Let us begin with understanding the current market scenario from a mobile perspective. Assuming your career has taken you to a new city which you’ve never visited before, what would be the first thing you would do? Chances are, as soon as you alight, you will instinctively look at your mobile device either for a place to stay or to have food. Be it to find a shop near you, or to find reviews for products or to watch a video about the product, we first reach out for our mobile devices.

With mobile devices becoming an indispensable part of our daily lives, consumer media consumption has witnessed a paradigm shift. As opposed to being in front of a television during a particular time of the day, users today display a fragmented interaction with their mobile devices. These fragmented interactions with your mobile device where you pick up your device to either know, buy, go or do something is called micro-moments.

Google defines micro-moments as “intent rich moments” when a person turns to a device to act on a need to know, go, do or buy something. It is during these moments that a consumer makes decisions and preferences get shaped.

As of January 2018, global mobile population amounted to 3.7 billion unique users. In addition, mobile internet traffic as a share of global online traffic is a staggering 51.2%. Further, an average user checks his or her mobile device about 150 times a day. During these moments, consumers are most receptive to ads. This opens a new frontier on its own for marketers to reach their customers at the exact moment, with the exact information that the customers are looking for.

Search data and trends can provide insights as to what topics and types of content the customers are looking for. This helps them capture customers early in the decision-making process by creating content that suits the micro-moment need. This data also helps to create content that resonates, engages and is tailored to the conversion touch-points of the customer journey. In addition, it also aids in personalized ad-targeting.

For example, consider that a person has searched for a particular keyword that relates to your business. Now, we can be sure that the customer is interested in a particular product that you are offering. The next step would be to present him or her with personalized ads that would boost their awareness and consideration of the product. Further, we could also send e-mails regarding offers and discounts which would lead them to your website where they can be shown more information about the product or service; ultimately leading to a purchase.

Consider a scenario where a business is selling sunglasses for every occasion and a person searches for rugged-looking motor bikes. This will in turn be an opportunity to sell the person your product (sunglasses) as an add-on with the motor bike. This would be an example of targeting the latent need of the customer based on his behavior displayed in his or her search.

Analyzing mobile-centric searches can lead to powerful insights. For instance, having a physical store analyzing the ‘near-me’ searches can lead to insights about what people in your vicinity are looking for. Similarly, analyzing search data that have questions can lead to insights about what people are looking for or what are the pain points of the customer.

But the question still remains as to HOW we can leverage it. In its basic sense, micro-moments show relevant data to its users who search for something. In order to reach these consumers, we have to make ourselves relevant to what our customer base requires. Following are some of the methods that could be used to leverage micro-moments:

• SEO – A good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) leads to your page being at the top of the search results when a customer searches for something. This directly translates to more traffic to your website, thereby more conversions.
• PPC – Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising ensures quick results to increase traffic.
• Content generation – A good SEO without relevant content would lead to nothing. Hence having content to either grab the attention of customers or provide information or address problems is undisputed.
• Customer friendly website – Although you have great content, if the user finds it difficult to navigate through your website, chances are that the user will immediately close the site and go to the next site shown in the search results. Hence, having a user-friendly website, although does not connect directly to micro-moments, is a must if you want users to be engaged and not annoyed.
• Social media presence – Nowadays, any online marketing is incomplete without a social media strategy. With such a huge and diverse demography present in these networks, it becomes impossible to gain the competitive edge without a social media presence. After a user searches for something, it is more likely that the user will respond if he or she is shown something that is relevant to his or her needs.

Health Care

With ‘near-me’ searches on the rise, health care industry is exposed to a whole new method of marketing itself through micro-moments. When a user searches for a clinic or a doctor or for any other need, micro-moments can be a boon for marketers to reach the right consumers.

Travel and Tourism

This industry has innumerous opportunities to leverage micro-moments. With users always on the search for weekend getaways, the leverage from micro-moments here is unlimited. Even if a customer plans a long travel or a vacation, it is certain that a research about the destination will be done and this opens the door to micro-moments.

Retail

With omni-channel retail becoming the need of the hour, if leveraged right, micro-moments can be a major step in covering the gap between online and offline tracking of sales. For example, by using the location information of users, retailers can push notifications to them about a store near them having the merchandise that they need or have explored online.

Micro-moments can be a powerful tool in various parts of marketing analytics. Be it increasing awareness or pushing customer deeper into the journey leading to purchase. In addition, it can also help in better ad targeting and channel optimization. It can also be integrated with existing CRM systems to deliver powerful insights, providing opportunity to upsell or cross-sell. Thus, proving as a valuable asset for anyone aiming to engage their customer better or improving their already existing mobile-marketing capabilities.

Have you started using micro-moments to uplift your marketing strategies? Do share your thoughts with us.