Real Time Marketing and email
Timing is essential in all marketing efforts, but it is decisive for Real Time Marketing. Email gives you a unique set of tools to reach the right person, with the right message at the exact right time. We will show you how!
What is Real Time Marketing?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could reach just the right recipients at the time when they are the most susceptible to your message? That is the reasoning behind Real Time Marketing, a set of metods and techniques that marketers use to communicate with their recipients at at a time that suits them. In a way, it is a reversal of the conventional communication process. The marketer is not dictating what should be sent out and when – it is the recipient’s information needs at a certain time that starts the communication process.
It all comes down to the ability to offer up-to-date, relevant information.
– Being updated is one of the most important things for a marketer, explains Martin Andersson, Key Customer Developer at Apsis. But there are different ways to get there, and certain channels are better suited to send real-time based information.
A lot has changed in a short period of time. Just think of what it used to be like at a newspaper. The journalists used to start more or less from scratch each morning, filling the empty pages with news stories during the day – and then the whole paper was printed at night, to be delivered as the daily news in the morning. Neatly packaged, but sometimes quite obsolete. Today, news are presented as a continuous flow, constantly updated. When we visit a news site online, we expect the latest.
Online shopping works the same way. We expect that the items on sale really are available, simply because we have become accustomed to inventories that are updated in real time.
It is easy to see that the internet is well suited for information of this kind. But what about other channels? What about email?
RTM and email
Traditional email works just as many other marketing channels, with the same limitations: you decide to send something to a group of recipients, and once it is sent away you cross your fingers and hope for the best.
But email has evolved and there are many advantages today that won’t be found in other channels.
– Email is measurable. You can see results instantly. And that means that you can make test sendings to smaller groups and then send the best version to the majority of your recipients, says Martin Andersson. But even more important is the possibility to send personalised letters automatically. We call this triggered email, and it is an option that creates a much more relevant communication with the recipients.
The communication is perceived as relevant when it concerns something I am interested in – and if the time is right for me.
– Triggered email are messages that are automatically sent to a single recipient at a time that is specified by something the recipient does or will do. It sounds complicated, but it’s really not. Think about events such as booking a hotel room or signing up for a seminar. Then you can receive information that is tailored for you, just when you need it, explains Martin Andersson.
RSS Widgets – real time information in email messages
What happens if you don’t open the messages when they are sent? Well, the information may very well be outdated once you read the message. The offer may have expired, something may be out of stock or the seminar took place yesterday.
The best solution would be to update the information after the message has been sent. This has previously been impossible, but Apsis’ RSS Widgets makes it possible.
– This is a brand new solution, something quite unique. RSS Widgets make it possible to send information that is updated the very moment the recipient opens your message. Even if it is opened hours or days after it was sent, says Martin Andersson. And it is easy to accomplish, it looks just like any other module in a newsletter!
A breakthrough for anyone who sends time-critical information – media and travel companies, for instance – and a great possibility for everyone else.
– The great thing is that RSS Widgets works perfectly well on mobile phones. This means that you can create a mobile version of your newsletter only using widgets, and send optimized newsletters that are readable everywhere.
