieve.
  6. Set up reporting dashboards and alerts: Real Time Marketing needs Real Time Reporting to understand what works and what can be changed to improve results.
  7. Get feedback: Survey customers on the initiatives you have implemented to improve your program and identify new opportunities.

Taking the time to design a Real Time Marketing program is essential. There will be some investment of time and resources up front, but once the program is up and running it can deliver tangible results for your business.

For more information on the products featured in this blog, click on the links below
- Database Management Tools
- Promotional Marketing and Loyalty Management
- Dynamic Content Management
- Real Time Feedback Collection and Management
- Request a Demo of the Touchpoint Platform

Touchpoint Group is a leading provider of Digital Marketing software in Australasia. For more information about our products and services visit www.touchpointgroup.com.