5 Types of Real-time Marketing That Will Change The Way You Sell

Ugljesa Djuric

Ugljesa is passionate about the content market, sales, and marketing. He's has been working for several SaaS companies on similar topics.

September 11, 2019
minutes to read

For the B2B world, being present on the Internet no longer just means that people can find you on Google or social media channels.

All the business segments are constantly developing, including the sales process and marketing.

When it comes to a successful business, realtime marketing plan is one of the most significant innovations of the 21st century.

There are many definitions for realtime marketing considering that they have been changing over the years.

Some people see realtime marketing as leveraging current events and up-and-coming trends, while others view it as dynamic, personalized content across channels. Or, as the right message delivered at the right time on the right platform, regardless of how ‘real-time’ the content actually is. 

Certainly, some concepts that exist in the real world of sales have moved into the online world as well.

Imagine going to any store, however, you want to ask employees something important and you have to wait two days for an answer.

Or, you make a purchase and wait at least a few hours at the cashier to pay the bill.

Surely you would never go back to such stores again. You would consider them disorganized and unprofessional.

This is exactly what must be avoided today when it comes to the online world.

Check our : Callback apps for travel agency

Although it was acceptable earlier, the constant need for business advancement and the desire to meet customer expectations have led to new concepts that need to be implemented.

No one likes to waste time, neither sellers nor clients. Time is an indispensable resource.

That is where realtime marketing comes into the scene.

Realtime marketing involved creating a marketing strategy focused on up-to-date events.

There are several types of realtime marketing that will change the way you sell.

1. Callback software

Websites are also “stores”. Therefore, when they enter your website, people need to have someone to make contact with.

They may have a question, a doubt, a problem of any kind, and they expect you, as the seller, to help them.

If they wait too long for your answer, it is understandable that they choose to leave.

However, callback software such as Limecall has raised the relationship between the seller and the customer to a higher level.

Callback software allows your visitors and potential customers to get their questions answered in real-time.

No more waiting, as information is available 24/7.

Statistics say that increased customer satisfaction and experience (67 percent) and increased customer retention (60 percent) are the next most commonly cited benefits, with a majority also believing that realtime marketing can drive revenue through personalized offers (58 percent).

At-the-moment communication clearly has great business benefits.

Check our : Callback apps for real estate

Limecall even offers a special widget that lets visitors know that they can find out everything they want to in a very short time:

realtime marketing_limecall

Instead of waiting for an answer via email, the visitor has the opportunity to receive a call within 28 seconds or to schedule a call at another time that works for him.

This has proven to be a very good practice because people do not expect such a quick reaction.

Email messages can often get bogged down in the inbox. 

Until they find your answer, potential buyers will already forget what they were interested in.

And that is where your competition that already practices all the benefits of realtime marketing can very easily “jump in”.

Also, when you are available to your customers, you do not allow the interest in your offer to decline.

If someone wants to find out more about what you have to offer, it is up to you to enable them.

This way you prevent the hot leads from turning into cold ones.

Today, the competition is great in almost every niche and everyone is “struggling” to reach their target group.

When they are already interested in your service or product, it is up to you to encourage that interest, not to waste potential customers.

Provide them with the best customer support possible.

As many as 7 od 10 U.S. consumers say that they would spend more money to do business with a company that delivers great service.

Whether it is about B2B or B2C business area, it is important for people to feel that you appreciate their time and attention.

Callback software enables human-to-human contact, which is another major benefit for your business.

Customers will find it much easier to connect with another person than with a machine.

Such connections are much stronger and more durable.

With the help of callback software, you will show your visitors that they are important to you and that you are ready to solve their problems.

2. Live chats

Live chats are also a good option to get in touch and maintain contact with your visitors.

There is no such thing as a “surprise factor” like with the widget mentioned earlier, but your potential buyers will still have someone to make a contact with.

Live chats are presented as a kind of warm welcome when someone enters your website.

They are generally located in the corners of the page in order not to interfere with other content on the website.

realtime marketing_live chats

Source: Help Scout PBC

It is also important that people can minimize them until they want to contact you.

Live chats, unlike chatbots, allow messages to be more personal since there is a live agent on the other side.

It is a good way to increase visitor activity and encourage conversation.

And thanks to direct communication, you will get the opportunity to hear the opinions, desires and needs of your target group firsthand.

Feedbacks you get can help you a lot to grow your business.

For example, if a customer asks you for a feature you do not currently have on offer, you will know what you need to work on.

Super Office mentions that more than 30% of customers expect a live chat on your website.

It is very important to listen to what customers want and to meet their expectations.

Although realtime marketing sets new standards, the fact is that they are still beneficial to both the seller and the buyer.

Live chats have live chat software with analytical reports that can tell you a lot about the behaviour of the visitors to your website.

For example, if a question is asked repeatedly, it is likely that something is not sufficiently explained and it needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

It is up to you to listen to your users and to prevent them from leaving your website due to ambiguities or your absence.

In realtime marketing, it is not only important that you provide the information at the right time.

You also need to update the content so that it keeps pace with the innovations as well as with the user feedbacks.

3. Chatbots

Chatbots function similarly to live chats, but with one important difference – there is no human factor.

They use artificial intelligence (AI) that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps or through the telephone.

realtime marketing_hubbot

Source: Ignite Social Media

When it comes to Chatbots, artificially replicating the patterns of human interactions in machine learning allows computers to learn by themselves without programming natural language processing.

If a website visitor asks a chatbot a question that is not in the database, he will either answer as closely as possible to what is in the database or, if there is such an option, he will forward the question to the human operator.

There are two types of chatbots:

  • Virtual Assistant – helps you find information, schedule an appointment, or make a purchase. Some of the most famous assistants are Siri from Apple and Cortana from Microsoft.
  • Messaging apps – allow businesses to be available to their users 24/7. Such are, for example, Facebook Messenger and Slack.

Unlike live chats, chatbots can handle a greater number of conversations.

The whole principle is automated.

They are also a great option for answering questions that are common and simple.

Studies have shown that 80% of customer queries have been resolved by Chatbots without human oversight.

If your site has a large number of visits, a chatbot will be a good option given its multitasking capability.

A chatbot can provide quick and real-time answers.

It is also a good idea to combine callback software and chatbots.

In this case, chat both can answer short and repetitive questions, and callback software can allow human contact for those more complicated questions that require more explanation.

4. Pop-ups

Although it may not seem so at first sight, pop-ups are another way in which real-time marketing can be successfully carried out.

Pop-ups are designed to track the behaviour of website visitors.

According to visitors’ reactions, time spent on a particular page and similar, different types of pop-ups appear.

In order to make this clearer, we will list the most common types of pop-ups:

  • Click pop-ups 

These pop-ups appear when a visitor clicks on something that interests him or her on the website. When the visitor clicks on a particular link, image, or a word, a window or page with new information will open up, which will add to his or her experience on the website.

For example, if your website has a number of different offers, a visitor might click on one that interests him, and that action will open a click pop-up that will give him more information.

  • Timed pop-ups

Timed pop-ups appear after a visitor has spent some time on the website.

This type of pop-up is intended to deepen an already existing interest and to offer additional information or to make offers that may be of interest to the visitor.

  • Scroll pop-ups

This type of pop-up appears when the reader has scrolled down a certain percentage of the page.

It is similar to timed pop-up in that it deepens the created interest and tries to “warm-up” the visitor even more for the content the website offers.

  • Entry pop-ups

Entry pop-up windows pop up as soon as a visitor enters the website and before they are able to see anything else on the page.

The aim of these windows is to make people even more interested at the very beginning of the offer.

  • Exit pop-ups

This type of pop-up occurs when the visitor wants to leave the website.

Exit pop-ups aim to prevent people from leaving the website and make them check if they can “find” something for themselves again.

call to action

Source: Wishpond

Pop-ups are very important for realtime marketing because they track visitor behaviour in real-time.

Right at the moment when visitors show more interest or a lack of interest, these pop-ups appear to keep them still.

SmartBug presents some very important facts about this type of realtime marketing:

  • Copyblogger found that implementing a pop-up strategy immediately boosted email list opt-ins.
  • Pop-ups generally have decent click-through rates – often around 2% – higher than other kinds of ads.
  • Pop-ups helped BitNinja increase subscriptions by 114% and boosted leads by 162%.

The use of pop-ups is becoming more widespread today.

However, one must be careful when selecting these windows.

They must be well designed and clear enough to maintain or stimulate attention without confusing visitors with their sudden appearance.

The good thing is that people sometimes even unknowingly come to some websites, and, at that moment, pop-ups can “wake them up” and show them that they are in the right place after all.

Also, you should pay attention to the number of pop-ups.

For example, you should not interrupt people more than a couple of times while they are reading a text on your website.

Before setting up pop-ups, carefully consider where and when they should appear.

If a pop-up contains a CTA (call to action) it must be clearly indicated and there should be no more than one button that calls for a specific action.

5. Live webinars

Realtime marketing means interaction.

There are many ways to maintain customer relationships, and live webinars are one of those ways.

A webinar is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web using video conferencing software.

There are various applications and programs on the market today that make it easy to keep live webinars.

For example, if you want to host a webinar, Zoom is one of the apps that can help you with that.

Live webinars are great for keeping in touch with users.

You can use the webinar for different purposes: 

  • To introduce a new product or service
  • To talk about innovations generally in your area
  • To answer frequently asked questions and give viewers the opportunity to ask their own

By holding meetings like these, you build much stronger relationships with your potential customers.

You can offer them the opportunity to engage with you in a conversation and ask whatever they are interested in, and you can provide them with real-time answers.

People love stories, and with the help from a webinar, you have the opportunity to tell them yours.

If you are in a business where changes are frequent or you are constantly making new versions of your product, this is a great opportunity to explain to people all the benefits of what you have to offer.

Before you schedule a webinar, create a contact form.

webinar registration

In this way, you will also collect email addresses to create a mailing list.

Once you have collected your contacts, you will be able to create an email campaign that will be delivered directly to those people who have already shown an interest in your business.

When creating a webinar, pay attention to the following:

  • topic you are talking about
  • organization of lectures
  • time for questions and answers from the viewers

Before you organize a webinar, decide on a timeframe so you can tell people when to book time for you.

Create a landing page that will present your webinar in a good and interesting way.

Pop-ups are a great way to make a webinar invitation and collect contact information.

Considering that this is a realtime marketing tool and that people are really taking the time out of their day for your webinar, try not to keep them too long.

realtime marketing
Engagement during the webinar

Source: Medium

As you can see, webinar statistics show that 41% of attendees prefer attending 30 minute-long webinars and 44% of attendees prefer webinars to last 45 minutes.

When it comes to time left for questions and answers, let the audience decide how long it will take.

It is important not to leave them without the information they need.

Finally, leave a contact through which they will be able to contact you.

The bottom line

Keeping up with innovations is extremely important if you want to move forward.

Always pay attention to how your competitors are implementing realtime marketing strategies and how they use them.

You can find inspiration in someone else’s examples or see what are they doing wrong and use those insights to your advantage.

But, the most significant advantage of realtime marketing is communication.

The communication you make with your prospects will greatly facilitate the sales process itself.

When available in real-time, you can build great customer support and you can show people that you appreciate them letting you take their time and attention to present what you have to offer.

You can opt for just one way of realtime marketing or combine multiple types depending on what works best for you.

Test different ways and find out what your audience responds to best with our cool Callback software features. Check Limecall Pricing Now!.

It’s time for realtime!

, September 11, 2019, Ugljesa Djuric

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