A well-structured content marketing strategy is essential in launching an outstanding digital marketing campaign. Efficient use of SEO and other traffic generating campaigns are the key to driving traffic to any website.
Defining micromoments
Within the time span of a few years, the whole world has gone digital. Consumers are increasingly becoming dependent on mobile phones to carry out most of their daily activities. From waking up in the morning to deciding which restaurant to try on the weekend, we consult our mobiles for almost everything. We have certain moments, in which, more often than not, we turn to our smartphones. These moments include the when we want to know something, go somewhere, buy something, or do something. These specific moments are called micromoments. Consumers have a specific intent in micromoments which leads to a decision making process and these moments are thus crucial to both consumers as well as brands.
What is the importance of micromoments in marketing?
With the increasing amount of time spent on mobiles, consumers are being exposed to a number of brands and products constantly. It is difficult for a single brand or product to capture the consumer’s attention entirely because of the huge array of content available.
This means that a single brand has very limited time to make an impression on the customer during these micromoments. If they do not manage to do this within the time available, then the consumer is already making their way to another piece of content.
Micromoments can be effectively used as a marketing tactic in your content marketing strategy.
How do I use micromoments to execute an effective content marketing campaign?
Technically, there are four micromoments for a consumer. These micromoments are unpredictable as to how, when, and where they will happen. This means brands have to be as ready as ever to make use of the time they have within these micromoments, whenever and wherever they happen.
The four types of micromoments are:
I-want-to-know moment– The moment where the consumer wants to know something. For instance, What will Google search look like in ten years?
I-want-to-go moment-The moment where the consumer tries to search for a local business. For instance, Content marketing companies near me
I-want-to-buy moment-The moment where the consumer tries to decide what to buy. For instance, smart watches for women.
I-want-to-do-moment-The moment where the consumer wants to learn to do something. For instance, How to improve my content marketing strategy?
Once you have identified these micromoments, the next step is to take advantage of them. The key element of incorporating the micromoment tactic is to be there and be quick and enriching. There is only one way to achieve this. Focus on the questions that your target customers are most likely to ask.
In order to get a clearer picture, let us take some case studies.
How companies used micromoments in their content marketing strategy
Let us take a look at how Goodyear, the tire manufacturing company utilized micromoments. The company made effective use of I-want-to-know micromoments by coming to the conclusion that users are more likely to want answers to questions such as: How do I know if I need new tires? Where do I buy them? How do I check my air pressure?
Once they arrived at this conclusion, they immediately analyzed their mobile sites and made efforts to capitalize on such moments. They tried to make sure that customers would find answers to such solutions through any channel.
Another example of the smart utilization of the I-want-to-go moments is by the Red Roof Inn. The marketing team at Red Roofs realized that whenever airlines would cancel their flights, customers would be searching for the nearest boarding facilities, thus creating an I-want-to-go micromoment. They realized the potential of using localized ad campaigns in these specific moments. As a direct result, their bookings through organic traffic increased by more than half. Another hotel group, The Priceline Group also improved its bookings by making use of a similar strategy.
When it came to the I-want-to-do moments, once again we look at the example of a cosmetic brand. This time, it’s M.A.C. The popular brand uses beauty how-to videos to drive up their sales. They even partnered with Google and came up with a brilliant way to engage customers. The gadget directs customers who watch the beauty brand’s ‘Instant Artistry’ how-to videos to a local e-commerce site. M.A.C. even claims that this method of approach led to an increase in sales that far exceeded what they had initially expected.
Sephora is among the brands which realized the potential of the I-want-to-buy moments. The team at Sephora’s noticed that with the evolution of the smartphone as a shopping assistant, whenever a customer was confused between 2 products, they would whip out their mobiles and compare the product reviews for both. Sephora came up with an app that would allow customers to provide information such as product reviews and ratings by simply scanning the item. In addition the app even allows customers to virtually try out makeup to see how it would suit them.
The most important element of using the micromoment marketing tactic is to come up with questions that even customers did not know they had.
The key takeaways here are:
- Identify the instances of micromoments that have the potential for your brand and be prepared to be present actively during all such moments.
- You should be able to connect the customers to the type of information they want as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The content should be highly relevant.
- Micromoments do not offer you a large window of time to showcase your brand. If the customer is making snap decisions, then the brand should be quick on their feet and channel the customers into making those snap decisions in a way that is positive to your brand.