Today more than ever, you should understand the importance of the customization of the marketing communication, which can be leveraged by a number of automation tools. However, to make the messages more effective, the time factor is very important.
With the use of electronic channels and especially mobility, it is crucial to present offers and proposals within the scope and in the most appropriate situations. This is possible once again thanks to automation, which allows you to reach your audience in real time.
Real-time marketing is a methodology that uses special technology to track user activities and send them a message not only contextualized and highly personalized, but also temporally placed so as to be consistent with the experience of people.
In practice, the real-time marketing takes place “on the fly” and is able to determine the optimal approach for each user in a particular location and at a specific time. It is a form of marketing that can dynamically decide what to offer based on factors such as geographical location and behavior of each user.
We’re talking about an approach focused on the ability to respond in real-time to the expectations, the needs and actions of users, particularly mobile ones; this allows you to adapt the communication according to a contact visiting your website, looking for a product or using an app.
Why You Should Consider Real-Time Marketing
The philosophy behind the real-time marketing reflects the strong change in consumer behavior made possible by the introduction of the latest ICT technologies. Today, in fact, people surf the net and search information, knowing well what they want and intending to get it right away.
Most of the consumers do not hesitate to switch to another website as soon as the shopping experience proves to be lower than expected. This is driving companies (and especially marketers) to dialogue with their stakeholders before making an offer or a proposal. What you want, in fact, is to meet the needs of consumers and customize for each of them not only the products but also the website, advertising and e-store.
RTM does not consist of a single action, nor is based solely on technology: it is quite a new attitude, a way of relating to customers that is certainly not only innovative, but also highly complex.
A recommended platform you can use is GetResponse (known well for its email marketing services), which has recently introduced its unique marketing automation. There are several new features that let you create workflows to better communicate with your audience and turn your subscribers into customers.
As you can see, there’s a simple to use drag-and-drop workflow builder to help you create complex campaigns. You just need to plan the complete user experience with your strategy and then create the corresponding powerful workflows.
You may want to think about different scenarios or even check in real time what is happening with your subscribers. There are many options available to track and target users to make them complete the purchase of your products or services.
At this point, it is obvious to ask: how to put the real-time marketing in practice?
Here are 8 ideas to implement.
Dynamic Banners
In other words, recommending products or solutions in real-time. You can use the marketing automation platform to analyze the story of the visitor’s navigation and observe his behavior on your website to show him an offer that matches his interests and the search parameters used.
Here’s how the mechanism of dynamic banners works: they do not possess a static content set for each user, instead they can adapt to users by identifying the characteristics and placing them in a certain category – or, more simply, having their content function of a set of rules and controls.
It is important to remember that you can show dynamic banners even to anonymous users (i.e. those who have not yet provided their contact details).
Personalized Content Sent to Mobile Apps
You can send customized material using the mobile application as a channel.
Thanks to the platform of mobile marketing automation, you can understand which apps are installed on the user’s mobile device, on which sections of your app, in particular, they spend more time and, in general, to trace the behavior.
When you have gathered all this information, you are able to offer suitable content, capable of reflecting the activities carried out by your audience, which can be modeled on real-time.
Geolocation and Beacon
These are proposals based on the physical location of your contacts.
The position data obtained from GPS sensors installed on mobile devices and their ability to interact with web beacons installed in particular areas (such as stores) produce a set of information that allows you to adapt the content of the marketing message (in addition to the time and specific location) and send an offer – via SMS or notification (push notification) – exactly when a potential customer is located near to your traditional shop.
This information will also allow you to further enhance each user’s profile, such as identifying the habitual movements.
Push Notification
This is an effective way to increase user engagement and encourage purchases.
Instead of sending many notifications on mobile devices through the installed app, you can dynamically send a personalized message, likely to capture the attention of your contact when showing interest in a particular product.
You can use services like GoRoost (compatible with WordPress) to enable push notifications on your blog. The free plan allows you to send up to 100,000 push messages per month
Live Chat
That’s another way to direct communicate with your audience. Who, better than a human being, is able to manage an effective and personalized communication in real time?
If an instant messaging system is undoubtedly useful to offer users a preferential channel to receive help or advice from you (or a member of your team), the marketing automation tools that have previously profiled contact, are going to help with a useful range of information to better communicate with your audience.
You will understand their preferences and needs, as well as any issues already addressed in the past. Your users will have the feeling of being treated in a special way.
Sales Alarms for B2B Business
With this method, you can immediately resume the dialogue with cold leads. If anyone seems to have lost interest in your business and, at some point enter the site and check the price list, it is an unexpected opportunity that must not be ignored: at this time the user is interested and may take into considering your offer, so it is useful to engage with him.
Thanks to automatically generated alarms in real time, you can take action, reach immediately these leads (suddenly turned hot) and increase the chances that they become clients.
That’s a great idea for abandoned carts. With GetResponse new marketing automation feature, for example, you can convert cart abandoners into customers and regain your revenue. With targeted messages, you can reach out those who have not finished to complete the purchase on your site and invite them to complete the action, thanks to a series of conditions, actions and filters you can use to maximize the effectiveness of your retention campaigns.
It’s important to note that, according to Econsultancy, the 42% of B2B companies has already introduced RTM solutions.
Product Recommendation Engine
These are tools that can perform predictive analysis to identify preferences and potential users purchasing decisions.
Among the marketing automation technology, there are special solutions designed for online stores, which can collect data starting from the contacts online behavior – not just the one where they click, but also what appear (for how long and how often). This allows you to know, for example, the interest showed by users browsing your website and product catalog.
The system collects and correlates data so you can make predictions and recommendations: anything that suggests the visitor a series of products on the basis of their interests, what they bought or what they have chosen users with the same characteristics.
Offers may be delivered by email (if the user is registered) or directly displayed on a banner:
Dynamic Contact Form
These are modules capable of reflecting, in real-time, the interests of users depending on what they were looking for.
Instead of proposing to all visitors the same form, it is useful to adapt the text and graphics based on their preferences and what the user has observed visiting the site.
Great for email marketing!
In Conclusion
Real Time Marketing is primarily a philosophy of communication: the desire to respond as soon as possible to the needs of each individual user instead of proposing to all the same campaign.
This way, it’s possible to reach people while they are still considering the possibility of making a purchase, submitting them a relevant proposal that matches their needs and interests.
This is an advanced way to do marketing and it’s applicable not just to big businesses, but also to small-sized realities.
And you, have you ever heard of real-time marketing?
What about marketing automation?
Please share your views and experience in the comments below, thanks!
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