Study real-time advertising and marketing ideas and examples to maintain audiences engaged

Over the years, digital marketing grew from a new idea that companies are just beginning to understand, to the point where there are a plethora of strategies you can use to build your program.

While this gives marketers a chance to delve deep into their organizations and finding the right approaches that will produce the best results can also leave marketers unsure of which direction to turn.

While some strategies won’t work for your annual or quarterly plans, real-time marketing is an example of a strategy all brands should be aware of as it is difficult to translate into a long-term marketing strategy but can produce great results.

• But what exactly is real-time marketing?
• How can you implement it if you can’t plan ahead?
• And what are some examples of big brands that have been successful with real-time marketing?

This article answers those questions and more.

What is real-time marketing?

Real-time marketing, as the name might suggest, is a marketing approach that consists of reacting to current events, trends, or feedback in real-time or near real-time, almost always on social media.

Real-time marketing relies heavily on social listening, as by tracking social trends, hashtags, and conversations, brands can find the right real-time events to attend and get involved in.

This means that it is not a strategy that can be built into yours Content calendarhow it is happening at the moment.

Because real-time marketing cannot be planned in advance, many brands shy away from spending too much time on it unless they have a full-time social media team.

However, the success of real-time marketing means that every marketer should be aware in case an opportunity falls into their lap.

Why does real-time marketing work?

Why does real-time marketing work? Why does it have the potential Bring in more conversions as a carefully planned, researched and executed social campaign?

There are several reasons to look into this.

➤ The first reason has to do with the consumer’s impulse buying instinct.

Around 40% of customer spending is based on impulses, according to a whitepaper on e-commerce by User interface engineering.

If a brand can jump on a social trend or comment on a current event, you will reach a consumer exactly when they are most likely to be open to a brand and make an impulse purchase.

Making a good impression with real-time marketing can’t just impact impulse buying.

➤ Another benefit of real-time marketing is the great things it can do for you Brand awareness.

Some of the best examples of real-time marketing play up the humor of situations and can help improve your brand’s reputation with younger audiences.

➤ You can also increase your social media presence with well-done real-time marketing.

If your social platforms are known for humor or witty reactions to current events, you can gain stronger following for your planned social campaigns.

4 tips to succeed with a real-time marketing strategy

Getting started in real-time marketing can be a little tricky for some brands who haven’t spent a lot of time developing their social listening. Here are a few tips to help you understand what to do and what to avoid:

Tip 1: understand what people are talking about

It’s impossible to get ahead with real-time marketing if you don’t know what people are discussing on social channels.

You need to stay up to date on the events to understand the latest trends, memes, and news.

Try Google Alerts for topics in your industry or check out Google Trends to see which searches are trending.

You can also use the trending areas on different social platforms like Twitter to see what people are talking about.

You should also make sure that you understand exactly what the event or trend is about.

You don’t want to comment or join a trend of unclear origin, and it’s important to know when it is appropriate to join the discussion and when not.

Tip 2: be quick

Real-time marketing doesn’t work if you’re late for the party.

Think of examples of times when a commercial or TV show made reference to an event or trend that was long gone by the time it was broadcast.

Instead of being up to date and capturing audience appeal, the jokes feel stale and overdone, or at worst, embarrassing.

To be able to join a social conversation quickly, you need a responsive team which can be ready for use at any time.

If your company doesn’t have the staff to have a full-time social media team, try freelancers or agencies prepared for rush jobs.

Tip 3: don’t post and unsubscribe

Great content pointing to a current event or trend on your social channels is awesome, but it’s only half the battle.

A big part of real-time marketing is having real-time conversations with your audience.

Reply to comments, re-share other people’s posts about the event, or add your own thoughts to another post.

Remember, however, that it is possible to go overboard in your social response.

Instead of flooding your channels with content about events, keep it tasteful and appropriate. Respond accordingly and know when to end your involvement with events.

Tip 4: plan what you can

While some of the best real-time marketing examples have sprung up on the fly, there are a few ways to prepare:

Prepare your team

If you have a social media team, or even an individual social media person, you should let them know about your posting guidelines and speed up the real-time event approval process.

If necessary, you can have your design team ready for pictures and graphics on demand.

Check the calendar

While some trends and events seem to come out of nowhere, you can keep an eye out for events that interest your audience or that you know will trigger social conversations.

Create brand guidelines and processes

Having a set of guidelines for your social media team will help them know what tone and voice to use to approach real-time events, as well as guidelines on events that your brand shouldn’t interact with.

Examples of real-time marketing

As mentioned above, real-time marketing cannot be fully planned in advance, it requires your brand to be aware of current trends and have the resources and willingness to create content or responses for these real-time events when they happen .

It is not an easy task, but if your team is up to the challenge, you can achieve monumental success.

Let’s take a look at two great examples of brands that have used real-time marketing to sell products, increase brand awareness, and showcase sides of their brand that aren’t always prominent.

Oreo and Superbowl XLVII

You can’t talk about real-time marketing without mentioning the example that started it all.

During the Superbowl XLVII 2013 there was an unexpected blackout, which caused the game to be interrupted for a full 34 minutes.

However, it only took Oreo 34 minutes to change the marketing.

Oreo took advantage of the large audience at the event and the ongoing social discussions to get a tweet with the heading “Power off? No problem.”

The image included was a simple design of an Oreo cookie on a dark screen with the text “You can still dive in the dark”.

The post was retweeted 10,000 times in the first hour and is responsible for initiating the real-time marketing trend.

Samsung chargers

Apple surprised the audience during its 2020 product announcement event by revealing that it would no longer include chargers in its iPhone packages.

This was understandably immediately criticized and accused of taking more money off customers by forcing them to buy chargers separately.

Taking advantage of this surprise, Samsung posted a reminder on Facebook for all of its customers that Galaxy phones come with chargers, which not only helped add some humor to the situation but also helped them stand out from their biggest competitor .

But wait, this example has even more to offer!

Recently the brand deleted the post for one simple and very uncomfortable reason: Samsung will too Remove chargers of future phones.

This reveals one of the dangers of real-time marketing. You have to be quick to react to things, but you also have to be smart.

It is important to have a trained team that knows what is going on in the company and its future plans.

Bottom line: real-time marketing is a great strategy for brands

Especially those who have real, relevant conversations with their audience and want to use community moments to build brand awareness and encourage impulse buying.

Real-time marketing also requires real-time work, and a social media team needs to spot trends, create content or responses quickly, and work on monitoring and engaging with audiences for the best results.

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