Such moments: from watching a song…to online shopping…in 45 seconds

On a fine weekday evening, I was back to the hostel after a hectic day of lectures at my college. Like usual, my moments of taking some time off for myself is watching songs out in Bollywood. This was of course other than taking a ‘kit kat break’. I tuned into YouTube, and started watching ‘love you zindagi’ song from the movie ‘Dear Zindagi’.

Barely a minute passed that my eyes captured a multi color jumpsuit which Alia Bhatt was wearing in the song. I am a passionate online shopper. In a few months our batch will fly down to NYC for our annual exchange program. No wonder, my heart badly came onto that outfit. So I decided to Google ‘alia bhatt jumpsuits in dear zindagi for shop’. Google did its job in 0.93 seconds to give me 1.67 lac results. Innumerable E-commerce sites came up on my phone to sell me the best possible jumpsuits of the world!

Going a bit informational about the concept of Micro Moments

This was probably one out of a thousand different ‘moments’ I had that day. And why just that day, rather every single day. Are these confined just to me, to students, or to youngsters? Not really. These are the moments making up the lives of every single internet user. Well yes, I am talking about a simple yet impactful term, Micro Moments. So what exactly are micro moments? These are the diverse forms of interactions a user engages in with the internet. Or simply Googling, to look for something that is at the top of mind. Therefore, all the times consumers pick up smartphones, and turn to Google for various moments, the user is living a micro moment. Such micro moments are usually short and typically take place amidst the busy schedules along a day. They are typically in the form of I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-do, and I-want-to-buy  moments.

I am a typical consumer of today. This is how I behave.

So can we say that micro moments have brought about a change in the traditional consumer journey? The journey of the  tech savvy consumer does not really start with going to a store. The new generation of customers want to be far more connected than ever before in their personal and professional lives. Amidst their restlessness and impatience, what they look for is information which is right at their fingertips. And which will take them to their desired outcome and get them what we called as ‘peace of mind’.

With an overload of information I had got in the form of brand advertisements for ‘alia bhatt jumpsuits’ as well as ratings from customers, I realized how the Website Content and SEO would be important to give relevant results during my ‘alia bhatt jumpsuit’ micro moment. Moreover, it is imperative that the information needs to be accurate and must be engaging enough for the target customers.

And why should businesses even bother about my moments?

But what if a Stalkbuylove or a Kraftly was not present on my search engine page? It probably would have lost an opportunity to register its jumpsuits in my mind. And hence possibly the chances of a conversion. Well, this time it’s just one person. When we compile the losses for all the customers living their micro moment, the results will be humongous for sure.

So Marketers, start getting into my mind…

Isn’t that big a reason for Marketers to make sure that their brands are present precisely at the time when the customer is looking for the most relatable content, or living that micro moment? Definitely it is. The question that remains is how. Irrespective of the size of the brand, the starting point for every marketer is to unveil the intent behind each moment of information search and what actually triggers the content they look for.

The current date customer data analytics will provide marketers enough to know this and much beyond. If not, then talking to you customers, your competitor’s customers and the target audience will provide the way out. Some keywords which have grown tremendously with the growth in micro moments are ‘near me’ and even ‘how to’ and so on. Leads can also come from the active engagement at social media’ and hence a ‘cool accessory, but is it also in black to match my red top’ can turn into ‘for sure, please find the link’ for brands.

And adopt a user centric approach through storytelling and engagement activities

Once the marketer has a broad idea of what the customers are really looking for, he or she needs to take the User Centric Approach and align the offerings with the need. The alignment may come in the form of added features, search optimization, content marketing etc. It is imperative that the offering should be as relevant, personalized and real as possible. And specifically talking about digital marketing, businesses must ensure that they provide an enriching and an engaging experience to help consumers make an informed purchase decision. Moreover, marketers need to be able to keep up with the pace with which consumers are interacting with their smartphones. They need to respond to the needs in real time by digitally accessing the footprints of customers at all stages of the buying cycle.

Well, this does not mean that marketers desperately promote their brands to potential customers. The need of the hour is to engage customers through various tools, the best I believe being story telling. Referring to what I am learning these days in my every day lectures about concepts such as brand essence and brand personality, storytelling can help brands infuse their personality into consumer’s engagement and experience. So be it ‘ShareTheLoad’ or ‘MeriMaggi’ or ‘BraveandBeautiful’ or the latest ‘touchofcare’, all of them have indeed proved to express what they stand for, thereby connecting with customers like never before. At the same time, marketers must make their brands be more ‘useful’ through innovative and interesting ways of solving problems and adding value. 

An ending note (or rather some food for thought)

A good impression will in most probability lead the ‘connected’ customer back to the site when the time for purchase has come. If not, then the marketers must realize that they have been able to be a part of the consumer’s journey of micro moments and have possibly hit the right nerve. At the end, it is not just about tapping a customer, but creating long lasting relationships by offering useful information and driving loyalty. The winning mantra is to ‘be there’ and ‘be useful’.

Have a look at the impact created by Micro Moments through a Google video: From search to store…

The post Grab it….Use it! It’s a micro moment… appeared first on IntelliAssist.