According to the eMarketer Trends, Forecasts and Statistics, we spend an average of 3 hours and 35 minutes during the day on our mobile phone. Requesting queries, browsing through websites while ignoring all the ads that we are exposed to on daily basis. We sight an average of 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day while browsing through the internet. This, we know can be quite frustrating and it makes our attention span to certain details quite vulnerable.
According to online researches, People donate only a few seconds to any website. They wait until they find something related to what they are looking for. This brings us to the conclusion that you have less than 30 seconds to grab your customer’s attention. To convince your online customer that your website can help them find what they are looking for. You have around 2 minutes to point them to a satisfactory answer.
Google’s Marketing department realized the importance of knowing these statistics to grow online businesses. Their marketing team, Think With Google researched this and came up with a conclusion that an average person types around 150 queries every day and do not spend more than a few seconds per website to find out the answers for the same. They called the act of typing these brief queries for instant results as ‘Micro Moments’. These micro-moments constitute queries such as “I-want-to-know”, “I-want-to-go”, “I-want-to-do”, “I-want-to-buy” moments. Knowing these micro-moments can be pivotal for your online success.
To help you understand Micro-Moments, fathom the following –
1.) “I-want-to-go” Moment
When do you start making your weekend plans? It’s definitely not planned well in advance. It’s usually during your lunch break on a Friday. You need to make sure you pick the right place from the many options out there. This would mean you might have to do some research, visit a few websites. With the definite time frame that you have, you cannot possibly check out websites thoroughly. The best you do is to check some key aspects that you would need and you can make your decision accordingly.
2.) “I-want-to-know” Moment
You need to know some statistical data on a topic you are about to write. Knowing that the internet is a web of information, you turn to it for help and search for what you need. Here, all you need is some reference statistics to start with your writing. So you just brush through and pause to the part of the document which provides you with the information you specifically need.
3.) “I-want-to-buy” Moment
You check out a new product while glazing through a store. You like it but you need to know the review and the best online offers of this product. You grab your phone and you start typing the keywords. Now, you do not have the whole day so you take a few minutes to check all you want to know about the product online. This would then help you make the decision of whether to order it online or directly from the store.
3.) “I-want-to-do” Moment
You have guests coming over to your place and you want to prepare the best pot roast chicken. Gone is the time when you look around for the cookbook from your favourite chef. Now, you just pick up your mobile phone and type ‘pot roast chicken recipe’ to find many text and video options which will help with all the required guidance.
All these activities are performed with an intention of knowing, learning, doing or buying. Here, the call-to-action decision rate and preference certainty are quite high. Knowing these moments and delivering the answers for the same at the right time and on a silver platter is regarded as providing the best customer experience.
How To Include This In Your Online Marketing Strategy?
1.) Recognizing Your Micro-Moment
Depending upon the services you are providing, you need to find out your concerned “Micro-Moment”. For instance, for an e-commerce store, the concerned micro-moment would be “I-want-to-buy” Moment. For a blogging site, it would be “I-want-to-know” Moment. Similarly, For a holiday destination or tours and travels, it would be “I-want-to-go” Moment. Knowing what your concerned micro-moments are can help you redefine the data you provide to your customer anywhere, anytime.
2.) Comprehending Customer Needs
It is important to know what the frequently asked might be and the queries that might come up with the services you are going to provide. Knowing who your target customers are, how you are going to target them, when will they need you and what do you provide that might help your customers under specific circumstances would help you recognize your most effective micro-moments and provide them with a potent answer or a necessary call of action.
3.) To Be Precise With the Content
Nowadays, Keywords have so much emphasis that just to make sure all of them are included in a website, you end up flooding the keywords in your content. It might help you with the ranking in SERP but if the visitor does not find the answer they are looking for in the first 30 seconds, you will find the bounce rate of your website going up. Beating around the bush will only hurt your business. And this is why you need to make sure that you are providing accurate and time relevant information to the queries from your customers. With clear-cut solutions and a little bit of time, you will win the trust and loyalty of your customers. One specific call to action is always the best way forward as compared to confusing the customer with multiple options.
When it comes to Email Marketing, an advertisement should cover all the data required to understand the campaign, the importance and the call of action. Too much information or inadequate information will result in losing the reader’s attention and you end up losing a potential customer.
4.) Master Mobile Advertising Strategy
Micro-moment is the trend of the current time when it comes to digital marketing strategies. It is mainly considered as analyzing mobile phone users who are looking for instant answers. So you need to make sure you target the right mobile audience while providing with the necessary answers or solutions. Advertisements on mobile are quite different from the advertisements on a desktop with consideration to the amount of time, priorities, visuals, location etc. A well-planned strategy can help you grab these micro-moments as compared to your competition.
5.) Descriptive Media Files
Descriptive images and video sharing are the top trending marketing technique since 2015. With the growth of the online marketing industry in such a rapid scale, it comes as no surprise that well descriptive images create more impact than they are credited for. Content with relevant and proper descriptive images gets more than 90% viewership. Obviously, with an effectively planned strategy, you can use visuals to help drive traffic and increase sales to your campaign or website.
Does It Still Help in 2019?
Although this was first introduced by Google in 2015, it is still quite a new concept for many of the businesses since they are still concentrating on the strategies of the past. With the increasing use of Mobile phones, understanding micro-moments and taking advantage of the same in your business will put you ahead of the curve and help your business bloom. This will help you to interact with your customers daily and understand “what works” with your target audience.
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.
— Charles De Gaulle
Originally Written for – Data Driven Investor
Everything Starts With An Idea 