Real-time marketing: how to capture the trend with videos

Marketing strategy: don’t forget current events

Today, companies and brands live in the world of current events. It’s a fact that is critical to remember: especially when it comes to your marketing strategy. This is nothing new; however, it has a more central, critical value in today’s context.

The “infosphere” is something we are all familiar with. It’s an increasingly interconnected and accelerated digital ecosystem where news and updates circulate from one end of the world to the other with unprecedented speed, rapidly and even abruptly influencing trends and public sentiment…and, consequently, purchasing behaviors.

Therefore, we can understand the great opportunities (and great risks) that fall under the label of “real-time marketing.”
What’s it all about? In this post, we will explore the world of real-time marketing and focus on the central role that video can (and should) play in this area. 

Real-time marketing – what is it, how to manage it? 

Real-time marketing plans for unforeseen (and unpredictable) events in advance through a marketing plan. It covers actions that react to certain events, news, or emerging trends so that you can exploit and navigate them to your advantage. To be effective, these actions, as you can guess, must be put on track as quickly as possible. This is another reason why the preferred arena for real-time marketing is social networks: this is the first basic point to keep in mind. Using this approach opens up many interesting opportunities and benefits. First and foremost, it gives the perception of “closeness” to your audience. The brand no longer comes across as a cold, detached, and impersonal entity. Instead, it’s seen as capable of “listening” to what’s happening in the world and reacting, intervening in real time, “having its say,” with its own tone of voice, its own imagery, its own value system. 

Real-time marketing, when done well, is synonymous with engagement, increased coverage, and interactions, with the ability to make content go viral to reach a very large number of people in a very short amount of time. That’s not all: real-time marketing is also a powerful weapon for retaining existing customers, who – in this way – hear the brand’s voice and with it, the values that they identify with.

We need to be clear-headed, however: From this brief overview we can glimpse the possible risks and weaknesses that could result from the naïve or inappropriate use of these strategies. Such vulnerabilities can be summed up in one word: boomerang. Poorly conceived real-time marketing campaigns can, in the best case scenario, grow old quickly and end up immediately forgotten; in the worst case scenario, however, they can negatively impact the image of the brand and company, with potentially uncontrollable and even long-term effects. And this can happen especially in cases of polarizing and controversial trends and topics (those that, after all, trigger the most engagement). 

So, how can companies wield this weapon that is so effective but also potentially counterproductive?
The first key word is caution: we don’t become experts in real-time marketing overnight.

The second aspect is identity. Before we decide to ride the latest news or trends, it’s important to keep the brand’s identity in mind: who you are, what you stand for, the brand values, mission, and vision. You can insert yourself in the story as long as you don’t betray these roots.

The third aspect: know your audience. Just as a company must not betray its roots, the same goes for your most loyal audience. Before implementing a real-time marketing operation, it’s always a good rule of thumb to take the pulse of your most loyal target audience. But how to do this quickly? With accurate data analysis that can provide a dynamic snapshot of how people are reacting to a given event, even one that is polarizing, rapidly.

The fourth aspect concerns the type of media to use; and this is where we turn to the opportunities of video in real-time marketing.  

Video in real time marketing – benefits and opportunities 

Always pay attention to current events. React quickly, but prudently, without betraying your identity or your audience.
But what is the best way to “be heard” and reach the most people with a real-time marketing operation? Or, specifically: what kind of media is the most suitable and best performing? The answer is very clear: video.
We’ll see why in this list:

1. Video is able to attract the attention of online users more than any other medium. It’s also the medium that provides the greatest ease of enjoyment, especially in contexts where constant distraction is part of the game…such as social networks.
2. Coverage and engagement. Speaking of social networks: video guarantees the best rates of coverage, audience engagement, interactions, and shares.
3. Clarity. On average, the user watching a video understands and believes 95% of the message it contains. When it comes to text, this drops to 10% (insivia.com).
4. Perception of quality: Sure, real-time marketing must be quick to be effective. But you can’t give the impression that you’re producing fresh and improvised content, produced in a very short time, just to keep up with a trend. In this sense, there is no better ally than video, which—when well designed and distributed—always communicates a feeling of professional care and quality. All of this has an important impact on brand identity.
5. Better chances for monetization. Real-time marketing means that you have a presence around current events. But this doesn’t mean that you should forget about the end goal: that is, some return on investment. Again, video is unrivaled when it comes to ROI. In fact, videos offer many valuable possibilities for advertising within its content.
6. Data granularity. Here, we come to a less intuitive, but very decisive point. We have already referred to the importance of “taking the pulse” of your audience through deep, broad, and intelligent data analysis. It’s equally important to know how your real-time marketing strategy is performing in real time: this way, you can course-correct or push even harder on the accelerator, if needed. Also in this case, video is a valuable ally like no other. In fact, viewing data is very granular. Translated: your viewing data can provide a detailed account of your campaign results and how users have interacted (or are interacting) with a single piece of content. This offers the best way to continually recalibrate your strategy and avoid dangerous missteps.

Finally, it is crucial to focus on the main downside of using video in your real-time marketing campaigns. It’s a downside that is twofold. Compared to other types of content, video requires a greater investment in terms of time and financial resources. This twofold issue is even more critical when you consider the central importance of acting quickly.
So, what can you do? Is there a possible solution? The answer is yes. And it has a specific name: Video Automation. We’ll talk about it in the next and final section of this post. 

Video automation: the turning point for real-time marketing 

Automation is the future (but also the present) of video marketing. Especially when we’re talking about riding trends quickly and without an expensive investment compared to the possible returns.
Automation means, first and foremost, having the ability to produce data-driven video, easily, quickly, and cheaply.
How? With Video Automation platforms like Babelee’s.
Let’s take a quick look at the main benefits of Babelee’s Video Automation platform for brands and creators:

• Dramatically reduced production time by using the automation capabilities of the platform.
• Reduced production costs as a result.
• Greater optimization for marketing teams: this is a decisive point, especially since you may not always have the necessary skills within your own company. Using external resources, in addition to raising costs even further, definitely lengthens production times … to the point of making a real-time marketing production impossible, useless, or counterproductive.
• Optimization is also technical, since all videos produced in this way adapt, again in an automated way, to different devices and viewing modes, with an omnichannel perspective.
• That’s not all. With Video Automation systems, video production can become much more substantial. Translated: you are able to strengthen your brand’s presence in different digital spaces, make your voice heard by your audience more frequently, and improve engagement and advocacy. In addition, you multiply the possible advertising spaces to be monetized in a non-invasive way.
• Finally, here’s an important point to remember. With Babelee’s Video Automation platform tools, you have the ability to bring elements of interactivity and personalization to your videos. This can be an additional boost in terms of engagement, user proximity, and loyalty.

This is another feature that is made possible by Babelee, with the integration of the Video Personalization platform. See here to learn more.

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