Page 10 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Consumers are developing into information deniers -

real-time marketing could reverse that trend

People are less and less willing to accept impersonal By personalizing the customer relationship, the compa-
and general advertising messages due to increasing ny learns more and more about each customer and can
information overload of marketing communications use this knowledge to satisfy the individual needs.
across a constantly growing number of media. Howev-
er, cross-media communication demands and requires Integration of cross-media communication chan-
new systems and tools, as in our digital era companies nels makes the difference
cannot succeed with the traditional communication me-
dia anymore. One effect of social media and the Web 2.0 on market-
ing is that marketing takes place more and more often
Society, the market, and the consumers indicate the without the companies. To countervail, companies try
need for a fundamental rethinking to capitalize on this trend and work hard to provide at-
tention-grabbing information on the Internet that can be
In future, companies must make contact in a direct and accessed by interested parties. That way, consumers
personal way with potential customers and offer them should be encouraged to participate actively, initiating
something new and attractive to get their attention. Only interactions like voluntary referral marketing in the form
with individual communication measures, interactions of word of mouth. At least that is what businesses try to
and dialogues, the mature and self-confident customers achieve through public dialogue, besides focusing dis-
can be reached effectively. Due to the newly developed cussions on feedback-, design-, and hands-on features,
consumer culture, people expects a company to know as well as the interaction opportunities with employees,
their needs and responses quickly. However, this re- fans, friends, prospects and customers. This helps to
quires a continuous personal dialogue and systematic strengthen the credibility and reputation of businesses
interaction with the consumer, which also means the and at the same time consumer confidence in their
exit from the mass marketing/ communications and en- products.
tering into a target group-oriented individual marketing
or one-to-one marketing via digital media. Due to the possibility of interactions online, customers
can decide what information they want to receive - or
Today, having a genuine dialogue means that the com- not - and in which form. Thus, they are no longer at the
pany listens to their customers – e.g. on social media. It mercy of decisions made by the marketers, instead re-
is now the task of companies to ensure their competi- ject information they do not want.
tiveness, by providing tailored products and an appro-
priate customer dialogue, to comply with the consumer In practice, the integrated communication is still an is-
trend of individualization. This means that every cus- sue with a large need for improvement, since the dia-
tomer has to be treated as a separate market segment logue-media needs to be linked with all others, espe-
and addressed with appropriate marketing measures. cially with constantly added new channels of communi-
cation, such as mobile marketing and social media.
10 Asian eMarketing July 2015: Real (Right)-Time Marketing
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