Real time marketing is performed ‘on-the-fly’ to determine an appropriate or optimal approach to a particular customer at a particular time and place. It is a form of market research-based inbound marketing that seeks the most appropriate offer for a given customer sales opportunity, reversing the traditional outbound marketing which aims to acquire appropriate customers for a given ‘pre-defined’ offer.

Real time marketing is undertaken in various forms. Here, I would like to look at the significant impact of what is referred to as trigger-based events.

These occur when an individual takes an action and you want to affect that process in real time. For this to work successfully, it is vitally important that we understand the customer, how they think and their expectations

So, what are the key issues to consider when embarking on this route?

1. Be able to measure - know what to measure and what to compare it against. What is improvement and how will it be measured accurately so you know the change you are making is the cause? Having a control in place, even if it is just A/B testing, is invaluable in this process. 

2. Understand what can/needs to be altered - there might be certain things that can't change for regulatory reasons or current internal limitations (often there are agile solutions around this) - ensuring diligence around potential challenges will mean you identify the genuinely easy opportunities first.

3. Create a priority list of business issues you want to solve and plan for filling the gaps one at a time so each can be tested in isolation to avoid unforeseen effects.

4. Set expectations internally - wherever possible instigate a small low cost proof-of-concept. Whilst a lot of real-time interventions are similar and will have amazing impact it is wise to make sure first.

5. Always bear in mind it’s the customer’s journey not yours - ensure the customer wants the change and use test-and-learn feedback results, regardless of how surprising some of them may be, to steer towards the customer’s vision and not what the internal vision or goals are. The customers will do what you want if you first deliver what they want. Understanding the reciprocal relationship of marketing is a key factor in any change.

As for the future, real time engagement and interventions will develop and mature. I predict this will manifest itself in a very subtle form to become part of a cohesive, centralised strategy and will be a something that is ‘just there’.

 

By Adam Crisp, Strategy & Analysis Director at Zeta Interactive. 

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