Marketing in the Moment – How to Put Time on Your Side
Every marketer wants to follow the Snickers example and react to ongoing events as they happen, updating Web and digital properties with timely images and relevant messaging. And as some brands, such as Snickers, successfully do it, so consumers have come to expect it.
However, most marketers can’t deliver that rapid response. They are locked down by long technology implementation cycles and exhaustive learning times to master the tech once it is in place. Moreover, most have to rely on front-end IT support to run the complex marketing technology which requires coding experience to operate and make site updates. So much of the creative element of marketing — ideas, lateral thinking, spontaneity — now happens in the dark and forbidding rooms of the IT department and might as well be magic.
Reaction times are typically drawn out to months. Not just for spotting hi-jack opportunities like BBDO with Snickers, but at a more fundamental level, they are stopping retailers and brands from performing even basic functions like reacting to inventory fluctuations or changing consumer demand and making marketers plan months (and months) ahead for the campaigns that they can schedule.
Five Essential Considerations to Put Time on Your Side
So how can marketers gain the freedom to work in the moment and deliver rich instant digital gratification to increasingly demanding consumers?
1. Prioritize awareness – Marketers need to know what is going on. Put simply, they need to be aware of what is happening out there so that they can react to it. Go back to the Snickers Suarez example again: Snickers’ agency, BBDO, was clearly on top of what was happening and able to collaborate and make the posted creative happen. All marketers need to have the time and freedom to be able to do the same so that they too can use events to shape their content to the moments that their audience finds itself in.
2. Find simple ways to create – To react to events and build awareness in the moments that matter, marketers need to be able to create the content and experiences they need in rapid fashion. This is where the missive ‘create don’t code’ comes in: Marketers, aware of events, know what they want to create — but often they can’t because it needs coding and careful designing, and this can take days, weeks or even months. In an instant world, marketers need the technology to help them realize their vision instantly.
3. Freedom from IT and developers – Building on this ethos of ‘create don’t code,’ marketers need the tools that can not only let them realize their vision but also bring it to life — without having to scope it out as a wireframe or through challenging collaboration with equally time-poor IT department or external Web developers. Marketers who want to be in the moment need tools that they can use to actually create the content they want, when they want it and make it live the same day.
4. Easy collaboration – To make this process work, marketers also need tools that let them collaborate and build these experiences with their colleagues on the fly. Two or more heads are always better than one. They also need to be able to instantly share content with managers, directors and CMOs to accelerate the approval process and get to market fast.
5. Fast deployment – Of course, the real key is that marketers need to be able to publish what they do instantly across every channel they need to reach. This will get their relevant content into the market in the moment for maximum impact and capitalize on the situational awareness that this process started with.
In today’s fast-paced environment, marketers need the freedom to rapidly iterate and create marketing in response to what their customers are experiencing. Understanding these five pain points — and employing the right technology to work around them — will see you rise to the demands of consumers needing to rapidly be richly satisfied. Rapid marketing is about taking off the straitjacket and having the freedom to innovate, to try new things and to create — not code.
Zmags has just produced an e-book, “Mastering Marketing in The Moment,” that explores these issues and more, offering guidance and tips on how to overcome them. Download it for free here.
