Anna Clarke

What Is Real-Time Marketing? As the name implies, this approach is based upon real-time communication with customers and is focused on the needs of individual clients. Due to its ‘on-the-fly’ adjustments, it provides a superior consumer experience and greater loyalty. A recent study suggests a 26% conversion rate increase among the companies implementing real-time marketing. The reasons for this phenomenon are as follows: 1. Millennial and Generation Z consumers have a lower tolerance for ‘communication lags’. If your brand fails to respond to some emerging market trends or developments, they see this as a major drawback. 2. The companies instantly reacting to emerging trends demonstrate high levels of social listening. This improves their perceived ‘presence’ in the online environment and allows for creating viral effects if their reactions are funny, interesting, and worthy of sharing. 3. A brief response to new ideas and trends also reflects your customer support capabilities. If it takes you days to capitalise on the emerging opportunities, chances are your clients will have to wait for hours when they come to you with their problems or questions. Why Few Companies Use Real-Time Marketing? Most companies in the market are still unable to fully realise the benefits of real-time marketing due to several reasons. 1. 24/7 presence is expensive. Most small brands cannot afford to recruit professional SMM specialists and call centre operators to always be online and promptly respond to all trends and customer requests. 2. Seeing the opportunities is difficult. It requires well-tuned social listening tools in combination with manual monitoring to quickly react to interesting brand conversations, client criticisms or competitor failures. 3. Real-time reactions require tactfulness and expertise. In order to pull off ‘Burger King’ style responses, you really need to have a high-quality marketing team. Most brands find it difficult to manage direct criticisms without sounding dull or excessively offensive. What Is Real-Time Marketing Made of? According to Sprout Social, real-time marketing is primarily composed of four elements: Triggering Events Usually, they represent some national celebrations, market developments, global news or industry changes. However, triggers can also be internal. For example, a rapidly growing demand for certain products or services can prompt you to send marketing messages to your existing clients to inform them about this trend or create a sense of urgency (a.k.a. ‘get them while you can’). Targeted Audiences Depending on your original trigger, your response can be local or global. It can also be targeted at existing clients, prospective customers, the persons searching for specific keywords or any individuals interested in a certain product category. You can even offer some popular items to new contacts starting conversations with your brand on social media. Communication Methods The most popular method of real-time marketing is social media communication. However, you can also use e-mail messages, SMS lists or any other instruments you have at your disposal. Desired Outcomes Before you react to an emerging opportunity, you have to clearly understand what you are attempting to achieve with your efforts. Most companies simply want to find more followers, improve their search rankings or get some easy backlinks through greater exposure and viral effects. At the same time, some brands can be focused on more practical outcomes, such as increased conversion rates or sales volumes. Every choice can require a different focus and instruments to get the desired results. But What Can Small Brands Do? If your firm lacks the resources to use advanced social listening tools and register all customer reactions directed towards your brand, the best strategy is to play it safe. Since you may not be as proactive in this sphere as your corporate competitors, you may choose to follow a more conventional plan: ● Have your SMM specialist check news and trends on a daily basis. Reacting to some emerging opportunities within 24 hours is a perfectly normal practice. Also, monitor the social media platforms and review aggregators for negative references to your brand at least twice a day. Make sure to instantly acknowledge seeing such criticisms even if you need more time to explore them in detail. ● Be neutral in your reactions. Attacking your competitors or being provocative in your marketing communication requires substantial expertise in managing potential negative backlash. These tactics are more suitable for powerful corporate brands. ● Follow the leaders. The 2014 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a good example of a global phenomenon, allowing many small brands to take part in it while also demonstrating a good sense of humour and innovativeness. Focus on being a good follower of emerging trends until you build the competence to be more creative. How Can Real-Time Marketing Contribute to Instant Sales? Real-time marketing can be utilised at the level of individual communication with customers. This is one of the most problematic areas for smaller brands since they cannot afford 24/7 support via social media or hotlines. Still, this sphere contains the highest marketing potential due to a number of reasons: ● A lot of millennial consumers asking specific questions about your products or services are ready to complete their customer journeys right after receiving your answers. ● Many born-global brands have to work within multiple time zones, which leads to client queries arriving during non-working hours. ● No one likes being ignored in response to starting the communication. Right now, your prospective customer is mentally focused on completing their purchase. When you come to answer their question the next day, they can be busy with other tasks at hand and decide to delay or cancel the deal completion. As of today, Chatbots seem to be the only viable solution for smaller brands willing to overcome this challenge with minimal investments. They can be used in several creative ways to imitate real-time human communication: ● Reply to the most popular queries instantly by providing accurate and relevant information. ● Apologise for the inconvenience when an instant answer cannot be provided. ● Ask the customer to describe their problem or question in detail. The last element demonstrates that you are strongly inclined to save the valuable time of your prospective client by providing this information to your specialists. This way, they can respond later with a ready-made solution and minimise the amount of back-and-forth and lengthy communication. Overall, ‘being there’ for your customers provides plenty of benefits. From saving business time, to increases conversion rates and therefore, boosted sales and profits. Author Bio Anna Clarke is the owner of online writing company 15 Writers. She is a successful entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in freelancing, academic dissertation writing consulting, specialising in Business, Economics, Finance, Marketing and Management.