“Good real-time marketing doesn’t feel like marketing, but feels like a favor enhancing the relationship.” I like that. It sounds so…nice. All warm and cozy. Like a friendship I get to choose. And that’s the point, really. A great customer experience builds the know, like and trust factor. As a human being, I like to choose with whom I spend my time…and my money. I feel much happier and open to companies who provide a nice, warm, fuzzy customer experience. But, this is the competitive world of a global economy, so how do we measure ROI for customer relationship building efforts?  Ted Rubin’s post on Loyalty Lab blog, “Real-Time Marketing: 4 Best Practice Examples of Getting It Right at the Right Time“, highlights four executives who got this right. He said, “Customer loyalty programs that engage the proper context and allow customers to feel control over the message, leads to an emotional attachment between the customer and the brand. Wwhich is at the very core of a Return on Relationship.”

Create an easy Customer Experience (CX).

Make it simple for me to find what I’m looking for. And if you have a useful suggestion, as Amazon always does, I will consider it and feel grateful for your help. If you make me feel like I’m being pressured or pushed in a specific direction, I’ll leave and likely never return.

Make an emotional connection with me. Safe, happy and valued feelings make me much more likely to buy from your company. Building a warm connection with customers goes a long way towards building loyalty.

Crafting the right marketing message to me at the right time is crucial to earning my business. Because that's how you will earn my trust and my loyalty. Companies collect and analyze the big data generated by their customers online and in social media. Next, they use that information to understand what offers to make and to whom, and when to make them. And that’s real time marketing and it delivers real ROI.