Month: August 2013

Real-Time Marketing: 4 Best Practice Examples of Getting It Right at the Right Time

Amazon, Walgreens, eBay, and Netflix—you know these companies. And if you’ve done business with them, or visited their websites, they know you, too. Not everything, of course—that would be creepy.  But they probably know more than you think; they probably placed you in a category or two; and they probably know you watch spy thrillers on the weekends and order four pairs of shoes for your kids to try on, but that you usually keep just one. Even though it seems invasive on the surface, you’re probably just fine with it. Why? Because they take that knowledge and enhance your experience using real-time marketing—at the right time.

 

The following marketing executives all know how to use real-time data to solve problems, offer support, and make recommendations based on your needs and interests. They have helped their companies establish customer loyalty by engaging in the proper context and allowing customers to feel control over the message, which leads to an emotional attachment with the brand and at the very core—a Return on Relationship.

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Social Business Strategy: Vision, Purpose and Value drive a new era of digital engagement

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In an era when media is largely created and broadcast by the few to the many, social media emerged to facilitate the co-creation of media in addition to creating it. While difficult to trace its origins, the philosophy of social media dates back to the mid-1990s. It wasn’t until the mid 2000s however, that businesses would encounter the idea of a new medium where brand democracy prevailed over brand dictatorship.

Suddenly the voice of the customer took on an entirely new meaning and the promise of customer-centricity and engagement was thrust into the spotlight. But after all these years, businesses remain confounded. Even though most are experimenting with social media, how it improves relationships while impacting important business metrics is persistently elusive.

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Controlling the Ideavirus

Dennis O. Smith wrote in with this question about Unleashing the Ideavirus: “I understand the concept of spreading the idea, but how can you control or direct that growth? ‘Going viral’ is great for fast growth and sharing of your idea, but are there mechanisms to steer it, trim it, shape it, etc.”

The reason that so many people catch a cold every year is that no one is trying to control where it goes. The reason that Wikipedia is so robust is that control is decentralized. The reason that there’s a huge disconnect between corporate marketing and ideas that spread is that the culture of contagious ideas is anethema to the command, control and responsibility mindset of the industrial marketer.

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