Time Marketing: An Unknown Concept

Have you ever heard of this term Time Marketing? Maybe or maybe not. It sounds like a new concept right, but it’s not, timing is always needed in marketing. So let’s understand what exactly this concept means.

Time Marketing, formally known as “purchase timing “behaviour, is the concept of when to introduce a new product in the marketplace. It’s all about finding and creating guidelines about when is the right time to position a product in a market.

WHAT’S IN IT 

Examples of Time Marketing

Some obvious examples of time marketing are:

• The advertisement of fans, cooler, air conditioners and ice-creams that goes on air on televisions and departmental stores as soon as summer season is up as people urge to buy all these to escape from hot waves of summer.
• Geysers, heaters or blankets promotions are more in the winter season not in summer as they are some necessities of winter.

These examples illustrate the importance of time in marketing. But now let’s talk about some facts and findings. 

Technically speaking, customers buy products at different phases of the day and different days of the week.

According to a research conducted it is found that 80% of diaries, i.e., (15% of the total market) are sold in November, and people buy kitchen and cookware gadgets in May and June the most.

Real-time Marketing

Real-time Marketing is not like any other marketing plan which has to be developed in advance to be successfully executed.

Instead, it is done on-spot according to the prevailing situation happening both offline or online at a specific place to promote the product, especially by using social media. It is “on-the-fly mode” of marketing.

Certainly, seizing the right moment is a significant factor for real-time marketing.

Also You can Read our Blog on DETAILED EXPLANATION ABOUT REAL-TIME MARKETING

Some examples for better understanding are:

• The real power of real-time marketing was shown by Oreo when during the Super Bowl XLVII, there was a 34-minute massive power out in New Orleans, the Oreo’s media company 360i immediately tweeted a photo of oreo cookie in the dark with a line “You can still dunk it” followed by a caption “Power out, no problem”.

With a single tweet they took over the world, it received 10,000 retweets in an hour which saved them millions.

• Secondly, as every business has a social media account, quick response to the followers or customers is an excellent opportunity for real-time marketing just like Wendy’s did:

When Carter, a super nugget fan, posted a tweet, “Yo @Wendy’s how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?” In its response Wendy’s quickly replied “18 million”, and the game was on, Carter tweeted “Consider it done”.

In a couple of weeks, Carter’s post of retweets went viral and dethroned Ellen DE Generous record of the most retweeted tweet. A quick response helped Wendy’s gain publicity that may cost them millions.

• In 2014 Grammy’s singer Pharrell Williams wore a hat resembling the logo of popular restaurant chain Arby’s to the event.

There the marketing team of Arby’s grabbed the opportunity and quickly tweeted “Hey @Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs”. This was an instant hit with 81,410 retweets. That’s what we call real-time marketing.

History

• Real-time marketing or RTM may sound new to you, but it’s been around since the mid-90s.
• It was the time when the companies realis the shorter campaigns are more effective than the year-long marketing campaigns which hamstrung their abilities.
• To enumerate, with the uprising of social media, RTM burst on the scene in early 2000, which made it possible for the businesses to know what’s in trend and quickly responded to their customers.
• As an example, if Prince George was first born, Warburton established a brief but unforgettable RTM effort, that had been captured up from the little one fever.

Successful strategies for Real-time Marketing (B2B):

• Always be listening

To do effective real-time marketing, always stay updated with all the latest trends. Here are some ways to do so:

• Firstly, use the technology and set on google alarms or you may use boots to set alerts to give you updates on the latest trends or happenings in your industry.
• Secondly, read industry publications, magazines, newsletters to remain in current trends.
• Thirdly, from time to time, monitor your industry’s events and your competitors.
• Also, build a relationship with influencers and follow them. They can help you promote your brand.
• Resources

Always be prepared; keep your resources ready to act. So that when the opportunity arrives you are prepared to grab it.  

• Ambassador Network

There are two factors on which successful real-time marketing depends: creative thinking and engagement. That is certainly the reason exploit on your personnel’ advocacy apps and societal ambassadors to permit their websites to find out more about the initiative.

• Know where the conversation is

Unlike B2-C, at which the conversation is anywhere, B2B is much more centred. That is certainly why inspect all the industry books, magazines, functions etc., talk to prospects specifically. This may assist your workforce to know the consumer’s behaviour and detect options for real-time marketing.

• Not one and done

Follow your customers, not like a stalker but as a problem solver. Be a part of their conversation and make sure that when the time to buy comes, you are the first in their mind.

Why is it important?

Real-time marketing is essential because of the following reasons:

• The lifeline of a company is its financing, i.e., money and RTM helps the companies to save it, as it doesn’t cost a million to be creative and relate the brand to popular internet trends.
• Being trendy is in fashion, whenever a company links its brand or product to the latest trend or a social cause, that brand becomes more appealing, and the customers start promoting it on their social media accounts and are more likely to buy them.
• With RTM, businesses can reach more of their customers, and by personalizing the messages across the social media platforms, companies can increase the engagement quality with customers.
• It also allows the companies to cut out the noise and connect with their prospects/people at the right time and the right place.

Right time Marketing

Right-time marketing is not only about the right time, but as the 4P’s of marketing, it also includes 4R’s of right-time marketing: 

1. Right Person:

Firstly, the identification of the right person/audience through the combination of all data collected from the internal customer and the prospects as well the demographic and firmographic enhancement by the third party.

1. Right Channel:

Secondly, after identifying the right person, marketers must find the right channel to reach their target audience.

As consumers use different devices and use more than one channel to research or purchase, marketers must use a multiple channel approach for providing a seamless experience to customers.

1. Right Moment:

It means waiting for the right moment to market your brand with relevant messages.

1. Right Answer:

It means finding the right answers to meet increasing consumer’s expectations by combining the correct data across multiple channels to understand a consumer’s behaviours at the right moment. 

Some key findings:

• A survey was conducted about whether data is essential for current marketing activities, 80% of the respondents said yes, and out of that, about 57.1% said it’s critical.
• About 77.4% of respondents said that they are confident in a data-driven marketing approach.
• 68.5percent participants asked regarding the most important attention in their online affiliate marketing and advertising tasks they explained”concentrating on of messages and creative content”
• About 52.7% stated “Demand to deliver more relevant communications to customers” when asked about the factors responsible for investing in data-driven marketing.

The Right Time to Market

It is essential to combine ‘real-time’ and ‘right-time’ marketing to find the right time to market. 

There are three concepts to understand the market, the 3 Cs to decide the right time to market:

Context of engagement, the channel through which it takes place and characteristics of the audience.

To engage with your customers at the right time, rather than just in real-time understanding, these three C’s are supreme.

Here are some few examples of questions that marketers can ask to apply the above concepts:

Context (WHAT?):

• Is he/she a recurring customer or one-time purchaser?
• How is the customer’s preference related to our inventory?

Channel (WHERE?):

• Has she made a purchase offline, online or through both the ways?
• What is the pattern of customer’s shopping (time, day, etc.)?

Characteristics (WHO?):

• How much do they spend and in which category?
• Is she/he an old customer or a new one?

Conclusion

As discussed above the timing factor is vital in marketing as time never stops for anyone; once you miss the right time to market your product, the opportunity is never going to come again. 

To sum up, the right time marketing is the next wave of innovation and using real-time marketing and right-time marketing can give solutions to many marketing problems.

FAQs