Page 10 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Real-time

Decisioning:

State-of-the-Art

Marketing

Automation

Whether phone, instant messenger (IM), email, Face- This method is already very efficient, but the process is
book or fax, we all have our preferred communication based on pre-defined rules and on historic decisions
channels and these preferences are different from per- that were made long before the communication by the
son to person: With business partners preferably via customer was initiated. So, coming back to the initial
email, with friends via Skype, with parents via telephone question: What would it really mean, if a technology
and with classmates through Facebook. Based on the could make the decision for the right content and the
situation and the party you are dealing with, you choose right channel independently and ad-hoc during the
almost intuitively the right medium. But what if a tech- communication?
nology could make such a decision ad-hoc as well and
independently?
Decisions in real-time to increase the value
The magic word is "Real-time Decisioning”. In the future, real-time decisioning (RTD) will come into
play more often, since with RTD these processes will
As always, it is in this case as well about maintaining for the first time be dynamically controlled and in real
the customer contacts over the entire life cycle to time. In fact, RTD is complementing the marketing au-
achieve maximum relevance. To accomplish that, it is tomation system quite well, by accurately analyzing the
critical to send the right and most relevant message to needs of each individual contact.
the customer at the right moment during the purchase
phase, which implies that marketers need to know their The technology links together all available information
customers' needs exactly.
(product database, CRM system, purchase history in
the web shop, web tracking, etc.) and combines histori-
State-of-the-Art Marketing Automation cal and current information about a contact into a holis-
tic profile. It automatically learns with every interaction
Marketing Automation systems are an essential tool and thus constantly refines its basis for decisions. Due
here, since they include a powerful database and a use- to modern, powerful databases and business logic,
ful campaign management that measures the reactions these decisions are now possible in real time.
of prospects and customers on all communication chan-
nels in order to analyze and better understand their In short, the system "knows" the needs of the user at
needs. the moment of contact and selects highly relevant con-
tent on this basis, as well as the right channel and the
This creates a closed loop, such as, for instance, offer- right address for further communication, without error.
ing certain content via email, which automatically This profile-oriented decision guarantees the highest
measures the following response to the email, as well relevance for the contact and ensures that he/she feels
as the online behavior, and even collects more data via understood and appreciated, almost intuitively.
web forms. With this automated workflow, the customer
profile successively adds on information and the target- On this basis of trust, excellent sales opportunities are
ed approach improves, which as a consequence leads certainly opening up in every phase of the buying pro-
to an increase in the conversion rate. cess. ◊

By Daniela La Marca

10 Asian eMarketing October 2014 - Marketing Automation