The importance of Micro-Moments in a digital world

Does anyone else remember that famous scene in 'Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory' When Veruca Salt goes absolutely berserk because she wants a squirrel?

Remember how outrageous it was? How demanding she seemed? Yeah... well, this is how demanding consumers have become in regards to accessing information. We want instant gratification and we are making decisions faster than ever before! This is likely due to the increasing use of smart-phones, According to Yellow Social Media Report: More Australians own a smart phone than a laptop, with 87% of us owning a smart phone and 76% owning a laptop. This tells us that we are relying on our smart phones more than ever to access information and fulfil our needs.

Anyway, In 2015 Google found a way to capture this information, analyse it and then categorise it into 'Micro-Moments' and while you may not have heard of the term before (I hadn't before this week), chances are, you've probably taken part in one.

Since it was introduced, it has been said that Mapping customer micro-moments is one of the seven hottest content marketing trends for 2017 (and onwards!)

Google defines a Micro-Moment as 'An intent-rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need- to know, go, do , or buy.'

So, what does that even mean?? It is essentially the moment that something in our environment triggers us in that moment to pick up our phones and search for something.

That 'something' can be categorised into four seperate categories:

1. 'I want to know'

2. 'I want to go'

3. 'I want to buy'

4. 'I want to do'

Remember my Veruca Salt example earlier? It should make a little more sense now (I hope)

The first category 'I want to know' is essentially when we want to find something, the answer to a question, or rather just information required at that given moment.

Google describes this moment as 'When someone is exploring or researching, but is not necessarily in purchase mode'.

The next category is 'I want to go', which is essentially the moment when we want to find somewhere to eat/ shop/ walk/ sit etc. You get the idea.

I know for a fact that the number one thing I use safari on my phone for is to search 'Food near me', sometimes I spice it up with 'Best food near me'. But In saying this, I'm not alone in the trend, in the past year 'near me' searches have doubled. Once again, showing us that people want things quickly! And not just from a chain, but from a local store- So it is important that our brand is online at that moment when consumers are searching.

Thirdly, is the 'I want to buy' moment, clearly the most exciting for businesses, this is the moment where consumers pick up their phone with the intent to purchase. They may already have an idea of which brand/ product they want to purchase, or they may need help. But in saying this, consumers these days are not as brand loyal as they used to be and are highly likely to leave a website if they are unable to find the information they need right away.

And finally, the 'I want to do' moments. Remember when you got your first ever iPhone (Samsung if you're weird), and you had no idea how to set up this incredible, brand new technology, so you went straight to google and searched 'How to set up iPhone'. You then probably watched a video and realised it wasn't rocket science. Well, that is fundamentally what these 'I want to do' moments are.

In fact, 'how to' searches are growing by 70% year after year which just emphasises the amount that consumers are seeking information, the key to take advantage of this need is to be there In that moment.

So what does that mean for us as marketers? Why does this matter?

This is why:

1. Many consumers aren’t brand Loyal: 90% of smartphone users are not absolutely certain of the specific brand they want to buy when they begin looking for information online

2. You get a shot at your competitor’s customers. 1 out of 3 smartphone users has purchased from a company or brand other than the one they intended to because of information provided in the moment they needed it.

3. Your presence can drive brand awareness goals. More than half of smartphone users have come across a brand new company/ product when searching on their smartphones.

Okay, so how do we take advantage of this?

It's simple:

- Be there: Be online at least! Have a social media presence, a good website

- Be useful: While it's important to be there, it won't mean anything if the information you provide is unclear or not there at all. You need to provide consumers with the information/ answers they're looking for

- Be quick: Don't pretend like you don't exit out of a website after 0.2 seconds because you can't navigate it, or it doesn't load properly or you can't find the information. Your mobile experience needs to be fast and frictionless

So, to conclude this weeks blog I'll leave you with a few questions:

- Can you think of a time you quickly picked up your phone to search for something?

- How important is it to you that you find the answer to what you're looking for straight away?

- Is there anything you'd like to add on to what I've written?

- Do you have any examples of good websites/ brands taking advantage of this marketing theory?

Thanks for reading! Hope you all have a good week

Grace

#mobilemarketing #micromoments