How the application of real-time marketing has taken marketing to the next level

Recently while in Dubai, I visited a departmental store to pick up some items. One of the things I bought was a pack of our own Haldiram namkeen with an “export only” tag. As I found the content was really delicious, with more nuts and raisins in it, I visited the shop next day and bought few more packets of the stuff to carry back home.

I am scheduled to visit Dubai a few months later and I will not be surprised if I get a ping on my mobile when I am in the tracking radius of the departmental store. Why, I might even get a “special offer” sms even in India on packaged food items. If I had shared this experience on social media, I would be flooded with “namkeen online” ads on my facebook wall.

Today, we live in a very transparent and connected world, thanks to information technology. All aspects of our identity embedded in various platforms, be it our facebook profiles or social security details are getting merged into one single digital cosmos. Any vigilant participant in this cosmos is privy to our opinions, interests, activities, beliefs and behavious.

Marketers are now using this to their fullest advantage. Instead of having a traditional approach to marketing planning that involved planning in advance and executing the plans they are now focusing on current trends and immediate feedback from customers. This practice known as “real time marketing” is now defining new rules in marketing. It has grown in popularity with the rise of social media as it gives marketers access to real-time information on potential customers. Marketing has always used customer data but in real time marketing, it is more instantaneous and more customer centric.

Companies today are in a position to use real time information to create innovative and highly personalized marketing communications. The information is also used to bring out products suited to their target segments. Marketers can now take advantage of the social media trends or “craze” in diverse areas such as entertainment, politics, sports and social issues. This has definitely increased the chances of making their products and services more relevant and interesting to customers.

Earlier on, marketers took chances with real time data as success was not guaranteed. Real-time marketing now makes use of all kinds of customer data to help companies understand exactly how customers behave. Thanks to improved technology leading to better customer behaviour analytics, marketers are in a position to make accurate predictions leading to higher success rates. Real time marketing now more dynamic, and more personalized than ever and it cuts across all channels of information sharing.

Among all definitions of marketing there one which says that “marketing is providing better standard of living to customers”. Obviously this cannot be achieved without an in-depth understanding what the current standard of living is. There can not be a better example of tis than real time marketing.

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