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What are the benefits of real-time marketing?

Author's avatar By Katy Howell 08 Apr, 2014
Essential Essential topic

Brands place real-time marketing value firmly in relationships

The value of real-time marketing

In my previous article I wrote about the challenges of managing real-time marketing since processes are changed, focus is drawn to live data and content is being produced by the hour.

In this follow-up I will look at our research showing how marketers rate the benefits and some examples which show the value in real-time marketing (RTM).

Where is the value in real-time marketing?

There are blogs aplenty about Oreo’s ‘dunk in the dark’ real-time coup at the Super Bowl. Jerry Daykin from Mondelez (owners of Oreo) spoke at our Social Speakeasy event a few weeks ago. He made the point several times that although it achieved marketing success; it was engagement, not reach that made it successful.

So we surveyed brands for their perspective on real-time social. And the resulting benchmark report agrees with Jerry’s view: real-time social is all about relationships.

Relationships outperform reach

Real-time_increases_engagement

More than three-quarters (76%) of brands claim increased audience engagement in our research. It seems real-time social brings brands and audiences closer together. There are likely to be a number of correlating factors. Not least because the content is in context of the current conversation and therefore resonates with customers.clear that being ‘in the social moment’ grabs customer attention. Interestingly, over half (56%) suggest that real-time social also increases customer satisfaction and positive brand sentiment.

What about the business tangible results?

real-time_social_ROIWhilst engagement is desirable, results you can take to the board much better! One in four (25%) brands believe real-time improves conversion and ROI. Of course, to know the value of any of your social media activity, you need to plan ahead and measure as you go.

As well as adding to the bottom line for some brands, real-time social improves efficiency for 44% of brands. Social can be time, investment and resource intensive. If real-time improves efficiency and increases conversions there is a strong argument for trialing a more ‘in the moment’ strategy.

Boost real-time reach – pay for it!

Engagement tops the real-time benefits, but it doesn’t mean that reach is not achieved. Over a third (36%) of brands see increased reach and followers.

Jerry made a good point when discussing reach over engagement. If you want to boost reach and share your engaging message further then use paid media. It makes sense that in the tiny window of opportunity to share a real-time social message, you amplify fast and wide.

If you want to benchmark your own real-time performance against blue-chip brands then download our real-time marketing research report.

Author's avatar

By Katy Howell

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