In fact I would argue it is here today.
Take a look at one of my last post on Hey Marketer: When was the last time you talked with a customer?
And then ask yourself–how long did some of those interactions take. For eample, the company I work for was able to resolve the issue for the person below in 15 minutes! When is the last time you baked up a marketing plan, executed it, got the reaction and closed the whole thing off in 15 minutes!
I always felt marketing needed serious lead time to ramp up on any major strategic shift.
But over the last few years (including last year’s recession marketing) we didn’t have months to plan. My old boss used to say to me “none of our Financial Services customers are waiting to fix their mortgage exposure issues–they are diving in right now and we can’t wait 45 days to put on a brilliant webinar on How to Solve Today’s Mortgage Crisis–we need to do it right now!” Followed by “if you had a leak in your basement would you wait 45 days for a consultant to put on a webinar on How to fix your leaky basement??” (and that one always killed me when he said that!)
But ask your media partners if they can turn on a dime and get you a webinar in a week–answer NO. It takes months to plan and execute.
I would argue we are moving into an environment where we don’t have months to plan and execute or even days to plan and execute–we are moving to Real Time Marketing. Where we see something on the Socialsphere and we plan and react to it in seconds. All brought on by things like monitoring your brand on forums, blogs, comments, Twitter, and social networks.
Unfortunately I think the world has changed forever–so you better get used to the new world of Marketing–Real Time Marketing!
Tags: customer, Social Media
I agree, Paul, that marketers must be nimble and flexible in responding to reputation, crisis, and customer relations management issues. But, don’t you think that employing these immediate tactics can still be part of an overarching strategy in the marketing plan?
There was a great article in the NY Times yesterday about new tools for tracking customer sentiment online. It’s worth a read: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/technology/internet/24emotion.html
At Dukky we use the phrase “real time marketing” and “real time analytics” all the time. We’re finding that our customers want to see the dashboards we build to reflect results in “real time.” So as as soon as their customer shares a deal / coupon with a friend on facebook – they want to know.
I agree: everyone wants to watch and measure reputation and results immediately. But Elaine is right: marketers still need to take some time to get a good comprehensive plan in place. That can’t happen overnight…
Paul, thanks for the great post.
In my own point of view, real time marketing is inevitable in the future of all businesses.
As we live in this modern digital age where the most common communication tools we use were only imaginings in early sci-fi novels, real time marketing will be the norm for all business in the near future.
With social media communities, high-end webcams and fast computers, why not?
@ Elaine – for me its part of the plan and from my discussions that where the vanguard is – look at comcast, dell etc …
its time to add it to your plans if it isnt
p
@ Kristen – I agree you need a plan in place but listening isnt optional anymore which is why responding is becoming the new black
@ Strategic – YES you got it!
While I agree on the real time marketing definition, I would suggest that there are markets and situation where taking some time before answering is still a valuable resource, for customers, too. I mean that having all the figures right here right now does not equal to have the correct answer to an issue.