When it comes to digital marketing, micro-moments have become an important part of that, because of the way consumers use their smartphones. But what exactly is a micro-moment?
Google defines them as “micro-moment occurs when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.”
Since there is now so much marketing everywhere, tuning out what you see as you scroll through your phone has become the norm; so how do you use micro-moments to get around that?
Most people check their phones 150 times a day,[i] and on average, people spend 177 minutes on their phone every day.[ii] When you look at these two statistics together, you see that “mobile sessions that average a mere one minute and 10 seconds long, dozens and dozens of times per day.”[iii]
SUCCEEDING AT MICRO-MOMENTS
Most people will consult their phone before they buy something in a store or turn to their phones when they need an idea. Those micro-moments are the ones that matter for digital marketing.
ANTICIPATE THEIR NEEDS
To really succeed at these micro-moments, you need to try to anticipate what the micro-moments are for consumers in your industry, and ensure you are ready to help when they look something up. You have 10 seconds or less to interact with your consumer, so planning ahead is vital to your strategy.
A good way to anticipate their needs is to watch online discussions that are relevant to your consumers. By watching these conversations, you can really get a feel for what they are looking for, and you can work on tailoring your micro-moments to these conversations.
Keep in mind that consumers may not be ready to go to the checkout page as soon as they begin browsing your website. They may just be looking at information related to your product, or they could be looking at it for a future purchase. So, having the checkout button constantly flashing at them while they are trying to read can be annoying, and can lead to the consumer hitting the back button and going elsewhere for what they are wanting.
HAVE ANSWERS PREPARED
Keeping your company relevant to your consumers’ needs is also important, as is connecting them to what they are looking for. When a consumer sees your product in their newsfeed and leaves a question or comment, you need to respond as quickly as you can. Giving them the answer right away will help you win these moments.
Take the needs you have gathered and implement them into your social media strategy. If one item is being talked about a lot on Facebook, but not on Twitter, you can set up an ad on Facebook for it; it will not do much good to put it on Twitter though, because your Twitter users are not discussing it. This can help you prepare your answers in advance, making things easier on your consumers.
While brand loyalty is a common thing, one in three smartphone users has bought something from a different company or brand than they had planned to because of the information they found when they looked up the item they wanted.
MAKE YOUR WEBSITE OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE USE
Another important thing to do is make sure your mobile experience is fast and easy to use; if your website loads too slowly, the potential consumer will most likely go to another company’s website for what they want.
HOW-TO CONTENT
Depending on your industry, “how to” content may be important. People no longer want to go through an instruction manual, they want quick and easy step-by-step instructions. Written guides are good, but a video guide is even better.
CONCLUSION
Micro-moments are an important part of the digital marketing world these days, so without working on mastering them, your company could end up lagging behind your competition. As long as we have this instant gratification culture that is linked to our smartphones, things will continue this way. Trying these tips may help you in the battle for micro-moments with your competitors.