Realtime Marketing is about many things: the right analytics tools to surface and prioritize conversations. A content strategy that lets you curate and manage dynamic streams of content. Connecting with communities that are distributed across many different platforms. Platforms and strategies to engage fans and turn them into brand advocates. An organizational structure that makes it possible for employees (and customers) to collaborate across functional areas to serve customer needs.
These are all components of an overall realtime marketing strategy, and you’ll be able to see tools that power all of these activities at our Realtime Marketing Lab on October 14. You’ll see case studies from brands that are powering innovative realtime marketing campaigns, and you’ll hear how senior marketing executives from leading brands evaluate the latest realtime marketing technologies.
But at the end of the day, why are we doing all of this hard work?
It’s because realtime marketing is an opportunity to build real relationships. Relationships that transcend the digital space and lead to real-world interaction and engagement with fans, customers and influencers. Relationships in which you treat your customers not like fields in a database, but like real people.
Realtime marketing is about remembering that your customers are people who like to do business with real people, who have relationships with other people that they can influence to buy your product, and who have a value to your brand that goes far beyond a single transaction. That’s how you get real return on realtime marketing.
And Ted Rubin is the guy who wrote the book about how to get a Return on Relationships.
I’ve known of Ted Rubin for several years, followed his work, met him at various industry meetups, and then had an opportunity to spend some real time with him at the IBM Smarter Commerce event in Nashville earlier this year. Like so many people that I’ve met thanks to the magic of Twitter and other social media platform, the real-life Ted turned out to be just what his digital presence promised: warm, gracious and just the right kind of funny. A connector of people and ideas, and a sharp business thinker.
Oh, and yes, he wears cool socks. So there you go: I asked Ted to co-host Realtime Marketing Lab so he would set high fashion standards for us while helping me to introduce speakers on stage this October 14 in New York. And, at an event built to help us all experience the latest technologies that power realtime marketing, he would help remind us all of what realtime marketing is really all about: building enduring relationships that add real bottom-line value to your brand.
Ted and I hope to see you all on October 14 at Realtime Marketing Lab, which will take place at the Altman Building in New York City. (And — shhhh! — you can score a 15% discount if you use code RLTMtr when you register.) See you at #RLTM!
