We all know that empowered customers expect brands to deliver contextually relevant experiences based on their individual preferences for content, timing, location, and channel(s). How do customer insights (CI) professionals decide the appropriate course of action – not just for a single customer, but for all customers? How do they then execute on those decisions and measure the impact? Systems of engagement like Real-Time Interaction Management (RTIM) provide answers.

Forrester defines RTIM as: Enterprise marketing technology that delivers contextually relevant experiences, value, and utility at the appropriate moment in the customer life cycle via preferred customer touchpoints. In my latest brief “Demystifying Real-Time Interaction Management,” I explore evolving RTIM requirements.

The five keys to implementing RTIM as part of your contextual marketing engine are:

1.      Customer recognition – Engagement based on individual identity resolution

2.      Contextual understanding – Persona analysis with real-time behavior and external data

3.      Decision arbitration – Next-best-action based on advanced analytics

4.      Offer orchestration – Content delivery and dialog management

5.      Measurement and optimization – Results capture for applying insights

RTIM solutions address these requirements in various ways, as the RTIM market is both extensive and fragmented. Vendor offerings range from enterprise marketing software suites (EMSS) to business process management (BPM) and customer relationship management (CRM) to customer analytics and digital intelligence to web and social media personalization to mobile messaging and mobile apps to ad targeting and re-targeting solutions. As traditional marketing converges with digital marketing and advertising, we are seeing deeper integration requirements for their respective data and analytics platforms, as well as their diverse automation and interaction technologies. I’m currently working on a market overview to help CI pros navigate this complex landscape.

If you have questions about RTIM, feel free to send me an email or set up an inquiry to discuss the enterprise marketing technology landscape. I would be happy to address your questions or secure your input with regard to your own RTIM requirements.