Micro Moments: The New Consumer Behaviour

The term coined by Google, micro-moments are an intent-rich part of the customer journey. Understanding how to use them and implement them in your campaigns is key to interact with and influence customers at the most important points of the buying cycle.

Google has long confirmed that more searches are now conducted on a mobile device than on a desktop computer.  In addition, more video is watched from a smartphone or tablet, more shopping searches are done from mobile and more local search queries being conducted on the go than ever before.  Mobile first has become our reality.

Mobile Marketing & Google’s Micro-Moments

According to Google, a micro-moment is when a searcher turns to their smartphone to act on an instant urge to find out information. This can be about a place they want to go, an activity they want to do or something they want to buy.

As they are looking for an answer right away, this is an intent-rich part of the customer journey. As such, it is the ideal opportunity for a brand to capitalise on this moment and interact with the consumer at just the right time. Brands that are present in this moment have the chance to impact the consumer’s decision-making process at the most crucial part of the buying cycle.

While the jargon is still relatively new, these micro-moments simply describe a new type of consumer behaviour.  In order to fully understand consumer behaviour and meet the changing expectations of their audience, marketers need to have a comprehensive understanding of micro-moments.

Marketing Opportunities Created by Micro-Moments

The shift to mobile gives marketers a number of new opportunities. The main thing that differentiates mobile from traditional channels, is that it gives brands the opportunity to be closer to prospects at the exact moment of intent.  Being present in a micro-moment gives brands the ability to boost their search marketing performance to increase engagement and ROI. In order to do this, you need to understand exactly what kind of micro-moments are relevant for your business and your customers.  Google has identified four key drivers that create a micro-moment:

• I want to know moments: Consumers have access to a range of information at their fingertips, and will turn to their device to learn something new. Content is key here and it should be informational rather than sales-driven and focus on relationship building more than conversion.
• I want to go moments: People often use their mobile devices to find places to shop, eat, and entertain themselves while on the move. This has opened the need for geolocation technologies where brands can engage consumers with relevant messaging when they are near a store location.
• I want to do moments: Widespread access to information has meant that consumers will now look online to actively seek ideas for what to do, and how to do it. In these moments, consumers want practical information that they can put to use. Businesses should avoid calls to action and try to insert any information on their own products or services organically.
• I want to buy moments: This is the point of purchase moment, where marketers have to work to convert the prospect. It can be difficult to tell when these moments will occur so the most effective brands will set up programs that identify the steps leading up to these moments, drawing on behavioural cues to trigger conversion-based messaging when a customer is ready.

If you can be there in these micro-moments to provide useful answers to consumer searches and offer a good user experience, your business will reap the benefits in terms of conversion.

How to Apply Micro Moments in Your Strategy

Google has created a number of resources to help businesses succeed in micro-moments.  The first step in fully understanding these micro-moments and how they apply to your business is to access the micro-moments knowledge centre and look at the data relevant to your industry. Google has created libraries of information for a number of sectors, where you can look at case studies, consumer behaviour research, infographics and articles. By looking at the data for your sector, you can see how your consumers are finding you, what devices they are using for search and the type of device that is driving conversions to determine patterns of consumer behaviour.

Once you have this information, and know exactly how mobile fits into your consumer’s decision-making processes, you can create your strategy to ensure you are present in their micro-moments.  This will mean first ensuring that your site is mobile friendly and complies with Google’s best practice for mobile search. Then consider the type of content that is relevant for your business and will encourage customers to convert in that high intent moment.

Now is the time to ensure your website is completely optimised for mobile search. Get in touch with Digital Squad, your digital marketing agency Auckland, if you want specialist advice on best practice for your mobile campaigns. We also offer SEO Services Auckland, where we help you increase your website’s visibility in order to rank your website on the first page on search engines.