Before getting started, lets define what real-time marketing automation is. Simply put, marketing automation is powerful software that aims to automate marketing processes. Marketing departments use automation software to more efficiently manage tasks that are more repetitive by nature. This includes emails, SMS messages, social media, online advertisements, etc.

The end goal of marketing is to help drive conversions, boost leads, and ultimately generate more revenue.

The Importance of Real-Time Marketing Automation

Finding enough time in the day to manually do what it takes to remain competitive in today’s constantly moving, digital world is impossible, for even the largest of marketing teams. In addition to constantly thinking of new, creative marketing strategies, they must also listen and respond to consumer demands, as well as industry trends.

For those reasons and more, marketing automation solutions have become more prevalent in today’s marketing landscape. But, for the savvy marketer, it isn’t just about automation. While being able to schedule and control all campaign aspects across multiple platforms and channels from a central location is crucial, being able to do so in real-time, throughout every phase of the customer lifecycle is becoming even more important.

Marketers must be able to reach consumers with the right message, at the right time, through the right platform or device. All are important, but, arguably, identifying the right time for each individual can seem impossible. Thankfully, this critical piece of the puzzle can be revealed with real-time marketing automation.

Here are the three key ways real-time marketing automation can help marketing experts stay ahead of the curve to accomplish their retail brand goals.

5 Key Benefits of Real-Time Marketing Automation

Here’s a look at five key ways real-time marketing automation assists marketing experts in staying ahead of the curve to accomplish their retail goals.

1. Automated Communication

One of the most valuable benefits of marketing automation is being able to communicate, in real-time, with customers at the most critical points along their lifecycle. Email marketing is already a crucial part of the vast majority of marketing strategies. But, by using real-time automation, it can be taken to the next level. Real-time automated communications could include:

  • Onboarding emails after a customer signs up for a newsletter or creates an account
  • Abandoned cart emails triggered after a customer navigates away from a site; these can be a major tactic in improving retention
  • Sending incentives or offers through email is a great tactic; sending those emails at the right time could be just the right move to secure a conversion

By tracking whether or not customers are clicking on certain links or are interacting with communications, brands can create and deploy real-time messages using smart triggers that immediately react to customer actions. This automatically sends progressive emails, keeping brands at the forefront of the customer minds.

2. Better Consumer Profiles

Successful marketing efforts must, in some way, depend on being able to create the most unique and personalized journey for a consumer. Building the best possible experience will not only keep a brand top-of-mind, but will also keep that customer coming back.

What better way to build that personalized knowledge than tracking and reacting in real-time to customer behaviors? Ultimately, customers want to feel known by and connected to the brands they engage with regularly. This technology allows brands to react almost like “friends” to their customers.

In addition to the real-time communication mentioned above, real-time marketing automation can store the data provided for future use. Knowing the browsing behavior of a customer is invaluable knowledge for any brand. Armed with this knowledge, marketers can easily setup programs that target customers throughout the entire lifecycle to truly maximize the lifetime value of each relationship.

3. Better Testing and Optimization

Real-time marketing automation performs at its best when marketers focus on continuous process improvements and experimentation. Tracking marketing campaigns in real time is the best way to find out what works and what doesn’t in a strategy.

Multi-branch testing helps marketers identify the best course of action to take and then pivot and optimize programs along the way. These real-time marketing automation solutions allow the most sophisticated level of experimentation available.

Watching how customers interact with marketing campaigns in real-time allows marketers to pivot and optimize as quickly and efficiently as possible, leveraging the best messaging and best courses of action.

4. Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates

According to Q1 2016 research, the digital shopping cart abandonment rate is high worldwide, at 74.3%. Time and time again, abandoned carts are driving todays modern marketers insane. However, by using marketing automation, you’re able to automatically sending triggered emails to those who left unpurchased items in their cart, marketers can help reduce cart abandonment rates.

Similarly, there are numerous functions within automation that help marketers optimize emails. These functions help determine how long after logout to send reminder emails, and even help generate the most compelling subject lines to ensure the emails are opened.

5. Boost Revenue Through Upsells

In today’s marketing world, recommendation emails can easily be automation and tailor specifically to an individual consumers buying preferences or browser history. It’s essentially become the norm to include a section in emails that states something like “others also bought”, or “similar customers looked at”.

The days of breaking apart every inch of data are a thing of the past. Through the power of marketing automation, you can analyze consumer purchase behavior and data while simultaneously sending out upsell emails in a state exceedingly more likely to drive conversions.

Final Thoughts

Real-time marketing automation platforms allow marketers the best possible visibility of their target customers through the combination of technology, data, and trends. However, marketers must be able to best determine the right strategic course based on the company’s overall business goals, as that is something software cannot comprehend.

Learn more about how the Emarsys real-time marketing automation platform allows you to run all aspects of your marketing strategy with ease.

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