Real-time marketing has generated a lot of buzz lately – and for good reason. The ability to reach and provide customers with relevant, personalized content in real time via the channel they are actively using is a powerful capability that boosts both sales and customer loyalty.

Recent research has found that over 80 percent of customers want brands to understand them better and provide timely and appropriate offers. The same percentage of customers are more likely to make a purchase when they encounter personalized service in real-time.

Thus, real-time strategy is fast becoming a necessity for all digital marketing efforts – especially since the technology to support real-time marketing is now more affordable.

Brands across Southeast Asia have quickly taken advantage of these technological offerings to integrate omnichannel practices into their digital marketing plans. According to our new research with eConsultancy, 65 percent of respondents named real-time marketing as their top focus. That said, the report also found that brands struggle with data, with 30 percent citing the inability to act in real-time as a chief pain point.

For brands to execute real-time marketing efficiently, they need to create a framework that supports real-time efforts – including an investment in technology, a centralized customer data foundation, comprehensive insights, and a sophisticated rules engine.

Unify customer data to uncover insights

First things first: all customer data needs to be located, then moved out of silos and into a central data platform that’s easily accessible and can be continuously enriched and updated. This is crucial, as teams will need access to this data to begin developing insights about customer journeys.

Identify the right platform

Brands must invest in a technology platform that will assist with audience data management, integrate with multiple marketing channels, and scale with the company. When evaluating which platform is most appropriate, keep in mind long-term goals to get the most out of the investment.

Develop valuable Insights

Once customer data is consolidated in a central location, the next step is to analyze that data to gain valuable insights. The data will show marketing teams the channels customers frequent, the routes they take to complete a purchase and begin the process of illuminating a 360-degree customer view. From there, brands can glean where, when, and how to engage with their customers in ways that are personal, meaningful, and timely.

Create rules to communicate in real-time

Once the insights are prepared, brands should utilize these learnings, as well as individual customer data, to define their communications. However, given the need to communicate both at scale and in real-time, brands should consider expediting their efforts with an omnichannel rules engine, which determines the type, frequency, and channel of communications to individual customers.

Equipped with such a tool, brands can translate their insights and customer data into specific rules. Supported by machine learning marketing, the engine will recognize audience responses, prioritize rules in context, and automate the delivery of the most relevant communication through the best channel – all in real-time.

With this type of platform and framework in place, brands will no longer struggle with acting in real-time. Instead, brands will be well on their way to executing robust, effective real-time marketing campaigns that resonate with the customer, enhance their experience, and drive business results.