There’s a lot of noise on the internet regarding social media. What’s the best way to get your brand noticed? How can you gain organic attention hitching along for a popular ride with memes and messaging that have growing awareness?
Ever Consider real-time marketing?
It’s a results-driven campaign strategy that leads 25% of brands to increased conversions and an impressive return on their investment.
You can successfully implement real-time marketing by listening to customers and crafting messages relevant to current events. Yet, before you test out real-time marketing, it’s essential to understand what it is, if it is right for your brand and how it can be helpful to you.
What Is Real-Time Marketing?
Real-time marketing is as it sounds. It’s a type of marketing that occurs when companies act or react in real time to current events.
Real-time marketing is about focusing on trending events or feedback. Most of it doesn’t involve strategizing or creating a marketing plan months ahead. Instead, it involves a faster turnaround time of tailored messaging that resonates with your audience’s wants and needs and aligns with your brand’s personality.
The best ways to implement real-time marketing is by:
- Following current trends that are relevant to your brand’s message.
- Using social listening tools, find ripe opportunities.9
- Seeking information to help you plan and strategize your real-time marketing efforts.
How Real-Time Marketing Benefits Brands
Real-time marketing can benefit brands in multiple ways. Here’s what you should know about the practice.
1. Increases Engagement
Real-time marketing is similar to traditional marketing and allows businesses to reach an audience interested in their products or services. In addition, brands can personalize their messages, allowing them to start conversations with prospective customers and increase engagement.
2. Builds Connections
Many marketers struggle to find creative solutions that connect with their audience. With real-time marketing, marketers can use it to build relationships with prospects using the right time and place and the currency of hot and relevant topics.
3. Provides a Sense of Urgency
Most people are afraid to miss out on the latest trends. Therefore, real-time marketing makes your product or service look more appealing when you tie your messaging to current events.
Following these trends helps consumers realize your offers are helpful at that moment. As a result, they feel the urge to engage with your product or service within that time frame.
Examples of Real-Time Marketing
Here’s a look at a few companies leveraging it successfully.
1. Wendy’s Challenge for Free Nuggets
Twitter user, Carter Wilkerson, asked Wendy’s, “How many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?”
In response, Wendy’s replied with “18 Million,” sparking one of the top viral moments in the history of Twitter.
Shortly after, Wilkerson’s tweet tallied 3 million retweets and approximately 917,000 likes. Though Wilkerson didn’t hit his goal, Wendy’s still honored his challenge with a free supply of chicken nuggets for a year.
This example shows that a simple response can effectively yield weeks of publicity for brands like Wendy’s.
2. “Stranger Things” Inspires Social Media Posts
The “Stranger Things” show has inspired many brands’ social media posts. One example is a Mochi Shoes Instagram post with the caption, “Flip your closet upside down with our awesome new styles.”
As a result, the brand made a hit in the spotlight and gained over 6,000 likes on the social media platform.
Burger King also jumped on the bandwagon, promoting its upside-down whopper on Instagram. Burger King’s post received over 34 thousand likes and around 800 comments.
As you can see, promoting around a current trend sparks engagement and caters to plenty of fans of the hit show.
3. KitKat Poking Fun at Apple
In 2014, Twitter users were tweeting about the iPhone 6’s flexibility, using hashtags like #bendgate and #bendghazi. Since these hashtags were trending, KitKat seized the moment and tweeted, “We don’t bend, we #break.”, comically showing how KitKat bars break at a 45-degree angle.
With this witty remark, KitKat received over 20,000 retweets, creating one of their industry’s most engaging pieces of content. Interesting content like this example shows how successful real-time marketing can be.
Implement Real-Time Marketing Success
Real-time marketing is a turbo boost compared to other marketing tactics, increasing sales and customer engagement. Marketers can try implementing this strategy the right way to help scale businesses to new levels.
The key is to be up-to-date on the latest trends. Plus, timing is an essential factor. Yet, once you apply it in the right direction, the outcomes can be far greater than you imagined.
Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash
Guest Post Author: Zac Amos is the Features Editor at ReHack, where he writes about cybersecurity, information technology, and other tech topics.
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.
